BARTOK/DORATI: THE WOODEN PRINCE Mercury Living Presence SR 90426: SEALED LP

$

50

Offered is The Wooden Prince, by Bela Bartok, in the Mercury Living Presence series SR 90426.

The vinyl is sealed in its plastic inner sleeve, & while the cover is not, it is in EX+ condition with minor scuffing & faint ringwear. I can't discern the stamper numbers in the deadwax, as the plastic inner sleeve is too opaque.

From Wikipedia,

"The Wooden Prince has never achieved the fame of Bartók's other ballet, The Miraculous Mandarin (1926), but it was enough of a success at its premiere to prompt the Opera House to stage Bartók's opera, Bluebeard's Castle the following year (it had been waiting for a performance since 1911). Like Bluebeard, The Wooden Prince uses a huge orchestra (it even includes saxophones), though the critic Paul Griffiths believes it sounds like an earlier work in style (Griffiths p.71). The music shows the influence of Debussy and Richard Strauss, as well as Wagner (the introduction echoes the prelude of Das Rheingold). Bartók used a scenario by the poet Béla Balázs, which had appeared in the influential literary journal Nyugat in 1912.

Instrumentation

This is probably the work in which Bartók uses his largest orchestra:

• Woodwinds: 4 flutes (third doubling on piccolo 2, fourth on piccolo 1), 4 oboes (third on English horn 2, fourth on English horn 1), 4 clarinets (third doubling on sopranino clarinet, fourth on bass clarinet), 4 bassoons (third and fourth doubling on contrabassoons), Alto saxophone in E flat, tenor saxophone in B flat (doubling on baritone saxophone in E flat)

• Brass: 4 horns, 6 trumpets (4 trumpets and 2 cornets, all in B flat), 3 trombones, tuba
• Percussion (timpanist and 5 players): timpani, bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, field drum, triangle, tam-tam, glockenspiel, xylophone, castanets
• 2 harps, celesta for 4 hands
• strings: 16 first and 16 second violins, 12 violas, 10 cellos, 8 double basses"

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