It's colorful enough and you can dance to it, but
Marin Alsop and the
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra's 2008 recording of
Bartók's The Wooden Prince is overall pretty dull. It's not that
Alsop doesn't grasp the score. She clearly knows how to accent the rhythms and how to keep the tempos moving in the ballet's seven big dances. But the rhythms and dances sound deracinated with nothing of the big Hungarian beat that drives
Antal Dorati's classic 1957 Mercury recording with the
London Symphony Orchestra. In the "Fourth Dance,"
Alsop's flowing tempo misses the grotesque character of the music, which
Dorati's headlong gallop catches to perfection. And it's certainly not that the
Bournemouth Symphony can't play the notes. A finely polished orchestra since the '60s, the southern England band has a tight ensemble with plenty of first-rate woodwind soloists. But their colors are not bright enough for
Bartók's score. The dappled sonorities of the
Bournemouth's opening Molto moderato and the sculpted waves of sound in the "Second Dance" are nowhere near as edgy as they need to be to make the music work. While
Alsop's fans may reasonably find aspects of this performance to admire, those who don't already know the work are directed toward
Dorati's Mercury recording. Naxos' digital sound is round and full, not the qualities one looks for
Bartók recordings.