Béla Bartók - The Wooden Prince; Cantata Profana (Pierre Boulez)

Information

Composer: Béla Bartók

• Cantata Profana, BB. 100, Sz. 94 - "The Nine Splendid Stags"
• The Wooden Prince, Sz. 60 (Op. 13)

John Aler, tenor

John Tomlinson, baritone

Chicago Symphony Chorus & Orchestra

Pierre Boulez, conductor

Date: 1991

Label: Deutsche Grammophon

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Review

What a terrific piece the ‘Cantata Profana’ is. Its difficulties cannot be underestimated which is why we hear it so rarely. The work, which here has three track-listings, plays without a break. It has a text by Bartók himself telling a Rumanian folk-tale of a father who teaches his sons to hunt. He then discovers them turned into stags almost shooting them by accident but never ever having them home again. John Aler fights heroically with the punishingly high tessitura of the tenor part but John Tomlinson seems to be a little out of sorts with too much vibrato in the head register. The chorus is, for my taste anyway, a little too far back. Nevertheless, although one rarely hears this work, this is a fine rendition. It is sung in Hungarian which the chorus tackle with verve.

The ‘Wooden Prince’ was written with the intention that it would form the second half of a double-bill with Bluebeard. Its eventual success led to that dream being realized. Indeed ‘The Wooden Prince’ was to prove one of Bartók’s greatest moments. The story, which is divided into seven dance scenes each generally preceded by a brief Interlude, concerns the wooden Prince figure that a fairy tries to protect from love. He is sometimes characterized by col legno in the strings and by a xylophone in the fourth dance. The Prince eventually is able to love and embrace the princess at the very end but he consequently forsakes the power and knowledge he has gained. The score almost sounds as if it could be earlier than Bluebeard and this may be because, as Paul Griffiths remarks (pages 71-73) the music is modal and even diatonic. The long introduction before the curtain, is a quiet and hushed C major triad pierced by an occasional F#. It is also at times quite Impressionistic as in the first Dance. The modality Griffiths mentions is created by melodic inflexions influenced by Rumanian folk melody. Bartók loved that country and the war, which he was not fit enough to qualify, prevented him from visiting. Ironically if he had have fought (thank goodness for posterity that he couldn’t) for the Hungarians he would have been opposed to the Rumanians who were on the opposing side.

Boulez and the Chicago orchestra are superb and it would be churlish to criticize this evocative performance. I only wish, as the libretti can easily be divided up a little more, that DG had been more generous in tracking the work, say into fourteen portions. This would have marked off the Interludes and postludes also.

— Gary Higginson

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Béla Bartók (25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist who is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century. As an ethnomusicologist, his fieldwork with the composer Zoltán Kodály formed the basis for all later research in the field. Bartók employed folk themes and rhythms into his own music, achieving a style that was nationalistic and deeply personal. His notable works include the opera Bluebeard's Castle (1911), 6 string quartets (1908–39), the Mikrokosmos piano set, Concerto for Orchestra (1943), and 3 piano concertos (1926, 1931 & 1945).

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Pierre Boulez (26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and music theorist. A leading figure in avant-garde music, he was noted for his uncompromising commitment to modernism and the trenchant, polemical tone. Boulez was also one of the most prominent conductors of his generation. In a career lasting more than sixty years, he was music director of the New York Philharmonic, chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, and made frequent appearances with many others.

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