Bartok: The Wooden Prince

[Barbirollians]

I realise after listening to Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and seeing reference to this work from a few years later I do not have it or indeed know it .

Any recommendations forumites ?

[Serial_Apologist]

I realise after listening to Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and seeing reference to this work from a few years later I do not have it or indeed know it .

Any recommendations forumites ?

It's very similar in idiom. Boulez would be my recommendation.

[jayne lee wilson]

One of my secret loves (since the Mercury Dorati...)......

But its been surpassed since.....
Go for the recent (2019) Helsinki PO/Susanna Mälkki on BIS, or the terrific if-you-can-find-it-for-a-good-price Hungarian NPO/Kocsis (Hungaroton Bartok New Series 2006).
These are both stunning-sounding SACD/CD hybrids, if that's your thing...and the Kocsis is ultra-idiomatic....(so if had to choose just one...etc)...

C/w: Kossuth on the Hungaroton, Mandarin Suite on BIS. Great albums, both.

Incidentally, Mälkki's Concerto for Orchestra is reviewed in 12/21 Gramophone and fully deserves the high praise it receives...

[Barbirollians]

Thanks - never need an excuse to buy a Kocsis recording. I also don’t know Kossuth so will see if I can get a reasonably priced CD of it.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks - never need an excuse to buy a Kocsis recording. I also don’t know Kossuth so will see if I can get a reasonably priced CD of it.

Composed when Bartok was barely 21, and more heavily under the influence of Richard Strauss - but interesting, for all that.

[jayne lee wilson]

Wooden Prince (a "symphonic poem to be danced to" - BB) has a wonderful sunrise opening, and a euphoric conclusion where Nature is restored to itself - In My End is My Beginning...
The main motifs are used throughout the work music-drama style... the forest music and the Prince's various responses are especially haunting... the whole work has a marvellously elemental atmosphere.

The Hungaroton & BIS SACDs include an excellent track-by-track storyline...(vital for understanding really)...

[RichardB]

I'm very fond of The Wooden Prince. I was captivated the first time by the aforementioned opening, and it didn't let go.I have the recordings conducted by Boulez, Gielen, Kocsis and Fischer. No first choice comes to mind. I'm sure Mälkki is excellent too. A lot would depend on what you want "on the other side." Boulez has the Cantata profana which is much more rarely recorded than any of the other couplings on offer.

[LeMartinPecheur]

It's very similar in idiom [to Duke Bluebeard's castle]. Boulez would be my recommendation.

You amaze me SA! In style Wooden Prince strikes me as miles short of fully mature Bartok where Bluebeard is right up there.

Perhaps my Alsop recording of WP doesn't make the best case?

[jayne lee wilson]

You amaze me SA! In style Wooden Prince strikes me as miles short of fully mature Bartok where Bluebeard is right up there.

Perhaps my Alsop recording of WP doesn't make the best case?

Interesting as they are almost contemporaneous....Bluebeard 1911, rev.1912/1917; Wooden Prince 1914-16. But very different soundworlds of course.....

[RichardB]

In style Wooden Prince strikes me as miles short of fully mature Bartok where Bluebeard is right up there.

I guess that depends on where you think fully mature Bartók begins, or if such a term is actually useful with regard to a composer whose style was always changing. But the two pieces you mention belong to more or less the same period and both are still much more influenced by Debussy than by the folk music that animates his later work.

[Serial_Apologist]

I guess that depends on where you think fully mature Bartók begins, or if such a term is actually useful with regard to a composer whose style was always changing. But the two pieces you mention belong to more or less the same period and both are still much more influenced by Debussy than by the folk music that animates his later work.

I think so too.

[BBMmk2]

One of my secret loves (since the Mercury Dorati...)......

But its been surpassed since.....
Go for the recent (2019) Helsinki PO/Susanna Mälkki on BIS, or the terrific if-you-can-find-it-for-a-good-price Hungarian NPO/Kocsis (Hungaroton Bartok New Series 2006).
These are both stunning-sounding SACD/CD hybrids, if that's your thing...and the Kocsis is ultra-idiomatic....(so if had to choose just one...etc)...

C/w: Kossuth on the Hungaroton, Mandarin Suite on BIS. Great albums, both.

Incidentally, Mälkki's Concerto for Orchestra is reviewed in 12/21 Gramophone and fully deserves the high praise it receives...

Oh yes!!!

[Barbirollians]

One of my secret loves (since the Mercury Dorati...)......

But its been surpassed since.....
Go for the recent (2019) Helsinki PO/Susanna Mälkki on BIS, or the terrific if-you-can-find-it-for-a-good-price Hungarian NPO/Kocsis (Hungaroton Bartok New Series 2006).
These are both stunning-sounding SACD/CD hybrids, if that's your thing...and the Kocsis is ultra-idiomatic....(so if had to choose just one...etc)...

C/w: Kossuth on the Hungaroton, Mandarin Suite on BIS. Great albums, both.

Incidentally, Mälkki's Concerto for Orchestra is reviewed in 12/21 Gramophone and fully deserves the high praise it receives...

Not cheap but not extortionate new copy of Kocsison its way to me.

[AlanE]

I see that the Boulez recording is one of the CBS recordings reissued by Dutton on SACD (with the Dance Suite) and I imagine that the four channel recording surrounds the listener with the orchestra as with the reissue of Dukas's La Peri. Rather to my surprise I found the Dukas effective; a pleasantly voluptuous orchestral embrace!

[Bryn]

I see that the Boulez recording is one of the CBS recordings reissued by Dutton on SACD (with the Dance Suite) and I imagine that the four channel recording surrounds the listener with the orchestra as with the reissue of Dukas's La Peri. Rather to my surprise I found the Dukas effective; a pleasantly voluptuous orchestral embrace!

Thanks for the reminder. That had slipped my mind, having noted it on a previous scan of the Dutton site. I would only add that it's a Boulez recording, not the Boulez recording. There is also the later DG recording, though I somewhat prefer the musicality of the former. I think I will order the SACD. Like Stravinsky's Song of the Nightingale, Bartok's The Wooden Prince was something of a party piece of his.