Jorge Bolet (piano)

• Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 'Appassionata'
• Godowsky: Elegy for the left hand alone
• Godowsky: Triakontameron
• Godowsky: Triakontameron No. 21 'The Salon'
• Liszt: Réminiscences de Norma, S394
• Mendelssohn: Prelude & Fugue for piano in E minor, Op. 35 No. 1
• Mendelssohn: Preludes & Fugues (6) for piano, Op. 35
• Mendelssohn: Rondo capriccioso in E major, Op. 14
• Moszkowski: La Jongleuse, Op. 52 No. 4

In hosting Jorge Bolet, the Schwetzingen SWR Festival concert series presented a pianist who was renowned as one of history’s great Liszt interpreters. However, the gentleman from Cuba’s success in interpreting Liszt goes beyond the purely technical virtuosity; his playing is imbued with a noble sense of design rather than pure pianist pyrotechnics. So Bolet opened this evening from Schwetzingen 1988 – two years before his death – with a rarely performed work: Mendelssohn‘s Prelude and Fugue Op. 35.1. In his reading of Liszt's “Norma reminiscences” – a piece mastered by only a few virtuosos – Bolet convincingly gives life to the opera’s characters using a purely instrumental voice. And that this super-virtuosic program includes pieces by Leopold Godowsky should come as no surprise; Godowsky was the young Bolet’s mentor in Philadelphia. Simply put, this CD offers an exceptional concert by a virtuoso, whose personal modesty made him the ideal servant of the music.