The
feature work on this Naxos SACD release is the highly notorious
pantomime-ballet The Miraculous Mandarin, composed in 1918, when Bartók was 36 years old. The
rich and turbulent score demonstrates Bartók’s very personal
musical vocabulary and marked an unsettled and exploratory stage
in his development as a composer. The work is best known as
an Orchestral Suite in six continuous sections, made up primarily
from the first two-thirds of the score. The Miraculous Mandarin Suite, has proved extremely popular with several excellent
versions available in the catalogues. For this Naxos SACD release,
Maestra Marin Alsop uses the complete version of the orchestral
score.
Bartók had little good fortune with this ‘danced-pantomime’,
which was one of three works that he composed for the stage.
Bartók was unable to stage The
Miraculous Mandarin as
a new work in his homeland Hungary, so soon after the Great
War and the revolutionary conflict. The score had to wait six
years for its premičre performance, which finally took place
in 1926, in Cologne, Germany. The presentation proved to be
a fiasco and the work was removed from the repertoire after
one performance. A further staging in Prague had also to be
withdrawn. Bartók and his librettist carried out substantial
alterations to the score and a revised version was eventually
staged in 1945.
Based on Marin Alsop’s spoken commentary contained on
the Naxos website, a short synopsis of the plot to the pantomime ballet that was so controversial and considered immoral by many,
may prove useful:
The score opens with the violent hustle of urban street
life in some dangerous quarter of an unknown City. Three thugs
persuade a beautiful prostitute to assist them in a plan and
take her to a shabby upstairs flat to ensnare a succession of
men, whom they then brutally rob. There are three seduction
scenes each displayed by the clarinet, with each scene becoming
progressively more musical involved and elaborate. The first
man to be lured up is a thin and penniless old man and when
they discover that he has no money they throw him down the stairs.
They then lure up to the flat a shy young male student. He is
extremely awkward and he and the prostitute begin to waltz in
5/4 time. When the thugs discover that he too has no money they
also throw him out. The next to be lured up to the flat is the
Mandarin, sinister in appearance with stark and staring eyes;
who is represented by trombones. The thug’s gesture to the prostitute
to do something and the longest and most involved seduction
scene ensues. At first the prostitute is repulsed by the Mandarin
but then she becomes intrigued. After getting no response from
trying to arouse him with her dancing she becomes almost hysterical
in her seduction. The Mandarin then grabs her and begins to
chase her and she tries to escape. The thugs give chase to the
Mandarin to try to kill him. They catch him and try to smother
and strangle him. They move away and the Mandarin’s eyes burn
through them. They grab him and seize a rusty sword and stab
him. The Mandarin sways, staggers and suddenly draws himself
up and lunges at the prostitute. They grab him again and tie
the lamp chord around his neck but his body begins to glow with
an eerie bluish-green light and he remains fixated on the prostitute.
‘Take him down’, she cries. He falls to the floor and pounces
on the prostitute. The Mandarin and the prostitute embrace passionately
and with his longing fulfilled, his wounds begin to bleed and
he dies in an ecstasy of love.
The music to the controversial score of The Miraculous Mandarin, was stern stuff to exhibit on stage and it certainly
divided opinion. The magazine Musical America described
the score as, “… inspired… its clever combinations of instruments,
and wonderful harmonic effects are completely fascinating.”
Jeno Szenkar, the Hungarian born conductor of the Cologne premičre
described the score as, “…a magnificent work, which later
found world-wide acclaim… The piece was very difficult and unusually
complicated for an orchestra of that time… At the end of the
performance we were confronted with a chorus of whistling and
booing.” The Lord Mayor of Cologne asked to see Maestro
Szenkar and
received him in a cool and reserved manner and then blurted
out the bitterest accusation of how it could ever have crossed
his mind to perform such a dirty piece and asked for it to be
dropped immediately.
