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A new recording from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra brings together powerful, expressive, energetic music, centred on the work of Béla Bartók. Anchoring the orchestra’s third release on the Harmonia Mundi label are Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra and the complete score to his once-scandalous pantomime The Miraculous Mandarin.

Recorded live at Roy Thomson Hall, the performance restores the rarely heard final section of Mandarin and features the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Alongside Bartók’s iconic works is the sediments, a TSO-commissioned piece by Canadian composer and TSO Composer Advisor Emilie LeBel, offering a contemporary perspective—reflective, spacious, and quietly compelling—set against Bartók’s kinetic sound world.

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Join TSO Composer Advisor Emilie LeBel as she walks us through the process of composing and recording the sediments. 

Live Recording,
from Roy Thomson Hall

Gustavo Gimeno, conductor
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

Track Listing

BÉLA BARTÓK (1881-1945)
The Miraculous Mandarin Op. 19, Sz.73
(A csodálatos mandarin / Le Mandarin merveilleux)
Pantomime ballet in one act after Melchior Lengyel
1 | I. Beginning - Curtain rises (3’05)
2 | II. First seduction game (3’37)
3 | III. Second seduction game (3’08)
4 | IV. Third seduction game - The Mandarin enters (4’11)
5 | V. Dance of the girl (4’51)
6 | VI. The chase - The tramps leap out (4’27)
7 | VII. Suddenly the Mandarin’s head appears (7’17)
8 | VIII. The Mandarin falls to the floor (2’15)

EMILIE CECILIA LEBEL (b.1979)
9 | the sediments (original concert version) (15'36)
TSO Commission – World Première Recording

BÉLA BARTÓK
Concerto for Orchestra BB 123/Sz. 116
10 | I. Introduzione (10’18)
11 | II. Giuoco delle coppie (6’22)
12 | III. Elegia (7’09)
13 | IV. Intermezzo interrotto (4’20)
14 | V. Finale (9’46)

Hear from Music Director Gustavo Gimeno, composer Emilie LeBel, and more, as they dive into the music behind The Miraculous Mandarin.