MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
Classicsonline AmazonUK   AmazonUS

 

Béla BARTÓK (1881-1945)
The Wooden Prince (A Dancing-Play in One Act), BB 74 (1914-16)
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop
rec. 9-10 May 2007, Concert Hall, Lighthouse, Poole, Dorset, UK
NAXOS 8.570534 [53:38]
Experience Classicsonline


Marin Alsop may have decamped to Baltimore but not before she made a series of rather good Bartók recordings with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Their Bluebeard (see review) is a gripping but low-key performance and their SACD of Miraculous Mandarin (Naxos 6.110088) is a real showpiece, if not quite as sleazy as Abbado’s fine account on DG (nla). So what does Alsop make of this strangely haunting ‘dance-play’?
 
The Wooden Prince is the second of Bartók’s three stage works – Bluebeard was written in 1911, Mandarin in 1918-19 – yet it was the first to be premiered in Budapest in 1917. The ballet, based on a fairy tale by Bluebeard librettist Béla Balázs, tells the story of a lovelorn prince who is kept away from his princess by an omniscient fairy. The prince manages to attract his beloved’s attention with a wooden dummy, which then comes to life. Inevitably the princess falls in love with the wooden prince but it breaks down. Eventually she spies the real prince and they are united in love as the curtain falls.
 
From the opening Molto moderato it’s clear Alsop’s performance is a more lyrical, even soft-centred one. The Naxos recording, rather like that for Bluebeard, is warmly expansive but not too detailed, which suits Alsop’s reading very well. By contrast the Pierre Boulez/Chicago performance (DG 435 863-2) is much more analytical and has astonishing dynamic range; musically and sonically the result is nothing short of spectacular.
 
The Bournemouth band can’t really compete with their transatlantic cousins, even though they play beautifully at times. But then this isn’t conventionally beautiful music and Boulez points this out at every turn. The result is altogether more idiomatic, the score splashed with brash colours and spots of pure grotesquerie. Take the First Dance, the Dance of the Princess in the Forest; Alsop makes it sound slightly bland, Boulez injecting the rhythms with more wit and character. That said the moment the prince sees the princess is suitably arresting under Alsop. The Second Dance, the Dance of the Trees, isn’t short on drama either, but Alsop can’t match Boulez when it comes to the sheer menace of those repeated drum rolls.
 
Honours are more evenly divided in the Third Dance, although at the building of the wooden prince Boulez works his orchestra into a veritable frenzy. To her credit Alsop achieves much the same effect, albeit without that last ounce of virtuosity. But then that is her way with Bartók; one may feel her readings are too reticent, underpowered even, but they are unfailingly musical.
 
Of course the downside is that Alsop’s Bartók can sound too soft and generalised when sharpness and bite are required. Boulez certainly brings his dissecting skills to this score, revealing every last sinew and vein. For instance the Fourth Dance is rhythmically explicit, instrumental details laid bare in a way that Alsop’s reading and the warmer Naxos recording don’t allow. And as heroic as the Bournemouth brass and percussion undoubtedly are they simply don’t slice through the musical textures like the Chicagoans do. Also, in the Fifth Dance, as the princess tries to dance with the wooden prince, Alsop doesn’t quite capture the awkwardness, the dark humour, that Boulez finds at this point.
 
In the Sixth and Seventh Dances there is less to separate the two performances, although Boulez does make it all sound genuinely symphonic in sweep and structure, culminating in a touching finale. Alsop certainly conveys that fairy tale mix of tenderness and passion as the prince and princess are united at last, but it’s Boulez who really creates characters of flesh and blood.
 
Of course Boulez has the DG engineers and an excellent band at his disposal, which makes all the difference with such a virtuosic score. That’s not to say the BSO and Naxos team are second-rate – far from it. Indeed, their performance of The Wooden Prince may have wider appeal than the Chicago one precisely because it’s warm and affectionate, more like a conventional fairy tale than a stark, modernist fable. Conversely, Bartókians will prefer Boulez’s more surgical approach because it cuts so deep and reveals so much that makes this score the masterpiece it is.
 
Dan Morgan
 


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.