I had read two reviews of this Naxos/Alsop recording
previous to receiving this review copy. Both reviews were critical
of the interpretation by Marin Alsop and the Bournemouth Symphony
Orchestra and Chorus. When I played Alsop’s account I was rather
satisfied with the overall playing and the interpretation was
expressive and colourful and I wondered what all the disparagement
was about. A huge mistake on my part. For I had not played for
some time, the famous 1963 Kingsway Hall account from Georg
Solti and the LSO of The
Miraculous Mandarin Suite
on Decca Legends 467 686-2. The difference between the two accounts
is absolutely immense. Comparing Solti’s version to Alsop’s
version was like comparing gladiators fighting the lions in
a packed Colosseum at Rome to a Sunday school outing to the
seaside. Maestro Solti was cranking up the LSO into a complete
frenzy before Alsop’s passengers had even alighted from the
charabanc. Solti marvellously realises the overtly harrowing
depravity and vicious nature of the score with a tremendous
power and dynamism. By comparison Alsop’s account is far too
reserved, lacking in the obligatory vigour and bite and is clearly
not in the same league. Rather like Alsop is conducting a Dvořák
score not one by Bartók. For those who insist on the complete
score of The Miraculous Mandarin, perhaps
the best alternative is the award-winning recording from Ivan
Fischer with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Hungarian
Radio Choir on Philips 454 430-2.
For many years Bartók’s Dance Suite for orchestra, was one of those
works that passed me by until I heard the composer Malcolm Arnold
state how impressed he was with the score. That little nudge
was just the encouragement that I needed to investigate further
and I soon realise that the Dance Suite is a masterwork;
that is often overlooked.
The
Dance Suite was composed for a music festival held in
Budapest in 1923, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of
the merging of the Hungarian cities of Buda and Pesth. Bartók
was mindful of the significance of this historic event and produced
a score with pronounced nationalistic leanings. All the themes
are Bartók’s own yet they share an unmistakable kinship with
Hungarian and Romanian folk idioms. The work which comprises
six contrasting sections is played without a break. A recurring
refrain (ritornello) serves as a connecting link between
the first, second and third dances. Five of the sections represent
dances; the first and fourth have an almost Arabic personality,
the second and third are said to be Magyar and the fifth Romanian.
This Alsop version of the Dance Suite is lovingly
performed, however there is a distinct tentativeness in approach
and the rather lacklustre proceedings are lacking in bite and
spontaneity. To take the same approach with Bartók’s music as
one would, with say, Barber and Dvořák, just does not work.
With the Dance Suite
it is difficult, not to look any further than the 1965 Kingsway Hall version from Georg Solti
and the LSO, on Decca Legends 467 686-2. Solti achieves brilliant
playing from the LSO in a performance that is direct, robust
and fiery.
The final work on this release is the Hungarian Pictures, for orchestra,
from 1931. This score is more commonly known as the Hungarian Sketches (Magyar képek). The folk influences of Bartók’s maturity were to be freely
deployed according to the nature of the work at hand. Some of
the immediately attractive examples are found in the numerous
suites that Bartók orchestrated from earlier piano pieces, perhaps
the most famous of these orchestrations being the Mikrokosmos
Suite. The Hungarian Pictures or Hungarian
Sketches, comprise of five of the piano pieces that Bartók orchestrated
in 1931. It must be said that these are slight works that form
the least consequential part of Bartók’s output. Alsop, with
the assistance of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, seem better suited to these lively and light orchestral
pieces.
This SACD release that I played on my ordinary compact
disc player is well recorded, sounding clear and natural. The
booklet notes are interesting and informative.
Since the critical success of her wonderful series of
the complete Samuel Barber orchestral works, the influential
Naxos label have been putting the weight of their considerable
publicity machine behind the talents of Marin Alsop. Unfortunately
Alsop’s recording of the Brahms Symphony No.1 in C minor, with
the Academic Festival Overture and Tragic Overture with the
LSO, the first in her Naxos cycle of Brahms orchestral works,
has received mixed reviews and comes across as rather run-of
the-mill compared to the fierce competition available in the
catalogues. Naxos should be concerned that Alsop’s Brahms recording
and this Bartok release will likely feature on lists of CDs
to avoid, rather than as recommendations.
Michael
Cookson
see also Review
by Tony Haywood
[61:21]
