By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, July 28, 2024 performance – When Boston Symphony Orchestra music director Andris Nelsons opened the second part of the program that would close the orchestra’s weekend celebration of the 150th anniversary of Serge Koussevitsky’s birth, he made a conductor’s decision that, in my mind, created a new work by the merging of two discrete compositions.
He cued the orchestra to begin Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms before the audience had time to applaud Randall Thompson’s Alleluia, which they were poised to greet with the great ovation it deserved. Composed at Koussevitsky’s request, for the 1940 inauguration of the Tanglewood (nee Berkshire) Music Center, it has been performed by every class since, at their opening exercises. Now held in Ozawa Hall, free and open to the public, they were held this year during the afternoon of the BSO’s opening night concert.
The six minute piece was performed after intermission, after the audience had already been thrilled by Aaron Copland’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, with soloist Paul Lewis. Copland stands near Koussevitsky in the inner circle of the Tanglewood pantheon. Today’s program includes a photo of the Copland bust that was commissioned by Boston Pops conductor emeritus John Williams, for placement in the formal garden at the eastern end of the sprawling Tanglewood campus.
