"The Wooden Prince" by Béla Bartók (Audio + Sheet Music)

TIMECODES:

0:00 - Introduction

5:14 - 1st Dance: Dance of the Princess in the Forest

10:18 - 2nd Dance: Dance of the Trees

15:45 - 3rd Dance: Dance of the Waves

27:20 - 4th Dance: Dance of the Princess with the Wooden Doll

42:42 - 5th Dance: The Princess Pulls and Tugs at the Wooden Prince and Tries to Make Him

Dance

44:36 - 6th Dance: She Tries to Attract the Real Prince Using Her Seductive Dancing

46:13 - 7th Dance: Dismayed, The Princess Attempts To Hurry After The Prince, But The Forest Bars Her Way

The Wooden Prince (Hungarian: A fából faragott királyfi) Op. 13, Sz. 60, is a one-act pantomime ballet composed by Béla Bartók in 1914-1916 (orchestrated 1916-1917) to a scenario by Béla Balázs. It was first performed at the Budapest Opera on 12 May 1917 under the conductor Egisto Tango.

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The Wooden Prince has never achieved the fame of Bartók's other ballet, The Miraculous Mandarin (1926), but it was enough of a success at its premiere to prompt the Opera House to stage Bartók's opera, Bluebeard's Castle the following year (it had been waiting for a performance since 1911). Like Bluebeard, The Wooden Prince uses a huge orchestra (it even includes saxophones), though the critic Paul Griffiths believes it sounds like an earlier work in style [this uploader agrees!]. The music shows the influence of Debussy and Richard Strauss, as well as Wagner (the introduction echoes the prelude of Das Rheingold). Bartók used a scenario by the poet Béla Balázs, which had appeared in the influential literary journal Nyugat in 1912.