Bartók: Four Orchestral Pieces
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner
Gardner and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra give first-rate performances of all this music, with a real virtuoso account of the exhilarating Miraculous Mandarin Suite, in particular...the internal...
Bartók: Four Orchestral Pieces
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner
Purchase product
Gardner and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra give first-rate performances of all this music, with a real virtuoso account of the exhilarating Miraculous Mandarin Suite, in particular...the internal...
About
Edward Gardner and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform three great orchestral works by Béla Bartók in this new Chandos release. Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta is a seminal work written for a unique ensemble consisting two string orchestras, playing from opposite sides of the stage, and a group of percussion instruments in addition to the piano, harp, and celesta. The piece took on wider recognition when it was used by Stanley Kubrick on the soundtrack of The Shining. Also on this disc is the Suite from Bartók’s dark and gritty ballet The Miraculous Mandarin. The work, featuring some of the most colourful music Bartók wrote, tells the story of three criminals who force a young woman to lure passers-by into a room where they intend to rob them. The third passer-by to enter the room is the mandarin. The men try to kill him, but only when the girl satisfies his desire do his wounds begin to bleed, and he dies. The Four Orchestral Pieces, drafted in 1912, but not orchestrated until 1921, were written at a time when Bartók felt both misunderstood and ignored and had withdrawn from musical life in Budapest. These feelings of rejection may well have intensified the anger and cynicism found in this work.
Contents and tracklist
- Edward Gardner, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
- Recorded: 4 March 2013
- Recording Venue: Hamer Hall, The Arts Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Edward Gardner, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
- Recorded: 7-9, 12 March 2013
- Recording Venue: Hamer Hall, The Arts Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Edward Gardner, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
- Recorded: 21, 22 July 2011
- Recording Venue: Robert Blackwood Hall, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Awards and reviews
January 2014
Gardner and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra give first-rate performances of all this music, with a real virtuoso account of the exhilarating Miraculous Mandarin Suite, in particular...the internal balance of the orchestra itself is impeccable.
January 2014
[Gardner] draws performances that pack a real punch while remaining attentive to significant detail lurking behind the top line...For me, it's the disc's highlight - but The Miraculous Mandarin in particular is an instructive listen.
27th January 2014
the conductor is an Englishman, the increasingly impressive Edward Gardner; but it’s the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra that is the real star here, along with the outstanding sound engineering team. The net result is a thrilling CD - and an enterprising one, too, in that, though two of the items are well established in the Bartók canon
24th November 2013
The Melbourne orchestra sounds wonderful in these works...Gardner’s account [of the Four Orchestral Pieces] certainly affirms this as undue neglect. The Miraculous Mandarin ballet suite makes a sizzling beginning. Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta again reveals how much searing intensity can lie in pure abstraction.
8th December 2013
Solo keyboard and percussion work is fresh and vigorous [in the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste)...That suppleness carries through to the Miraculous Mandarin suite, which glitters with strange orchestral colour, and to the Four Orchestral Pieces, less showy but well worth hearing.
