WDR SINFONIEORCHESTER/ CRISTIAN MACELARU Bartók: The Wooden Prince & Dance Suite HHHHLinn Records

• Published date: 17 March 2023

The title comes from the strange stick puppet the prince adorns with his own hair, which finally gets the princess's attention, but at the expense of the prince himself

The ultimately successful fairy-induced transformation sees the prince radiant and the princess desolate, tired of the now malfunctioning puppet. Only when she cuts her own hair and throws away her crown are prince and princess ready to unite. Balász's concern was the situation "when an act of creation becomes a rival of the creator" and "the painful glory when a woman prefers the poems to the poet, the picture to the painter".

The music...