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Philharmonia Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen - Bela Bartok: The Miraculous Mandarin; Dance Suite; Contrasts (2016)

Posted By: Designol

Date: 7 Nov 2022 14:09:55

Philharmonia Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen - Bela Bartok: The Miraculous Mandarin; Dance Suite; Contrasts (2016)

Béla Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin; Dance Suite; Contrasts (2016)
Philharmonia Orchestra; Philharmonia Voices; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Yefim Bronfman, piano; Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay, violin; Mark Van de Wiel, clarinet
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 289 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 163 Mb | Artwork included
Genre: Classical | Label: Signum Records | # SIGCD466 | Time: 01:08:31

Recorded as part of their critically praised ‘Infernal Dance’ season, the Philharmonia Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen explore three contrasting works by Bela Bartok – the chamber piece Contrasts, and the orchestral works Dance Suite and The Miraculous Mandarin. Contrasts is one of Bela Bartok’s most imaginative forays into the world of chamber music. His only chamber work involving a woodwind instrument (for Piano, Clarinet and Violin), Contrasts originated in a commission from the American ‘King of Swing’, Benny Goodman. Composed to mark the 50th anniversary of Budapest in 1923, Bartok’s Dance Suite is a rhapsodic collection of folk inspired tunes that marked a sonorous change in direction from the composer’s more dissonant works up to that point. The ballet-pantomime The Miraculous Mandarin is raw, dangerous, exotic and elemental: using the rarely performed full ballet score it is frenzied music, percussive, sensuous and violent, telling a shocking story of desire and death.

Most music doesn’t suit safety, and the stakes are always higher when an orchestra knows it is being recorded live – no studio retakes, no patching (probably). This Bartók disc comes from the Philharmonia’s 2011 Infernal Dance series – and the now-or-never concert adrenaline is palpable. There’s unflinching attack in the savage pantomime The Miraculous Mandarin, deadpan wit in the gentler Dance Suite, and it’s all delivered with that unnervingly meticulous, steely focus that conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen gets from the Philharmonia. His interpretations aren’t the wildest, and some might like their Bartók rougher-edged, but I was drawn in by the cool ferocity and steadfast virtuosity of these performances. As a very nice extra we get Contrasts, a glory of a trio commissioned by Benny Goodman in 1938, played with poker-faced charisma by pianist Yefim Bronfman, violinist Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay and clarinettist Mark van de Wiel.

Review by Kate Molleson, The Guardian

This disc presents a satisfying if somewhat quirkily planned programme. Near the opening of The Miraculous Mandarin ballet Salonen takes heed of Bartók’s poco allargando marking, a directive that in the wrong hands makes the orchestra sound as if it’s struggling. Not here though. Also, with Salonen the distinction between the pianissimo bass clarinet and the piano clarinet in A at the start of the first decoy game is very well judged, the girl – a beautiful young girl forced to lure men – seeming here tentative, even a little shy at first. That works too. Superb clarinet playing from the Philharmonia soloists, as in the two subsequent games, where the tension mounts (screaming woodwinds really tell) and Salonen marks the mandarin’s arrival with gutsy accents and powerful brass. Great syncopated trombones at the lead-in to the ‘chase’, taken at a frighteningly fast tempo (a little too fast to achieve a truly ruvido – rough – edge maybe), the climax slowing to marcatissimo, as prescribed.

But the real draw in this performance is the sequence beyond the ‘chase’ where the tramps leap out (tr 7), strip the mandarin of his valuables and attempt to suffocate him. Beyond that, and in spite of the tramps’ attempt at murder, the mandarin can only die when his longing for the girl is fulfilled. Salonen keeps this highly graphic and emotionally potent music on the move, so much so that you begin to wonder why anyone bothers with the suite: as with Ravel’s Mother Goose ballet, the whole work is so much more effective, and this performance is more compelling than most. It generates a genuine sense of theatre.

The Dance Suite is very good too, though I would have liked a more razor-sharp edge to the trombones in the second dance. Salonen sustains an especially beautiful performance of the tranquil fourth dance and delivers a firmly decisive finale. Interesting that, rather than offer us, say, the two Romanian Dances or the Hungarian Peasant Songs, Signum rounds things off with a sensitive, very well-played and pleasingly droll rendition of Contrasts with Yefim Bronfman underpinning violinist Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay and clarinettist Mark van de Wiel. The finale is especially effective.

As to a top choice for the complete Mandarin, Fischer is still pretty amazing and his recording has more clarity than this Signum production which, although not lacking in presence, does occasionally want for internal clarity. But it’s a great disc all the same.

