As Jarvi so wholeheartedly reminds us, Bartok was never more self-indulgently effusive with his orchestral skills than in The wooden prince. From the lower depths of what might at first appear to be Wagner's Rhine and a shimmering sunrise worthy of Zarathustra or Daphnis, this sumptuous dance-pantomine is all pictorial wonder and supernatural transformation. Strings undulate (now seductive, now violent in their upheavals) harps, celeste (four hands) and skirling woodwinds are overworked in great swathes of colour as forests come to life and streams and rivers rise up to dance; a saxophone lends its melancholy and con legno effects abound in brittle primitive dances which Jarvi knows just how to pace and point and, where needs be, coarsen: the pivotal pas de deux of the deluded Princess and her wooden doll is a splendidly grotesque affair, a gawky danse macabre with xylophone and castanets in attendance and a terrifically vulgar trumpet/trombone-dominated climax which Jarvi doesn't stint.
But the real wonder of The wooden prince lies in the vein of pathos which humanizes it, and it is here that Jarvi is at his most penetrating. Bartok's beloved clarinet is once again the purveyor of much yearning; the Prince's despair (third dance, ''Dance of the Waves'') is Bartok at his most intensly elegaic (cor anglais leading yet more expressive Philharmonia woodwind), and the grand apotheosis where all nature pays hommage to the Prince (violins in alt, reaching upwards for the light) is, in Jarvi's hands, a shining moment.
Chandos are characteristically generous with their engineering, opening up impressive vistas as deep and sonorous as they are wide, with only the heaviest tuttis spilling over somewhat. The Hungarian sketches—everyday images of countryfolk—are despatched with charm and muscle, and a sharp regional accent.'