Bournemouth Soalsop - BARTOK: The Miraculous Mandarin [CD]

Bela Bartok (1881-1945)The Miraculous Mandarin Dance Suite Hungarian PicturesStage music plays a relatively brief but crucial r??le inthe work of Bela Bartok. Having finished the one-actopera Duke Bluebeard's Castle in 1911, he composedlittle until the summer of 1914, when he embarked onthe ballet The Wooden Prince. Completed two yearslater, its premi?¿re at the Budapest Opera in 1917 wasone of the composer's few great successes in hislifetime. The company proceeded to stage the opera thefollowing year, but it met with an equivocal receptionand was withdrawn after eight performances, not to beheard again in Hungary for almost two decades.An even worst fate awaited Bartok's last stagework,the pantomime The Miraculous Mandarin. Begunas the third part of an intended triple bill, it was draftedin 1918-19 but only orchestrated five years later. Apartfrom its composer's ongoing uncertainty as to musicaldirection, the scenario by Menyhert Lengyel wasunlikely to pass muster with the Hungarian censor. Thework was finally given its first performance in Cologneduring 1926, but banned immediately on moral grounds(by the then Mayor of the city Konrad Adenauer) and notstaged again in Bartok's lifetime. Although an orchestralsuite consisting of almost the first two-thirds of the workquickly found a place in the modern orchestralrepertoire, the pantomime has only latterly come into itsown, and full stagings remain infrequent. As withStravinsky's The Rite of Spring, to which it is indebted incertain particulars, The Miraculous Mandarin has a rapidpace and density of musical incident which are difficultto render visually, and indeed are probably bestappreciated by the 'mind's eye'.As envisaged by Lengyel, a recipient of Freudianpsychoanalysis and Hungary's chief Expressionistwriter, the scenario is more concerned with mimed thandanced drama, hence the designation 'pantomime'rather than 'ballet', and focuses on the irreconcilabilityof intuitive nature and corrupt civilisation. The latter isaccorded graphic depiction in the Introduction, whereinsistent rhythmic patterns and grinding dissonanceevoke the sound of traffic in a busy thoroughfare. Thecurtain rises on an upstairs room in a shabby apartment,occupied by three ruffians and a girl. Having no money,the thugs coerce the girl into attracting 'passing trade'.There follow three seduction sequences, eachintroduced by a clarinet solo. The first sequence lures ashabby old rake (denoted by trombone glissandi), who,penniless, is summarily ejected by the gang. The secondsequence lures a shy young man (oboe and cor anglais),whose waltz with the girl suddenly gains in ardour until,also penniless, he is ejected. The third sequence luresthe mandarin, his exotic appearance vividly evoked bybrass.There follows an extended sequence in which thegirl gradually overcomes her repugnance towards themandarin, embarking on a waltz which mounts inurgency as the latter's responses become moreimpulsive. A chase ensues (fugato in strin