Jorge Bolet – Liszt: Grandes études de Paganini S. 141 No. 3 'La campanella' | Colpix CP 415 (1960)

Jorge Bolet – Liszt: Grandes études de Paganini S. 141 No. 3 ‘La campanella’ [4:39] | Colpix CP 415 (1960) La campanella retains those characteristic Bolet virtues - clarity, rhythmic steadiness, tonal refinement and a refusal to turn virtuosity into mere display - while adding an almost unprecedented velocity and intensity. The bell figure gleams incisively above textures of extraordinary definition, the repeated notes, trills, leaps and chromatic passagework are dispatched with sovereign ease, and the accumulating difficulties are swept into a single, tautly controlled surge towards the coda, producing playing of dazzling technical command, elegance and genuine exhilaration. Never reissued since 1961, the rare and long-overlooked Colpix LP CP 415 preserves a Jorge Bolet whom the commercial studio otherwise very seldom if ever caught: quicker than was generally his way, more volatile and willing to court danger, yet still commanding the singing line, aristocratic shaping, tonal finesse and nobility of utterance for which he was prized - qualities not compromised by the added heat, but intensified by it. It was perhaps typical of Bolet’s ill fortune prior to his final two decades that this LP remained long in the shadow of another Colpix release, CP 506, the official soundtrack album of ‘Song Without End’ (1960), the widespread assumption being that CP 415 merely presented in complete form the performances that were heavily abridged, or omitted altogether, on the soundtrack disc. In fact, CP 415 comprises entirely separate performances, recorded expressly for Colpix rather than drawn from the soundtrack sessions. And they find Bolet in the form of his life. Historical, discographical and programme notes accompanying this 2026 remastered edition (PDF): https://files.catbox.moe/sp5cmc.pdf (A note on the sound: The original mono pressing is notably constricted, with curtailed upper frequencies, a boxy tone and limited definition. In these remasterings I have sought discreetly to mitigate those shortcomings and to recover something of the piano’s natural breadth, colour and presence.)