Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra/The Miraculous Mandarin New York Philharmonic & Pierre Boulez

• Béla Bartók (1881 - 1945): Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116:
• 1 Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116: I. Introduzione 09:56
• 2 Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116: II. Giuoco delle coppie 06:42
• 3 Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116: III. Elegia 07:27
• 4 Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116: IV. Intermezzo interrotto 04:20
• 5 Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116: V. Finale 08:40
• The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73:
• 6 The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: Prelude - The Curtain Rises 03:03
• 7 The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: First Seduction Game 03:38
• 8 The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: Second Seduction Game 03:02
• 9 The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: Third Seduction Game - The Mandarin Enters 03:38
• 10 The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: The Girl is Undecided - She Shudders and Draws Back Again 06:19
• 11 The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: The Mandarin Rises Again 02:41
• 12 The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: Suddenly the Mandarin's Head Appears Between The Pillows and he looks longingly at the girl 04:26
• 13 The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: The Body of the Mandarin Begins to Glow with a Greenish Blue Light 04:13
• Total Runtime 01:08:05

Info for Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra/The Miraculous Mandarin

These performances, the excellence of which is well known (as is their less than stellar sonic quality), acquire a new lease on life in HiRes format. Heard the Concerto for Orchestra’s second movement duets enjoy superior localization and a more vividly evocative textural environment. The rushing strings of the finale leap out of the speakers into your listening room. Similarly, the Mandarin’s overloaded climaxes sound less compacted and more subtly layered, while the dynamic range seems to have been expanded as well (witness the “chase” fugue and its ensuing orchestral hysteria).

Bartók’s music often is spatially conceived (remember the seating plans in the scores of such works as Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, or the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion), and the enhanced three-dimensionality that the surround format offers suits these pieces admirably. Here is one disc, then, that gains enormously from the new technology, and the fact that the Concerto for Orchestra doesn’t seem to be otherwise available domestically only adds to its attractions. (David Hurwitz)

Schola Cantorum (tracks 6-13)
Hugh Ross, chorus direction
New York Philharmonic
Pierre Boulez, conductor

Tracks 1-5 recorded in the Grand Ballroom of The Manhattan Center, New York City, 18 December, 1972
Tracks 6-17 recorded at Philharmonic Hall, New York City, 18 May 1971

Digitally remastered

The New York Philharmonic
plays a leading cultural role in New York City, the United States, and the world. Each season the Orchestra connects with up to 50 million music lovers through live concerts in New York and around the world, international broadcasts, recordings, education programs, and the New York Philharmonic Leon Levy Digital Archives. The 2018–19 season marks Jaap van Zweden’s first as Music Director. The Philharmonic has commissioned and / or premiered works by leading composers from every era since its founding in 1842, including Dvořák’s New World Symphony, John Adams’s Pulitzer Prize–winning On the Transmigration of Souls, and Wynton Marsalis’s The Jungle (Symphony No. 4). This commitment continues in 2018–19, when Jaap van Zweden leads the Philharmonic in the World Premieres of commissions by Ashley Fure, Conrad Tao, Louis Andriessen, Julia Wolfe, and David Lang. A resource for its community and the world, the Philharmonic complements its annual free citywide Concerts in the Parks, Presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer, with Philharmonic Free Fridays, its famed Young People’s Concerts, and the Shanghai Orchestra Academy and Partnership. The oldest American symphony orchestra and one of the oldest in the world, the New York Philharmonic has made more than 2,000 recordings since 1917 and produced its first-ever Facebook Live concert broadcast in 2016.

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