Michael Gielen, ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra - Bartok: The Miraculous Mandarin (Live Recording) (2025) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: I. Beginning (Live)
02. The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: II. First Seduction Game (Live)
03. The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: III. Second Seduction Game (Live)
04. The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: IV. Third Seduction Game (Live)
05. The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: V. The Mandarin Enters (Live)
06. The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: VI. The Girl Collapses in the Mandarin's Lap (Live)
07. The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: VII. The Tramps Leap Out (Live)
08. The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: VIII. Suddenly the Mandarin's Head Appears (Live)
09. The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: IX. Again, the Frightened Tramps Consider How They Are to Get Rid of the Mandarin (Live)
10. The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: X. The Body of the Mandarin Begins to Glow with a Bluish Green Light (Live)
11. The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, Sz. 73: XI. She Resists No Longer - They Embrace (Live)

‘The Miraculous Mandarin’ (op. 19, Sz 73) is Bartok’s last work for the stage. The plot revolves around prostitution, brutality, robbery, murder, being an outsider, (unrequited) love and finally, as a catharsis, a kind of love-death. The music is relentlessly sharp for long stretches, garishly dissonant, radical, probably the most modern score Bartok created. The premiere (1926) in Cologne was a scandal and Konrad Adenauer, then Lord Mayor of Cologne, immediately cancelled the performances. The Violin Concerto No. 2 Sz 112 was composed between August 1937 and 31 December 1938, shortly before Bartok’s emigration to the United States in view of the increasingly oppressive political and social climate in Hungary. Unlike the ‘Mandarin’, the work quickly established itself after its premiere in Amsterdam in 1939 as one of the central violin concertos of the first half of the 20th century and at the same time as one of Bartok’s greatest creations.

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