Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Bela Bartok - Suite From "the Wooden Prince", Op. 13 - Prelude


The Minnesota Orchestra
Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, conductor

Unfortunately, the banding on the disc apparently didn't lead to a clean termination of the Prelude but this is a demonstration.

Upon escaping Poland, Skrowaczewski took the director's post with the Minnesota Orchestra, a number of magnificent recordings of the music of Bartok, Stravinsky and other 20th century recordings by them were issued by the super-bargain Vox Box label.   They show that, instead of cultivating one all-purpose sound,  Skrowaczewski let the music determine the approach.  He was a composer, himself, I generally find that a composer is often much more likely to do that when they conduct the music of other people.

Here, from the recording they made from the Rite of Spring, The Auguries of Spring and the Dances of the Maidens and Youths.



Unfortunately, these automatically posted Youtubes tend to cut off in odd places.  If you can get the CDs of these, they are a real bargain.

Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, died earlier this year.  I should have noted it at the time but was still depressed over Trump-McConnell-Ryan.   He was 93 and he had a great life in music.  May he have a great afterlife.

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