Béla BARTÓK (1881-1945)
The Wooden Prince, Op 13, Sz. 60 (1916) (Complete ballet) [52:38]
Dance Suite, Sz. 77 (1923) [18:41]
New York Philharmonic Orchestra/Pierre Boulez
rec. 13 October 1975, Manhattan Center, New York (Wooden Prince); 22 February, 1972, Philharmonic Hall, New York (Dance Suite). ADD
DUTTON EPOCH CDLX7375 SACD [71:19]
In 1916 Béla Bartók composed no less than three stage works, more or less simultaneously. In each case the librettist was the Hungarian poet, Béla Balázs. Two of these, the one-act opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and the ballet The Miraculous Mandarin, are firmly established as masterpieces in Bartók’s output. However, the ballet The Wooden Prince has always been less favoured; performances and recordings are much less frequent, though the three works are sometimes given as a triple bill. It may well be that the relative neglect of The Wooden Prince is due to its feeble plot. Even the author of the booklet note, Bill Zakariasen, describes the plot as “nonsense”. He makes the interesting point that Stravinsky’s Firebird resembles The Wooden Prince in some respects but goes on to observe “Firebird has a scenario that moves surely and without an iota of confusion, while The Wooden Prince never seems to make up its mind where it is going.” Perhaps the solution is to simply listen to the music for its own sake?
Bartók employed a huge orchestra for The Wooden Prince, including quadruple woodwind, two saxophones, a full complement of brass, a substantial array of percussion, celeste (for which two players are required), a pair of harps and a string section which is often divided into many parts. There are a number of passages of almost Straussian opulence and one or two massive climaxes. Overall, however, Bartók uses his orchestral forces with discerning restraint. He displays great invention and imagination, using and mixing the orchestral colours at his disposal in the way that a painter would mix colours on his palette.
The result is a score that may lack the grit and dramatic thrust of Bluebeard or The Miraculous Mandarin but which still makes for enjoyable and rewarding listening. Boulez leads a very vivid and detailed performance and his conducting is aided and abetted by the CBS engineering. The recording is quite close and sometimes individual contributions are accorded somewhat artificial prominence – for example, the xylophone near the start of the ‘Dance of the Princess with the Wooden Prince’ (track 6). However, the upside of the recording – and Boulez’s famed clarity of texture – is that we can hear an awful lot of what goes in in a score that is rich in detail. The NYPO offers playing that is often razor-sharp. I remember buying this recording of The Wooden Prince as a CBS LP many years ago. That LP is long gone, so I was glad to be able to reacquaint myself with this Boulez performance. I enjoyed it very much.
The recording of the Dance Suite was made over three years earlier, not long after the start of Boulez’s tenure as Music Director of the NYPO (1971-77). The performance is strongly articulated and projected. Boulez and his players invest the music with the rhythmic life that is vital to a successful account of the music. I’d not heard this performance before – in its original LP incarnation it was coupled with The Miraculous Mandarin - and I think it’s successful.
These recordings were first issued by CBS/Sony as Stereo / Quadraphonic LPs. Michael Dutton has remastered them from the original analogue tapes and it seems to me that he’s done a first-rate job of repurposing them for SACD. The sound is vivid and has plenty of impact; exactly what these scores need, in other words. The booklet reprints the notes that accompanied the original LPs.
It’s good that these very good performances have been given a new SACD lease of life.
John Quinn
