Good Bartok, Naturally, from Dorati
Eugene G. Barnes | Dunn Loring, VA USA | 06/07/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Since "The Wooden Prince" seems to be one of those pieces that are resilient to bad performances and can tolerate a wide variety of interpretations, it would be easy to give Dorati's recording either a thumbs-down for being perfunctory or a thumbs-up for being wonderfully literal and letting the music speak for itself. (Man, how's that for prevarication??) But the fact is, that's precisely the quandary any critic would find himself in trying to review this recording. There are certainly sonically superior recordings out there (this one was recorded in 1964). There are passages that some other orchestras might play with a little more virtuosity. And you might find some other conductors milking the music more aggressively, discovering some of its innate lyricism, swagger, power, what-have-you. But you will not find a more balanced complete rendition anywhere. This is starting-point "Wooden Prince," still the best all-around performance available, for my money anyway.And the music itself? Though not terribly popular, this is guaranteed Grade "A" Bartok. It is Bartok the master orchestrator, who looks beyond the minimum capabilities of the instruments he is working with, who explores all possibilities. In this piece, he expertly runs the gamut of orchestral colors. What I'm saying is, anyone serious about knowing great Bartok (that is, anyone who takes his Twentieth Century seriously) needs to know this piece thoroughly. It is also probably among his most accessible compositions (not as cerebral as the other work on this CD), and a surprisingly good introduction to the world of Bartok.The "Music for Strings, Percussion [including piano] and Celeste" is a somewhat better known work by the composer. Its first movement (of four) is an acknowledged masterpiece of understatement. Folks who already know the currently popular Third Symphony by Gorecki will see the earlier Bartok as the same kind of string fugue (kind of), but tighter knit and a little more dissonant than the Gorecki. Bartok the experimenter with percussion instruments is more in evidence in the other three movements. The four movements are wildly different, one from another, and that's probably why Bartok chose to call it all just "Music," rather than assign it a form that would come with preconceived notions of how it should proceed.Dorati's rendition is again finely wrought, well thought-out, and intelligently structured. It was recorded four years earlier than "The Wooden Prince," but the sound is about the same, which is to say pure (but full-bodied where warranted).These were great years for Bartok recordings led by Dorati, and one should avail oneself of these outstanding Mercury Living Presence reissues whenever one can. Important music and a prime buy."
Forget about it: this is the supreme version of the Wooden p
Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 10/18/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Every time a Hungarian conductor took the baton to play Bartok some sparkling and cosmic breath seems to crop out from the entrails of the director. The complex dissonances are even major; the expressiveness takes its place in the middle of these percussive and incisive sounds to enhance even more the roughness and robustness of this febrile imagination. Composed after WW1 (118-1919), Bartok writes as result of Count Miklós Bánffy, Budapest Opera 's intendant, vast dramatic score that will make of a simple fairytale, a psychological tragedy.
It seems to be obvious the war wounds influenced on him; since that composition was no more nor less a Divertimento in a painful portrait, invaded for macabre spell and sharp sorrow.
Dorati played a towering and convincing performance remarking as anyone else, the chromatic density and tense and hallucinating atmosphere that surrounds the score.
In which it concerns with Music for strings, percussion and celesta, we have serious contenders: Dorati is simply superb in this interpretation. What it really distinguishes to these gifted conductors of the past was the absence of restrictions around the score. If the sound was not pleasant, lacked of total importance, because the expression weighed still more. There was much wildness and fierceness if you want, at the moment of playing. Dionysian mood dominated the Apollonian approach. Somehow this characteristic allowed to transmit the cathartic tension of the Greek theater; to sublimate the soul through the catastrophe.
So, you should acquire as soon as you can these legendary recordings, because the tendency to play Bartok has bee polishing the dissonances and reducing the intensity of the sonorous mass; I mean distilling the essence through the crucible of these aseptic modern times.
Historical performances that surely won `t be played so vividly never more!
"
Strongly recommended
Arnout Koeneman | the netherlands | 05/20/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Bartok's (in my opnion) most beautiful work The Wooden Prince is given a strong and exiting performance by Dorati.
Meanwhile the textures are crystal clear, Dorati's handling of the score is very transparant, but without being too analytical.
The music moves with great dynamics, energetic drive and when needed a more subtle beauty of tone.
The orchestra is excellent in every sense and the sound of the recording (1965) is unbelievably good: insightfull and extremely dynamic, although he brass can sound a bit aggressive at times, through headphones that is.
This is the best Wooden Prince I heard, next to Boulez DG performance - which in my opinion digs a bit deeper, is more weighted with somewhat slower tempi and greater refinement, but on the other hand lacks Dorati's excitement and passion.
Same with the Music for strings percussion and celesta, one of those rare beauties of 20th century music, Boulez adds a greater refinement in the adagio, but comes a bit short at the exitement and insight Dorati gives in the score.
But with Boulez and Dorati (and the excellent Ivan Fischer) on disc I don't think I need another Bartok for a very long while, so plain "right" are both conductors in their view (the Solti recordings in my opnion add nothing essential to it)
A marvelous disc."
Track Listings (12) - Disc #1