Bartók, Béla: The Miraculous Mandarin - Suite (1918-1919)


Scoring
3.3.3.3-4.3.3.1-timp.perc-harp-cel-pft-org-strings

Repertoire Note  
Bartók’s dramatic tour-de force!
Along with Concerto for Orchestra and the setting of Village Scenes, it demonstrates his most effective use of orchestral resource. Homolya described it as “folk music… now dissolved in an even more complex idiom of art music”. The work is equally effective as an orchestral suite, the full pantomime on stage or the full pantomime music presented in concert setting.

Note by Malcolm Gillies