Jorge Bolet signed a recording contract with Decca Records in
1978. Before that he had only recorded for small companies. Thus
he gained his first contract with a major recording company at
the age of 63! He was born in Havana, Cuba, and studied at the
Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, where he later taught - from
1939 to 1942. His teachers included Leopold Godowsky, Josef Hofmann,
Moritz Rosenthal and Fritz Reiner. In 1937, he won the Naumberg
Competition and gave his debut recital. Five years later he joined
the US Army and was sent to Japan, where he conducted the Japanese
premiere of The Mikado. His career really took off in 1974
with a recital at Carnegie Hall. Harold Schonberg, considered
him "a kind of latter-day Josef Lhévinne”. Bolet's
health started to fail in 1988, and the following year he underwent
brain surgery from which he never fully recovered. He died of
heart failure in October 1990, at his home in Mountain View, California.
Throughout his career Bolet endorsed, and performed on, Baldwin
and Bechstein pianos; the former is used on this recording. Many
claim that the most perfect piano sound and tone - through expert
technical preparation - was to be found on his last Decca solo
piano recording, the one under discussion here.
This selection of sixteen of Debussy’s Préludes
contain nine from Book 1 and seven from Book 2, mixed up to make
a very attractive suite. However, if you’re used to listening
to the Préludes from beginning to end, some of the
juxtapositions will come as a shock!
So what do we make of this collection? It is true that the piano
sound is excellent, rich and rounded, and very well captured by
the engineers. But what of the playing? Well … I have to
admit that, for me, these performances, whilst technically very
good indeed, simply didn’t set me on fire. For instance,
where is the incredible wild abandon in Ce qu'a vu le vent
d'Ouest? This contains some of the fiercest music Debussy
ever wrote, but you’d never know it from this performance.
Des pas sur la neige is for me one of the most perfect
compositions in all music, seeming, as it does, to sum up everything
there is to understand about the human condition - we are all
alone, basically. It is played as it is written, but where is
the rubato necessary to point the events? Listen to Michelangeli
in this and swoon at his use of rubato at the first appearance
of harmony in the fifth bar. Truly masterly. Similarly, La
cathédrale engloutie fails to reach the big climax
of bells as it should. Feux d'artifice - Bastille Day celebrations?
- with its faint remembrance of La Marseillaise lacks any
festive feel.
I acknowledge that Bolet is a fine and fastidious pianist and
there can be no doubting his pianism, it is superb. But what bothers
me most about these performances is that they show very little
insight into the music. Here are sixteen perfectly formed miniatures,
all of which have their own character and personality, but which,
here, all seem to be very much one and the same. I have little
doubt that there will be many Bolet fans who will vehemently disagree
with me, and good luck to them. I write about what I hear, and
what I hear here is a good run-through of the notes, which any
pianist would do before starting to think about interpretation.
And now I have realised my dissatisfaction. These performances
are unformed.
And here’s one final point. As Debussy wrote 24 Préludes
why would anybody only want a selection of sixteen of them? There
can only ever be one choice for Book 1 - Michelangeli (Deutsche
Grammophon 413 450 2). This will never be bettered in terms of
interpretation. If you want just Book 2 or both books played by
one pianist you can do no better than Roy Howat (Tall Poppies
TP 164 and TP 123) which forms part of his complete recording
of Debussy’s piano music.
Bob Briggs
Jorge Bolet (piano)
