Can one of the great masters of modern music really have been born 144 years ago? I can remember hearing Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, his most popular work, on the first Philadelphia Orchestra concert I ever attended, at the Mann Music Center in the summer of 1984, and at the time, he was dead not even 40 years. He was still regarded by many as a “contemporary” composer.
But I’m not really here to talk about that. Instead I’m going to talk about his ballets.
Of the two, “The Miraculous Mandarin” (1918-24) enjoys all the notoriety, for its decadent scenario and harrowing music. After all, the story essentially involves two hoods who coerce a young woman into luring men to an abandoned room so they can beat and rob them. One of these is the mandarin of the title, who they attempt to suffocate, stab, and hang, but Rasputin-like he stubbornly refuses to die. He finds release only in the woman’s embrace. At last, his wounds begin to bleed, and he passes. This was pretty scandalous stuff, back in the day, and the work was banned on moral grounds. Now it’s one of Bartók’s most-frequently programmed works, though generally shorn of its action.
For the weak of heart, I offer as an alternative the composer’s other, earlier essay in the form, the ballet-pantomime “The Wooden Prince” (1914-17). This time instead of going for the jugular, Bartók opts to anesthetize everyone with a ponderous fairy tale about true love deferred. Not that I don’t enjoy ponderous fairy tales.
An ill-natured fairy throws up impediments to the fulfillment of the love of a prince for a princess, turning forest and stream against him and ultimately animating a wooden effigy of the prince the young man has constructed, complete with crown and locks of his own hair, to attract the princess’ attention. When the princess falls for the wooden prince, his flesh-and-blood counterpart falls into despair. The fairy takes pity on him as he sleeps, sets everything to right, and they all live happily ever after.
Much less frequently performed than Bartók’s subsequent succès de scandale, this fantastic tale for large orchestra bears the influences of Debussy and Strauss, and yes, Wagner too. Never understood why it’s not heard more often. Just because it doesn’t have quite the bite of the composer’s mature masterworks doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile.
On the eve of the centenary of the birth of Pierre Boulez, here he is, at the links, conducting both ballets. I cut my teeth on Boulez’s earlier recording of “The Wooden Prince,” with the New York Philharmonic, but there’s no question the sonics on his remake with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are superior.
“The Miraculous Mandarin” (Boulez live)
“The Wooden Prince” (DG recording)
Happy 100th (almost), Pierre Boulez, and happy 144th, Béla Bartók!
1937 production of “The Wooden Prince,” with Gyula Harangozó and Karola Szalay0
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