Jorge Bolet Franck Symphonic Variations & Weber Konzertstück Philadelphia Orchestra 1985

Jorge Bolet (1914-1990) - piano

The Philadelphia Orchestra cond. Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos

Academy of Music Philadelphia November 23/24 1984

Radio broadcast introduction and interview with Jorge Bolet [0:00]

FRANCK (1822-1890):

Symphonic Variations (Variations symphoniques) M. 46 [5:22]

introduction to Weber and short interview with Jorge Bolet [22:26]

CARL MARIA VON WEBER (1786-1826):

Konzertstück in F minor for Piano and Orchestra Op. 79 J. 282 [24:20]

closing comments by Jorge Bolet on the performance of Liszt [41:56]

piano: Baldwin SD-10

from the Philadelphia Enquirer November 24th 1984:

'Jorge Bolet is in some ways a representative of a much earlier age of pianism. The 70-year-old pianist does not hide the strong personality of his playing, nor does he stand as the faceless servant of the composer. His performances are of Bolet playing the music of X, rather than the music of X as exactly realized by Bolet.

In his return yesterday to the Philadelphia Orchestra concerts, he played two quasi-concertos, emblazoning them with his own mark, and showing himself as a man who likes the risks in performance as well as the rewards. It was in the Konzertstuck in F minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 79, by Carl Mari von Weber, that he summarized his own pianistic beliefs, at the same time calling up an image of an earlier time in music.

The Weber music reflects the composer's own style: he had long hands and could race on the keyboard and play wide intervals rapidly, and all that is in the music. Bolet's own long fingers seem made for Weber's music, but his sense of the theatrical and his spirited plunge into the performance brought the score - and its times - to life. A concise opera is embedded in this music; there are passion, sentiment and a concluding grand march. And there are pianistic flourishes that dangle big rewards in front of the player who will risk everything to achieve them.

Bolet took all the chances, sometimes soaring wide of the exact mark, but always striking the heart of this glowing music. Glissandos in tenths, searing chromatic scales and flying, widely voiced chords contributed to the growing excitement of the piece. And his sense of phrase made the playing sound all the more like a scene from opera, for melodic lines crested with the significant notes held longer, and the rapid passages were taken still faster to show the role that brilliance plays in completing the theatrical vision of the score.

Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, conducting his second week of concerts with the orchestra, was a quick accompanist and found the orchestra responsive to Bolet's charged performance. This work has not been been programmed frequently here, but in Bolet it found a champion who could play it with conviction and a sense of the way it might have sounded when pianists were more comfortable as interpreters than as transcribers of the score.

Bolet had prefaced the Weber music with Cesar Franck's Symphonic Variations. In that, his approach was built on clarity and stressed the nuance of the musical line. His playing made the thematic basis for the work unusually plain, and made the structure stand as a piece of logic. The contrasts within the work were especially strong, and the growing excitement of the final bars was rendered more dramatic by the pensive, hushed playing in one of the middle variations. Each of the variations sounded newly perceived, and was carried off with a nice feeling of risks flaunted.'

-- Daniel Webster (Inquirer Music Critic)