Boulez conducts Bartok “The Miraculous Mandarin”

Boulez conducts Bartok
The Miraculous Mandarin / Dance Suite

CBS Sony (Japan) 1972

SOCP 5 (LP) Quadraphonic. gatefold sleeve.

sleeve : VG+(small stains.)

media : EX-/EX-(some light surface noises.)

Pierre Boulez, a composer who thoroughly studied the techniques of total serialism with a mathematical mind, and also practiced various avant-garde works as a conductor from the 1950s onward, took up the works of Bela Bartok, a Hungarian composer who left many pieces reflecting his study of folk music from Eastern Europe and North Africa. On side A, "The Wonderful Chinese Officials" is a complete version of the stage music for a ballet that was first performed in 1926, but was considered difficult and unsound and was shut down after only one day. The B-side "Dance Suite" was commissioned by the Hungarian government in 1923, and is composed of five different dance rhythms that express Bartok's unique nationalistic sentiment.