Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin; Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta
The Miraculous Mandarinis, along with Stravinsky'sThe Rite  of Spring, one of the great expressions of musical savagery, and here the  composer illustrates the "urban jungle." The music opens with sounds of traffic  and commotion, and it's an expressionist nightmare from that point on. Three men  mug a woman and force her to lure men into their den to be robbed in turn. One  of them turns out to be a wealthy Chinese man whose passion for the woman is so  strong that, despite being stabbed, suffocated, and strung up on a lamp cord, he  will not die until the woman permits him to embrace her. Then his wounds open  and he bleeds to death. Quite a story, and the music, as well as this  performance, suits it perfectly. Have fun.--David Hurwitz