Jorge Bolet plays Wagner-Liszt Tannhauser Overture, 1973 RCA studio recording - Part 1

An 'accidental' recording of Jorge Bolet playing the Wagner-Liszt Tannhauser Overture from a July 16, 1973 studio session in RCA Studio A, New York City. Bolet had finished a recording session but decided to run through this fiendishly difficult work (one which Liszt demands once played in two parts in concert, such are its technical demands). The engineers, operating two recording machines at the time, as was the practice, turned on one machine just in time to catch the opening but missed the first eight minutes on the other; however, using both tapes a complete performance was salvaged.

Bolet would give this work a triumphant performance the following year at his breakthrough Carnegie Hall recital, which launched him to piano super-stardom at the age of 59. While that performance is breathtaking in its perfection, vindication for a pianist who had been overlooked for decades, this present interpretation is wrought from a more deeply emotional cloth: a performance that, to all intents and purposes, should have disappeared into thin air by a pianist who was aware of his abilities and who felt that he might never get the recognition he yearned for.

This recording was issued for the first time in 2001 on RCA's "Bolet Rediscovered" CD, which also includes a series of unpublished Liszt recordings that Bolet made in 1972. This CD was conceived when a pianophile who had occupied more lowly positions at RCA was moved into a role of influence and called up his friend Gregor Benko, founding president of the International Piano Archives and said "What should I release?" The first answer was "Find those Bolet tapes." The result is this miraculous CD, one of the greatest examples of Romantic piano playing, captured in magnificent fidelity. Bolet is in incredible form, very different from his later, slower recordings for Decca - this CD is a must for any serious lover of fine piano playing.