Kossuth - Symphonic Poem/The Wooden Prince

My first acquaintance with the uncompromising Hungarian, as Harold C. Schonberg calls him, was one of his most fiercely inaccessible works, "The Miraculous Mandarin". Its seemingly unhinged character, offering several unconnected swoops and shrieks in wild succession, its total absence of anything even faintly recognizable as a melody, put me off Bartók for a long time. A passionate plea for his last completed composition, "Concerto for Orchestra", by German comedian Konrad Beikircher made me relent, but I took the precautionary measure of listening to Bartók's earliest orchestral composition first, written in an idiom (Richard Strauss's) that I could at least understand and, hopefully, appreciate.And "Kossuth", for that is the composition's name, did what it should do: open up Bartók's sound world. It is a work typical of the time it was written (1903), large orchestral forces throwing up huge walls of glorious sound, pulsating like a restless sea, Strauss, Mahler, Wagner and all the heavy boys looking encouragingly on.... The "Suite no.1 for Orchestra" (not on this disc) is quite similar and may also be a good starting point ( Suite No.1, Two Pieces)."The Wooden Prince", a ballet and the second piece on the disc, is leaner, less thrusting, and already more in Bartók's own voice than "Kossuth", but still very listenable. From there it's a small step to "Concerto for Orchestra", the various Hungarian and Romanian sketches and dances, "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta" and even the violin and viola concertos. Although some pieces need some getting used to, it can be a very rewarding experience to have Bartók around ("The Miraculous Mandarin" is still out of my league however....).

Excellent music. Now completes a set of three CDs. Looking for it for a very long time.

Not quite Dorati in the Wooden Prince, but colourful and fantastical enough.

Bartok was a magical orchestrator and The Wooden Prince is one of his most underrated scores, compared to The Miraculous Mandarin or the later Concerto For Orchestra. But it compares very well, drawing on the widest possible range of sounds from a huge orchestra. It tells a story that is full of fantasy with strong allegorical elements about the artist and creativity, the problems thereof, and has a happy ending - in this last feature it stands alone in his operatic and ballet oeuvre. Although it was written after Bluebeard's Castle, the idiom sounds less modern and closer to the Romanticism of Strauss. Ivan Fischer needs no recommendation, really, his feeling for this repertoire makes him the first conductor you associate with it. The recording has admirable bloom and presentness in the best Philips tradition, and of course the orchestral playing is outstanding. My only quibble is with the notes. There are two sets, both short, one by Max Harrison and one by Fischer himself, however neither takes you through the action of the ballet in a satisfactory way, so that the last part of the story is presumably squashed into the last of the ballet's eight sections. It does make such a difference to know exactly what the sounds are representing, when the visual component is missing, as you can so clearly hear a narrative dimension (a recent LPO performance of Daphnis and Chloe with surtitles revealed the score in quite a new way for this reason - it matters far less having to imagine the action than not knowing what it is meant to be). The Dance Suite which follows sounds plainer in its orchestration, like a canvas in simpler colours, although it is more often performed perhaps for practical reasons. Its dynamism is remarkable as well, and the sound-world absolutely fits its origins in folk tunes. It complements the much bigger ballet in a way that is hard to resist - surely it is time for a budget-priced re-release of this series of Bartok recordings with the Budapest Festival Orchestra?

Das Orchester des Budapester Festspiele und Ivan Fischer : hier ist bei weitem die beste Einspielung dieses wenig bekannten und hoch raffinierten Mesiterwerks des frühen Bartoks.