When Bartok’s son recorded Dylan Thomas
RIPFrom the Times obit today of the pioneering audiobook publisher Marianne Mantell:
The famously inebriate Thomas proved difficult to reach. The young women eventually contacted him by phone at the Chelsea Hotel at 5am, as he was stumbling back from a party. After meeting them at a local restaurant, he agreed to come to Steinway Hall on 57th Street to be recorded by their friend Peter Bartók (pictured), son of the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók…
Bartók had expected a literary voice but instead heard, in Roney’s words, “a French horn, at times a whole orchestra”, so had to adjust the microphone. Even as Thomas was reading, Roney realised there was something special going on, a poet bringing prose to life in electrifying fashion and giving birth to a new genre — “literature that, like music, must be performed to achieve its real effect”.
Mantell died on January 22, aged 93.
I sometimes visit the Kardomah Café in Swansea. This was a regular haunt of Dylan Thomas, composer Daniel Jones and their friends to chat over coffee.
Ahh, Dylan Thomas, the most beautiful & musical romantic poet in the English language and my all time love.Personal note: As a teen ager here in NYC, I would sometimes hang out in Greenwich Village and once, w/ an older friend, went to The White Horse Tavern. While sipping an under-age of drinking coke,( I was 17) my friend pointed out a man, a few feet from us, whom he said was a great poet.I looked at him, he looked me and we locked eyes for a few seconds. It wasn’t until after he died when I discovered his magnificent poetry and amazing voice, that I realized I was looking at Dylan Thomas.
I have an old recording of Thomas reading his poetry and he was, indeed, charismatic in his delivery. To hear poetry delivered by a poet is so revealing: Robert Frost in his old, dottering age, Joseph Brodsky in his prime, Louis Untermeyer. All so different in character, but the experience of their readings, so intense, especially in person.
Poetry is such a great Art. Contemporary presentations spoil the delivery with background music. The Poetry is the music.
Beautiful. A redemption of “poetry,” whatever it is nowadays.
Thank you Norman.
the record company was caedmon, run by two women. dylan thomas put them on the map; we all had the record
My mentor in recording David Hancock was a Juilliard graduate concert pianist who himself had learned tape recording as an apprentice to Peter Bartok. David later went out on his own, but not before helping Peter Bartok record the American Blues singer Lead Belly (or, Leadbelly or Ledbelly; Huddie Ledbetter).
David recorded himself and David Nadien playing the Franck Sonata. That might have been the first stereo recording of the Franck Sonata, and connoisseurs still treasure it today, along with David’s Poulenc and Grieg sonata recordings with Gerald Tarack.