Music that doesn't move you

[richardfinegold]

I'm glad that Jlw likes the Wooden Prince, but I've struggled with that one as well. I love Mandarin, however

[Bryn]

Glad 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...

Boulez 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.

[HighlandDougie]

Boulez 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.

I 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.

[Bryn]

I 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.

Indeed, Dorati did record it with the LSO in 1964, and that recording was my introduction to the work, but for Boulez it became something of a party piece, much as Stravinsky's Chant du Rossignol did (another relatively obscure work recorded by Dorati).

[jayne lee wilson]

Glad 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...

Quite. Boulez is probably too abstract. You need Dorati or as Bryn suggested, this one (my own favourite) for a modern reference -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kossuth-Symphonic-Poem-Wooden-Prince/dp/B000MRA7D6/ref=sr_1_7?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1492996541&sr=1-7&keywords=bartok+hungaroton

... 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.......

[Pulcinella]

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.

[Bryn]

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.

While 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.

[Ferretfancy]

While 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.

I 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!

[ahinton]

I 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!

A conductor whom I know used to call Bartók's Concerto for orchestra The Old Person's Guide thereto, a sentiment with which I've never concurred, even though I think that it's far from top-drawer Bartók. It and the Third Piano Concerto (and perhaps the Viola Concerto) might be the easiest way in for some, but mine was the Second Piano Concerto, The Miraculous Mandarin, The Wooden Prince and the Fifth String Quartet, all of which did it for me first time around.

[MickyD]

So 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.

[jayne lee wilson]

My 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...

[ahinton]

So 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.

Bartók will not let you down, believe me. Sorabji, who loathed what he regarded as the barbarity of the composer's treatment of the piano in his First Piano Concerto, nevertheless greatly valued what he perceived as the composer's integrity and had much to say in his favour...

[ahinton]

My 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...

Well, indeed; WHAT a composer!...

[LeMartinPecheur]

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.

[HighlandDougie]

My 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...

I'm a bit older but my acquisition of this LP (in 1967??) was almost as exciting as getting Sergeant Pepper on the day it was released. I treasured it until it was almost worn out - and, spurred on by BBM going on about Solti's Mahler, I've just pre-ordered its Japanese re-release (http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/UCCD-3788). I still have the LP.

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:

http://www.erikchisholm.com/writings3.php