I'm glad that Jlw likes the Wooden Prince, but I've struggled with that one as well. I love Mandarin, however
Music that doesn't move you
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Originally posted by Petrushka View PostGlad you say this because - as mentioned above - I struggle with this work even though I've loved the Concerto for Orchestra for over 40 years. I've got two recordings, both Boulez, but the piece just doesn't catch fire somehow. I'll persevere...
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Originally posted by Bryn View PostBoulez did stirling work in promoting The Wooden Prince, which had fallen into relative obscurity until he started championing it. However, you might find an easier route in via Ivan Fischer, Zoltan Kocsis or Michael Gielen.
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Originally posted by HighlandDougie View PostI hesitate to take the mildest issue with Boulez being the promoter of The Wooden Prince but Antal Dorati recorded it in the 1960s, some time before PB. Bartok was my first great discovery as a precocious and pretentious teenager (Decca - mono - 10" of Ansermet/SRO in the MSPC; then Karajan/BPO in the same work as my second classical LP). I can't imagine not liking his music but, for the unconvinced, I think that MSPC remains a good start.
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Originally posted by Petrushka View PostGlad you say this because - as mentioned above - I struggle with this work even though I've loved the Concerto for Orchestra for over 40 years. I've got two recordings, both Boulez, but the piece just doesn't catch fire somehow. I'll persevere...
... and following the choreographic synopsis in detail once or twice may really help. I've often imagined those trees hemming me in while I'm sleepless in bed, no walls, just the bed and the trees, impenetrably close.......
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My teenage introduction to Bartok, through the Head of Physics, who took the A-level Music set for one period a week of listening to (and sometimes having a score to crowd round: we were a small set!) some C20 music, as none was covered by the set work or set period that year, was the Fine Arts Quartet Saga recordings of the quartets (red, blue, green slip cases; now happily on CD in my collection). I bought the ASMF/Marriner coupling of the Music for SPC and Divertimento at about the same time (one of their early forays into C20 music, together with Pulcinella Suite and Apollo). I remember having the Dorati Wooden Prince LP in my collection too (now only the Sony Boulez version on CD: sounds like that should be remedied!).
I went to see the triple bill of Bartok's stage works at Covent Garden (visiting company, probably Hungarian but I can't remember, nor can I remember the choreography for the Wooden Prince that jlw has descibed) which would have been in about 1987/1988; anyone else there/remember it?
I'm sure that ferney would have some suggestions to make here too, but I think he's away from his keyboard for a few days.
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Originally posted by Pulcinella View PostMy teenage introduction to Bartok, through the Head of Physics, who took the A-level Music set for one period a week of listening to (and sometimes having a score to crowd round: we were a small set!) some C20 music, as none was covered by the set work or set period that year, was the Fine Arts Quartet Saga recordings of the quartets (red, blue, green slip cases; now happily on CD in my collection). I bought the ASMF/Marriner coupling of the Music for SPC and Divertimento at about the same time (one of their early forays into C20 music, together with Pulcinella Suite and Apollo). I remember having the Dorati Wooden Prince LP in my collection too (now only the Sony Boulez version on CD: sounds like that should be remedied!).
I went to see the triple bill of Bartok's stage works at Covent Garden (visiting company, probably Hungarian but I can't remember, nor can I remember the choreography for the Wooden Prince that jlw has descibed) which would have been in about 1987/1988; anyone else there/remember it?
I'm sure that ferney would have some suggestions to make here too, but I think he's away from his keyboard for a few days.
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Originally posted by Bryn View PostWhile I had certainly heard some of the better known orchestral works of Bartok, plus the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion via the Third Programme, it was finding those Fine Arts recordings of the String Quartets that were the first recordings of his work I bought (from the first floor the then Singer Sewing Machine shop in Windsor. Another fillip was the playing of pieces from Book 6 of Microcosmos by a fellow pupil on the grand piano in the school hall during lunch breaks. Then, venturing across Windsor Bridge into Eton High Street, I found a music shop with an upstairs record department. Though them I ordered a Supraphon recording of the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. That had the added bonus of introducing me to its coupling, Janacek's Concertino and the Sonata 1.x.1905. A few years ago the Fine Arts recordings of the String Quartets eventually got an CD release, along with the sole surviving sound track of a television series on the Bartok Quartets made by the Fine Arts, the 1st Quartet. Ah, happy days.
There's a certain darkness and implacability about much Bartok which can be a barrier to getting started for some people, but perseverance always pays. I was introduced to the Concerto for Orchestra by a friend way back,on a Philharmonia LP with Karajan, and all those years ago I had to work at it. Then we went to a Boult /LPO performance of it in Central Hall Westminster, and everything fell into place.
Other visits to Westminster have not been so pleasing!
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Originally posted by Ferretfancy View PostI found my LP copies of the Fine Arts Quartet Bartok recordings in a bin at the front of a home decorator's shop n Shepherd Bush Green, no doubt the same wholesaler as yours! Since then I have got the CD re-masterings which are a huge improvement on the grotty old Saga pressings.
There's a certain darkness and implacability about much Bartok which can be a barrier to getting started for some people, but perseverance always pays. I was introduced to the Concerto for Orchestra by a friend way back,on a Philharmonia LP with Karajan, and all those years ago I had to work at it. Then we went to a Boult /LPO performance of it in Central Hall Westminster, and everything fell into place.
Other visits to Westminster have not been so pleasing!
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Originally posted by MickyD View PostSo far I've listened to the Dance Suite and the Piano Concerto No.2 - I'm happy to report that I was pleasantly surprised, so thanks again for the recommendations. I will persevere - and am tempted by the 7 CD Decca box of Solti recordings, which seem to be highly regarded.
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Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View PostMy very first knock-you-for-six encounter with Bartok.... played it the minute I got it home - a brand new acquisition from the local library in about 1973...
I couldn't stop staring at the cover, so poetically apt as it seemed...
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Just realised that MickyD's Bartok investigation gives an opportunity to re-plug this splendid disc
Highly educational on Bartok's relationship to Hungarian folk music and also intensely moving about his forced separation from it when he fled Hitler to the USA. The disc features a mixture of Bartok's own field recordings, modern folk-band versions by Muzsikas, and some of the violin duets played by Alexander Balanescu and Laszlo Porteleki, fiddler of Muzsikas. Plus singer Marta Sebestyen.
I keep hitting the Escape key, but I'm still here!
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Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View PostMy very first knock-you-for-six encounter with Bartok.... played it the minute I got it home - a brand new acquisition from the local library in about 1973...
I couldn't stop staring at the cover, so poetically apt as it seemed...
On Bartók - and with apologies to whoever first posted this account of Erik Chisholm welcoming him to Glasgow (was it AH?)- this made me smile:
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