Description:

Bartók set the European theater world on edge with the controversial The Miraculous Mandarin, a brilliantly-hued expressionist nightmare in which a wealthy Mandarin visits a prostitute only to be suffocated, stabbed, and hanged by thieves and left to die. But in this ballet-pantomime, heard in its entirety here, the Mandarin cannot die until the young lady embraces him one last time. The music is as shocking today as it was at its scandalous 1926 Cologne premiere--after which it was banned. Maestro Dutoit has balanced Bartók's modernist crackle with Brahms's symphonic Second Piano Concerto, a product of the composer's ripest maturity. Up for the challenge is pianist Yefim Bronfman, whose power and poetry have made him into one of the most sought-after artists of our time.

Related Concerts:

• March 19, 2010
  Beethoven's "Eroica"
• March 27, 2010
  Mozart and Elgar
• April 09, 2010
  The Rite of Spring
• April 11, 2010
  The Rite of Spring
• June 05, 2010
  Dutoit Conducts Strauss
• June 06, 2010
  Dutoit Conducts Strauss

Audio Samples:

BARTÓK - The Miraculous Mandarin (complete)

BRAHMS - Piano Concerto No. 2

Concert Enhancements:

Free Pre-Concert Conversation one hour prior to concert (About Pre-Concert Conversations)

Program Notes:

October 01, 2009 Download Adobe Acrobat to view Program Notes.

Series Information:

Part of the 2010 Connoisseur Collection, and package Thursday 6C

Part of the 2010 Weekday Collection, and package Thursday 6C