Favorite Bartok Ballet

[Mirror Image]

Pick your favorite. I'll have to think hard about this one...

[TheGSMoeller]

Easy, the Miraculous Banana Stand Ran By A Mandarin. 

[Mirror Image]

Ha!

[Mirror Image]

I decided to pick The Miraculous Mandarin. I'm attracted to it's violence, colorful orchestration, musical virtuosity, and the incredible way he used dissonance.

[Cato]

The Miraculous Mandarin: caught it c. 50 years ago and was hooked by the opening seconds!  It was an ancient RCA/Boston Symphony record.

I have heard the Boulez/DGG and think it is fine:

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[TheGSMoeller]

Dutoit may not be seen as a Bartok favorite, but this is my favorite MMandarin recording, the Montreal-ians will knock your sox off!

[Mirror Image]

Both of Boulez's performances are quite fine, but I would say my favorite is still Dohnanyi's on Decca with the most unlikely Bartok orchestra imaginable: the Vienna Philharmonic. Absolute earth-shattering performance IMHO. The tempi, the colors, the shaping of the musical lines flow like a river from Dohnanyi's baton. He was in complete control of that performance, but he also gave the VPO plenty of opportunities to dazzle the listener. Here's the recording in question:



I do want to say that I love The Wooden Prince a lot. Many critics have argued it's a throwback to his earlier style while I tend to agree with in some respects I'll say that it was purposely written to express a different side of his music. He kind of let his guard down a bit with this ballet I think and some of the sections are beautiful in a lyrical way which is in complete contrast to The Miraculous Mandarin which came several years later. Anyway, I think both works represent the two sides of Bartok.

[Mirror Image]

Greg, you should really hear the Dohnanyi/VPO performance at some point. It can be had quite cheaply as I believe it's been reissued as part of the budge Decca Eloquence line.

[TheGSMoeller]

Greg, you should really hear the Dohnanyi/VPO performance at some point. It can be had quite cheaply as I believe it's been reissued as part of the budge Decca Eloquence line.

May have to aquire it, thanks, John.

[Mirror Image]

May have to aquire it, thanks, John.

No problem, Greg.

[Daverz]

Mandarin is the sort of thing that Dorati did supremely well, and even the neon-etched sound of the early Decca digital recording fits the music perfectly.

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The Wooden Prince -- pleasant but overlong for the material -- is the sort of thing that you want as a suite, but you need the whole thing for Mandarin.

[Opus106]

the neon-etched sound

What does that mean?

Neon-etched -> bright -> ?

[Mirror Image]

It's a shame that The Wooden Prince doesn't get much love around here. I find it to be a folk-infused hot bed of Bartokian goodness. I mean sure the character of the music are completely different than Mandarin, but it doesn't make it any less of an inspired work. I personally love the work and even though I did pick Mandarin, I still feel that both ballets are equally rewarding but obviously in different ways.

Favorite performances of Mandarin -

Dohnanyi/VPO
Boulez/NY Philharmonic
Fischer/Budapest Festival Orch.

Honorable mentions: Chailly/RCO, Rattle/CBSO, Dorati/LSO

Favorite performances of The Wooden Prince:

Boulez/CSO
Fischer/Budapest Festival Orch.

Honorable mentions: Boulez/NY Philharmonic, Dorati/LSO, Jarvi/Philharmonia

[Brahmsian]

I must be the only one who voted for The Wooden Prince.   

[TheGSMoeller]

I must be the only one who voted for The Wooden Prince.   

I admit I haven't spent as much time with the Prince as I have with the Mandarin, but both are quite friendly. 

Only performance of Prince I have is Boulez/CSO, I will need to spin it later, in fact I've always made a point to try and play more Bartok. I grew up absolutely adoring the Concerto for Orchestra but never ventured too far away from there.

[Mirror Image]

I must be the only one who voted for The Wooden Prince.   

Yeah, well now I feel guilty for not just voting 'Bartokian banana' because I love both works equally.

[Mirror Image]

I admit I haven't spent as much time with the Prince as I have with the Mandarin, but both are quite friendly. 

Only performance of Prince I have is Boulez/CSO, I will need to spin it later, in fact I've always made a point to try and play more Bartok. I grew up absolutely adoring the Concerto for Orchestra but never ventured too far away from there.

Surprised you haven't ventured out further than Concerto for Orchestra. You don't know the concertante works, the other orchestral works, the chamber music? Speaking of Concerto for Orchestra, I'm still not a great fan of it. But I'm starting to warm up to it. Reiner's recording is still my preferred performance.

[Ken B]

Write in: the S2PP, which I have choreographed. To save money the dancers are the pianists, and they may move ad libitum as long as they stay seated. Staying seated is important and how I express the deeper meaning of the piece, our inability to stand against the mysterious power of fate.
Innovative cost-efficient aleatoric choreography.

[North Star]

The Wooden Prince is wonderful, but I stand by my original vote - Mandarin is one of the greatest pieces written in the 20th century.

[Mirror Image]

But, for me, the two works don't really work well in comparison with each other as one is definitely more Modern while the other shows the unwavering influence that folk music had in his life. So both were equally important to him and whether one is a major 20th Century work or not is of little importance to me. But that's just my view.