Bartók, The Miraculous Mandarin, Suite, op. 19
A versatile and highly respected conductor, Christoph von Dohnányi has pursued a remarkable career both in Europe and the United States. After completing a long tenure as musical director and manager of the Frankfurt Opera, he was appointed to the same posts at the Hamburg State Opera. In 1984 he succeeded Lorin Maazel as principal conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. He became first guest conductor of the London Philharmonic in 1994 as well. His commitment to new music is evident both in concert and in recordings. He led the premieres of Henze’s “Der junge Lord” and “Die Bassariden”. The “Miraculous Mandarin” was recorded in 1977 at Vienna’s Musikvereinssaal in a concert also featuring Richard Strauss’s “Burleske” and Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” Symphony.
Herzog Blaubarts Burg (Bluebeard’s Castle)
Bartók called his opera an “infinitely sad Adagio”. Inspired by Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist tale, the work takes us on a psychological journey into the soul of the legendary Bluebeard, who is depicted here not as a ruthless murderer but as a sorrowing, idealistic man. By using Hungarian singers, Sir Georg Solti has found the ideal cast for evoking the high drama and emotional depths of this Hungarian, yet universally moving opera.
Salzburg Festival 2022: Andris Nelsons & Yefim Bronfman
Praised as an “exuberant, intoxicating conductor” (Boston Globe), Grammy Awardwinning Andris Nelsons is one of the most renowned and innovative conductors on the international scene today and his connection with the Wiener Philharmoniker is something special: Nelsons has developed a physical language with the players whose musical partner he has been since 2010. At the 2022 Salzburg Festival edition, Andris Nelsons and the Wiener Philharmoniker continue their acclaimed Mahler cycle with the Fifth Symphony, pairing it with Bartók’s second piano concerto. “Bronfman shows everything: impeccable technique, expressive art, power, but also a relaxed attitude when he delicately weaves in Bartók’s folklore quotations. […] The “Viennese”, with Andris Nelsons of one heart and soul. […] Great jubilation.” (Der Standard) PROGRAM: Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 2; Schumann: Arabesque op. 18; Mahler: Symphony No. 5.
Salzburg Festival 2020: András Schiff plays Schubert and Janácek
“The virtuosic and at the same time musical brilliance made the audience hold its breath. An experience” Der Standard. PROGRAM Schubert: Four Impromptus, D. 935 . Piano Sonata, D. 840, Impromptu No. 3, D. 899, Moment musical No. 3, D. 780; Janácek: In the Mists (V mlhách), Piano Sonata 1. X. 1905, Dobrou noc! (Good Night!); Bartók: Kanásztánc (Swine-herd‘s Dance) from For Children
Salzburg Festival: Opening Concert 2008
Put one of the world’s greatest orchestras in the hands of one of the foremost specialists of 20th century music, add a soloist who is one of today’s leading pianists and conductors, and you are assured of a concert of superlatives that pays glowing tribute to three major works of the past century. The official Salzburg Festival opening concert of the Wiener Philharmoniker is conducted by Pierre Boulez, once the ‘enfant terrible’ of the musical world, now a sensitive, analytical conductor of works from the 19th and 20th centuries. Combining Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 1 – Daniel Barenboim is the soloist – with Maurice Ravel’s ‘Valses nobles et sentimentales’ and Igor Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’ ballet in its full-length version of 1910, Boulez weaves a compelling musical texture that uncovers the links among the three works and the three composers.
Salzburg Festival 2022: Bluebeard’s Castle
A pinnacle of early 20th-century musical theatre, Bluebeard’s Castle was composed to a text by Béla Balázs in 1911. The story of Bluebeard has its literary archetype in Charles Perrault’s fairy tales and tells of a wife-murderer who forbids his latest wife, who is driven by curiosity, to open a door behind which he has hidden his previous victims. Bartók’s opera develops entirely out of the dialogue between the two protagonists, Bluebeard and Judith, revealing an approach to the drama as a kind of spiritual and emotional force field. ‘Where is the stage: outside or within?’, as the prologue puts it, an invitation to the audience to ask themselves questions about the enigmatic nature of theatre as an allusive reverberation of the real. “Truly fascinating […] Outstanding: Mika Kares and Ausrine Stundyte.” (La Stampa)
Quatuor Diotima – Bela Bartók’s Complete String Quartets
At the atmospheric venue of the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, the “brilliant ensemble” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) of the Quatuor Diotima meet the challenge of performing the entire cycle of Béla Bartók’s string quartets. Founded in 1996 by laureates of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, the Diotima Quartet has become one of the world’s most in-demand ensembles. Bartók’s six string quartets, written between 1908 and 1939, are the shortest summaries of his compositional thinking. Limited to four voices and a restricted supply of tonal colours – of which Bartók makes full use – they are of enormous richness and density, which turns every listening into a voyage of iscovery. “The Diotima Quartet performs Bartók’s demanding chamber music with promising commitment, captivating inner activity, depth, poetic finesse and precision.” (Classiquenews)
Salonen conducts Bartók
Live from the awe-inspiring new Philharmonie de Paris, the French capital’s elite orchestra performs a programme devoted to the endlessly fascinating music of Béla Bartók. On the podium is Esa-Pekka Salonen, one of the composer’s truly authoritative interpreters. This concert was hailed as “revelatory” by the leading French journal Diapason, “a unique expressive and sensory voyage (…) with precise phrasing and incredible flexibility (…) an irresistible feeling for timbre, tightropewalking accents, acoustic spaces, instrumental breathing (…) rhythmic agility, range of sensitive colours, humour and irony, brilliance, luminosity, moments of astonishing sweetness. The Orchestre de Paris soared and surpassed itself. Salonen is clearly a unique artist.” PROGRAM Bartok: Dance Suite; Concerto for two Pianos, Percussion and Orchestra; Concerto for Orchestra
RCO: Mäkelä conducts Ravel, Bartók, and Connesson
The Concertgebouw Orchestra, conductor Klaus Mäkelä and two of the orchestra’s soloists transport you to distant worlds. Fairy tales by Ravel and Bartók and two works by the contemporary sound wizard Guillaume Connesson: four pieces of music to take in visually. PROGRAM Ravel: Shéhérazade; Connesson: Les belles heures (oboe concerto, commission, Dutch premiere); Danses concertantes (flute concerto, commission, Dutch premiere); Bartók: music from ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’