Composer and conductor Matthias Pintscher juxtaposes the celestial ecstacy of the Song of Songs with Bartók’s hellish nightmare, The Miraculous Mandarin.
About this concert
Matthias Pintscher conducts The Miraculous Mandarin, Béla Bartók’s exciting music for a pantomime which, a hundred years ago in Hungary, was deemed too shocking to be performed. The music proved a success, however, and to this day, the work sounds modern. Now the raw story about lust and power will be brought to life by the dancing puppets of the Duda Paiva Company.
Bartók’s earthy Mandarin contrasts sharply with composer-conductor Matthias Pintscher’s ecstatic shirim, inspired by ‘the most beautiful love poems ever written’, the Song of Songs. Pintscher has added a new movement with choir to this cycle for baritone and orchestra which is being given its belated Dutch premiere (originally scheduled to take place in January 2021), featuring Dutch baritone Thomas Oliemans. Excerpts from the imposing Concerto for Orchestra by the Slovenian composer Nina Šenk constitute an appropriate opening work.
Bartók’s exciting pantomime music still sounds modern, and has inspired a new staging featuring the lifelike dancing puppets of the Duda Paiva Company.
