Music From The Machine Age, Bartok, Holst Etc.

Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra; Sascha Goetzel, conductor

Bartok: Miraculous Mandarin Suite
Holst: Ballet music from The Perfect Foo
Ravel: La Valse
Prokofiev: Scythian Suite
Schulhoff: Ogelala excerpts

o After their acclaimed debut recording for ONYX of Respighi, Florent Schmitt and Hindemith, the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra and their charismatic Viennese music director Sascha Goetzel have devised a fascinating programme of
ballet music composed during the turbulent inter-war years of the 20th century.
o The music reflects the edgy, dangerous and turbulent political and social landscape of the period. This is music of great rhythmic vitality: Ravel's refracted memories of a vanished
Habsburg Vienna destroyed by the 1914-18 War, to the primitive barbarism of Prokofiev's Scythian Suite, and the lurid violence of Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin with its themes of lust, criminality, prostitution and murder.
o Schulhoff's ballet Ogelala like Prokofiev's score concerns pagan rituals and warring tribes, and a young couple who are meant to kill each other, but end up falling in love.
o Holst's comic opera, The Perfect Fool, written in 1918-22, begins with a ballet which is danced by Spirits of Earth, Water and Fire. The score is brilliant - and though less concerned with human drama than the other works on this disc, the drive, energy and sheer brilliance of Holst's score is very much of its time.
o This new CD is another orchestral tour de force from Sascha Goetzel and this outstanding orchestra.

Price: $21.98