"The Miraculous Mandarin" by Béla Bartók (Audio + Score)

The Miraculous Mandarin (Hungarian: A csodálatos mandarin; German: Der wunderbare Mandarin) Op. 19, Sz. 73 (BB 82), is a one act pantomime ballet composed by Béla Bartók between 1918–1924, and based on the story by Melchior Lengyel. Premiered November 27, 1926 in Cologne, Germany, it caused a scandal and was subsequently banned on moral grounds. Although more successful at its Prague premiere, it was generally performed during the rest of Bartók's life in the form of a concert suite, which preserves about two-thirds of the original ballet's music. (NOTE: This is not the concert suite - Boulez considered it "treason" to perform that instead of the complete ballet.)