Review by Rob Cowan, Gramophone Magazine

Béla Bartók at Allmusic
Béla Bartók at Wiki

Esa-Pekka Salonen at Allmusic
Esa-Pekka Salonen Website
Esa-Pekka Salonen at Wiki

Philharmonia Orchestra
Philharmonia Voices (The Miraculous Mandarin)
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor

Yefim Bronfman, piano
Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay, violin
Mark Van de Wiel, clarinet

rec. Royal Festival Hall, London January 27, 2011 (Mandarin), October 27, 2011

Tracklist:

The Miraculous Mandarin (1918-19)
01. Introduction: A Bustling City Street (3:29)
02. 1st Decoy Game (3:39)
03. 2nd Decoy Game (3:21)
04. 3rd Decoy Game (1:39)
05. The Mandarin Enters … (7:25)
06. The Girl Sinks Down … (2:16)
07. The Tramps Leap Out … (2:32)
08. Suddenly the Mandarin's Head Appears Between the Pillows (3:15)
09. The Terrified Tramps Discuss How They Are to Get Rid of the Mandarin (2:04)
10. The Body of the Mandarin Begins to Glow (1:49)
11. The Mandarin Falls on the Floor (2:33)

Dance Suite (1923)
12. I. Moderato (3:35)
13. II. Allegro molto (2:19)
14. III. Allegro vivace (3:07)
15. IV. Molto tranquillo (3:27)
16. V. Commodo - Finale (5:00)

Contrasts (1938)
17. I. Verbunkos (Recruiting Dance) (5:30)
18. II. Pihen (Relaxation) (4:39)
19. III. Sebes (Fast Dance) (6:50)

EAC log

Exact Audio Copy V1.1 from 23. June 2015

EAC extraction logfile from 28. December 2016, 2:58

Philharmonia Orchestra, Philharmonia Voices, Esa-Pekka Salonen / Bartók - The Miraculous Mandarin; Dance Suite; Contrasts

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Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "Date=%year%" -T "Genre=%genre%" %source%

TOC of the extracted CD

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Range status and errors

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Copy CRC 6F5CC08E
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==== Log checksum E367998ADB023C716486CDFB7AE39711C01338856902645FBEEE17F9018C328E ====

DR log

foobar2000 1.2 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2017-09-23 01:03:00

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: Philharmonia Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen / Bartók - The Miraculous Mandarin; Dance Suite; Contrasts
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DR16 -2.56 dB -27.28 dB 3:35 12-Dance Suite - I. Moderato
DR14 0.00 dB -22.61 dB 2:19 13-Dance Suite - II. Allegro molto
DR13 -2.35 dB -20.97 dB 3:07 14-Dance Suite - III. Allegro vivace
DR11 -19.42 dB -36.02 dB 3:27 15-Dance Suite - IV. Molto tranquillo
DR16 0.00 dB -20.98 dB 5:00 16-Dance Suite - V. Commodo - Finale
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Number of tracks: 5
Official DR value: DR14

Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 577 kbps
Codec: FLAC
================================================================================

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: Philharmonia Orchestra, Philharmonia Voices, Esa-Pekka Salonen / Bartók - The Miraculous Mandarin; Dance Suite; Contrasts (1-11)
Yefim Bronfman, Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay, Mark Van de Wiel / Bartók - The Miraculous Mandarin; Dance Suite; Contrasts (12-14)
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DR13 0.00 dB -21.52 dB 3:29 01-The Miraculous Mandarin - Introduction: A Bustling City Street
DR15 -3.85 dB -25.44 dB 3:39 02-The Miraculous Mandarin - 1st Decoy Game
DR17 -1.86 dB -27.07 dB 3:21 03-The Miraculous Mandarin - 2nd Decoy Game
DR12 -3.95 dB -25.61 dB 1:39 04-The Miraculous Mandarin - 3rd Decoy Game
DR16 -0.13 dB -23.44 dB 7:25 05-The Miraculous Mandarin - The Mandarin Enters …
DR12 0.00 dB -16.64 dB 2:16 06-The Miraculous Mandarin - The Girl Sinks Down …
DR14 0.00 dB -18.70 dB 2:32 07-The Miraculous Mandarin - The Tramps Leap Out …
DR16 -0.10 dB -22.80 dB 3:15 08-The Miraculous Mandarin - Suddenly the Mandarin's Head Appears Between the Pillows
DR13 -3.84 dB -23.60 dB 2:04 09-The Miraculous Mandarin - The Terrified Tramps Discuss How They Are to Get Rid of the Mandarin
DR13 -7.32 dB -27.23 dB 1:49 10-The Miraculous Mandarin - The Body of the Mandarin Begins to Glow
DR12 -3.80 dB -23.55 dB 2:33 11-The Miraculous Mandarin - The Mandarin Falls on the Floor
DR14 -4.44 dB -24.86 dB 5:30 17-Contrasts - I. Verbunkos (Recruiting Dance)
DR14 -11.24 dB -31.84 dB 4:39 18-Contrasts - II. Pihen (Relaxation)
DR14 0.00 dB -21.52 dB 6:50 19-Contrasts - III. Sebes (Fast Dance)
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Number of tracks: 14
Official DR value: DR14

Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 577 kbps
Codec: FLAC
================================================================================

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