The Wooden Prince
The Wooden Prince ( Hungarian original title A fából faragott királyfi ), Op 13 (Sz 60) is a one-act dance performance by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, with a libretto by Béla Balázs József Ujfalussy. The premiere was held in Budapest on 12 May 1917.
- 6.1 complete recordings
- 6.2 film version of the ballet
Action of the dance game
The one-act work deals with a fairy tale theme with a princess and a prince as actors. The dance game consists of a prologue ("Introduction" ) and seven dances with the following designations:
- First Dance: Dance of the Princess in the Forest
- Second Dance: Dance of the Trees
- Third Dance: Dance Wave
- Fourth Dance: Dance of the Princess with the Wooden Doll
- Fifth Dance: The Princess pulls and plucks him and wants to force him to dance
- Sixth Dance: With a seductive dance she wants to lure him to
- Seventh Dance: The Princess wants frightened rush to him, but the wood keeps it at
The prelude begins with a deep pedal note in C major with overtones which initiates the subsequent awakening of nature and has parallels with the prelude of Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold.
Only after the prologue is where the real action. A haughty princess under the care of a fairy and a prince live, separated by a forest and a creek in their castles. The prince falls in love with the princess, but through the enchanted by the fairy forest ( Dance of the Trees ) and an intumescent waters ( wave dance) prevented. First, there is the whole of nature against the prince. In order to attract the attention of the princess, he makes a wooden doll, which he endows with his hair, his clothes and his crown. The princess falls in love instead of the prince in the bugbear that the fairy enchanted so that he can jump and dance. She dances with him in a pas de deux ( dance of the Princess with the wooden dummy ) without paying attention to the prince. The prince is desperate, but nature, which was previously hostile to him, comforting him. When the doll is always feeble and lifeless collapses, it is pushed aside by the Princess. Only now it recognizes the prince and falls in love with him. This however, eludes her. Also, the forest turns out to meet her and mocked them with various visages wooden prince. Only when the princess overcomes her pride and gets rid of the final dance her ornaments and her hair, she has broken the spell. Prince and Princess are united, and also the nature is reconciled. The work concludes with a horn melody.
Music
Occupation
The staged performance of the work requires not only the dancers, a full orchestra in the following line:
- Wind: 4 flutes ( 3rd and 4th flute and piccolo ), 4 oboes (3rd and 4th also English horn); Alto saxophone in Eb; Tenor saxophone in Bb ( baritone saxophone); 4 clarinets in B (also clarinets in A, 3rd and 4th clarinet in Eb); 1 bass clarinet, 1 bass clarinet in A; 4 bassoons (3rd and 4th also contrabassoon ); 4 Horns; 4 Trumpets in B; 2 cornets in B; 3 trombones; Tuba;
- Timpani; great percussion with 5 drummers;
- Celesta ( 2 players ); 2 harps;
- Strings: 16 first violins, 16 second violins, 12 violas, cellos, 10, 8 double basses.
The performance lasts about 45 minutes.
Stylistic
Although Bartók used in the tradition of Richard Strauss in The Wooden Prince a great late Romantic orchestra, but is reflected in the innovative instrumentation, by inserting also uncommon instruments such as saxophone, celesta and a large percussion battery. In the musical language the work is not late romantic, but rather impressionistic, with a " bitter colourfulness " prevails.
Despite the parallels of the prelude to Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold Prelude because of the deep organ point in C major with overtones Bartók's musical language is independent and used "non- diatonic " but heptatonale tone series is partly based on his study of Romanian folk music.
In the further course of the work is reflected in Bartók's representations of nature close to folk music, but " not. Folklore in the form of quotations, but in its own, modeled on folk song forms "
Formation
After Bartók had his 1911 consummate act opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle, with a libretto by Béla Balázs for Erkel competition and in 1912 filed for Rózsavölgyi Competition, it was rejected both times as " unplayable ". Because of this disappointment, Bartók withdrew from the New Hungarian Music Society and was mainly concerned with the evaluation of its recorded on wax cylinders Hungarian folk music (" peasant music "), which represented a counterpoint to the popular urban music. In 1912, he read in the literary Nyugat ( West ) Béla Balázs ' design for a ballet that interested him. In 1914 he began composing, which is apparent from a letter to his mother, " the ballet is produced; because it calls for it. "After the outbreak of the First World War, however, Bartók interrupted the work as a composer, he saw little chance to bring the ballet to the performance. It was not until 1916 he continued the interrupted composition after Béla Balázs had reached in negotiations with the Budapest Opera House, that the work should be premiered in the spring of 1917. In January 1917 Bartók completed the work.
1917 Bartók wrote in retrospect on the making of wooden carved prince, that the impulse to compose the ballet from the dismissal of his opera arose that was not regarded as a full-length because of their static action as unplayable and because of its brevity. In combination with the " spectacular, colorful, rich and variable events " of the dance game, however, he saw a way to " perform both works in one night. "
The premiere was postponed several times, on the one hand, because the orchestra had again refused to perform the work of Bartók, on the other hand but also because no one wanted to take care of the work on stage, so finally Béla Balázs stepped in as director. That it came to the premiere, despite these intrigues, not least the merit of the Italian conductor Egisto Tango, who worked at the Budapest Opera House since 1913.
Reception
During the premiere on May 12, 1917 ruled by the procedure of Béla Balázs an " electric atmosphere ", where many conservative viewers waited fall through the work to be seen. Ultimately, however, gave the "Gallery" the work of the force as progressive composers Bartók a resounding success. Bartók's Wooden Carved Prince remained on the board and was instrumental in that in the following year also Bartók's opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle was successfully premiered.
Only the conservative music critics found objections. So Zoltán Kodály reported in his essay on Béla Bartók: "At that time he found [= Bartók ] for the desolation of his prince sounds that made shivers the audience and some critics prompted to remark that the work was missed because the music for a fairy tale anmute too tragic. " Although other recognized " Bartók's genius in the grotesque dances, especially where the wood doll, but she wanted [= the review] let the expressive scenes befall no justice, she explained rather for cold. "
A compiled by Bartok Concerto Suite with three dances from the work was first performed on February 23, 1931 under the direction of Ernst von Dohnányi.
Today, the wood -carved Prince stands in the shadow of the other two stage works of Bartók, the opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle and the resulting 1918-1924 dance pantomime The Miraculous Mandarin, which has achieved a great reputation after the end of World War II as a concert suite.
A description of the wooden carved Prince lacking in Reclams ballet guide, 2006 edition, although the work is still listed as either ballet or concert.