JORGE BOLET: APPLAUSE IS THE REWARD FOR SACRIFICE

More than 45 years into a career that first took off when he won the Naumburg Competition in 1937, Jorge Bolet still derives his greatest rejuvenation from applause.

“I like to think I’m a born performer,” the 70-year-old, Havana-born pianist confided in a telephone interview from his studio at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, where he has stopped briefly to catch up with the six Curtis students he is teaching this school year.

“One of the rewards of this musical life--which is a lonely life, a tiring life, a monotonous life--is the applause of the audience. It is the one big reward for all the effort and sacrifice.

“It’s wonderful to come out on the stage, to people who may not know me--though I must say, most of the places I go to now are places I have already played--who are not at first particularly friendly, and little by little bring them over to my side.

“And, by the end, to have them in the palm of my hand. That’s an exhilaration that makes all the other nonsense of traveling bearable.”

Such exhilaration should be Bolet’s again, when he plays a solo concert officially opening the new Murphy Recital Hall at Loyola Marymount University, Friday night at 8:30.

As usual, the veteran pianist’s program offers a unique perspective of a specialized repertory. This time it is the heroic Schubert and Liszt: Three “Consolations,” followed by the “Wanderer” Fantasy, six song-transcriptions and two “Transcendental” Etudes.

More than some others have, Bolet plays down the influence upon him of his first major teacher, Josef Hofmann, with whom he studied when he entered Curtis in 1926. The influence he stresses is having heard, in live performance, “every major pianist of this century.” He names them again: “Cortot, Gieseking, Hofmann, Moiseiwitsch, Friedman, Lhevinne, Backhaus and Rachmaninoff.”

This is not mere name-dropping. Bolet may be, with his Curtis classmate of the ‘20s, Shura Cherkassky, among the last in the line of Romantic-era pianists. That is why, he explains, he forces himself to teach.

“Individuality--that’s the thing,” he insists, his voice taking on an edge of world-weariness.

“It’s the thing most competition-winning pianists of this day do not have. And it’s the thing I stress the most with my students. One of them, who is not just a fine pianist but a fantastic artist, came to me today to talk about his first competition. Now, you understand, I no longer believe in contests, but I know that entering and winning them is the only path our young musicians today have open to them.

“We talked about the required Beethoven Sonata, and he said he wanted to play Opus 2, No. 3. ‘That’s a great idea,’ I said. I try to encourage my students not to do what all the others are doing, but to find their own way. I tell them, Opus 101, Opus 109, 110 or the ‘Waldstein’ are overplayed and should be avoided.

“I also tell them to avoid ‘Gaspard de la Nuit’ and ‘Pictures at an Exhibition.’ These works are too familiar now.”

Now in his eighth decade, the tall and aristocratic pianist still plays as many as 150 concerts a season. Though he plays “12 or 13” concertos in any given year, he says he has cut his recital programs down to just two. In 1984-85, those programs are the one detailed above, and this agenda: Debussy’s 12 Preludes and Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Opus 28.

Is Bolet planning to slow down?

“Well, not exactly,” he answers without hesitation. Then, laughingly, “The summer of 1985, for instance, will be horrendous. First, I go to Fort Worth to judge the Van Cliburn Competition. It will be my last competition. Ever. But I gave my word. . . .

“Then I fly directly from Texas to Paris, where I give five recitals at the Theatre de Ville. These are one-hour programs (without intermission). One will be all Liszt, another all Chopin, another Mendelssohn and Schumann. . . .

“Another recital in France, then it’s home to San Francisco for three or four days. Then I go to Salt Lake City for a recital and some other things. Home again, then to Australia for a seven-week, 25-concert tour which gets me back to San Francisco just in time to go to Atlanta to play with the Symphony, under Robert Shaw, for the beginning of their winter season.

“Performing is very tough. It takes not just physical stamina, but nervous energy.

“But, somehow, I manage to survive.”