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Beethoven

Beethoven and fate at Tanglewood, July 11, 2021

Koussevitsky Music Shed, Tanglewood, the Berkshires; Dave Read photo

Koussevitsky Music Shed, Tanglewood, the Berkshires; Dave Read photo

Article by Dave Read

The BSO program for July 11, 2021 included a concerto by Sibelius, a symphony by Dvorak, both natives of the 19th century, that were preceded by something composed by John Carlos, who was born during the Reagan administration.

Where else in the entertainment-scape can we find such fare, can we witness the work of a living artist yet wrestling with the gods of his genre? The genesis of Mr. Carlos’ work arises in an encounter with Beethoven’s notebook of 1815, wherein he read this:

“Iliad, The Twenty-second book.
But fate now conquers; I am hers; and yet not she shall share
In my renown; that life is left to every noble spirit
And that some great deed shall beget that all lives shall inherit.”

Carlos writes this in today’s program notes:

“We know that Beethoven strived to overcome many obstacles in his life and documented his aspirations to prevail, despite his ailments. Whatever the specific reason for including this particularly profound passage from the Iliad, in the end, it seems that Beethoven relinquished to fate. Fate now conquers.”

The performance was beautiful, and the composer was called to the podium where we hope he heard Beethoven’s own acclaim amid the audience’s hearty applause as it filled the Koussevitsky Music Shed.

Baiba Skride’s performance of the Sibelius violin concerto in D minor, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the BSO’s rendition of the Dvorak Symphony No. 6 in D, under the sure hand of Andris Nelsons, combined to make for a splendid afternoon of musical entertainment, on a day such as one wishes were the norm rather than the exception, this rainy summer.

Giancarlo Guerrero conducts climactic Beethoven’s Ninth at Tanglewood

Giancarlo Guerrero conducts climactic Beethoven's Ninth at Tanglewood, Aug. 25, 2019; Hilary Scott photo.

Article updated August 27, 2019 by Dave Read

To close the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2019 season at Tanglewood in the Berkshires, guest conductor Giancarlo Guerrero conducted the annual climactic Beethoven’s Ninth. The program opened with Arnold Schoenberg’s brief choral work Friede auf Erden, which translates to “Peace on Earth.” It has roots as a Swiss Yuletide poem, as Ode to Joy originated as a drinking song, making them perfectly suitable bedfellows for a Tanglewood afternoon!

Conductor James Burton’s Tanglewood Festival Chorus was outstanding; I am always in awe of the magnificient instrument they become, the synthesis of scores and scores of voices into some bespoke thing that pleases the senses as it moves the soul. For the Beethoven, of course, they are augmented by a solo quartet, soprano Nicole Cabell, mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, tenor Nicholas Phan, and bass Morris Robinson.

Maestro Guerrero, a native of Nicaragua who is music director of the Nashville Symphony, conducts with a focused and bold manner. Without seeming at all histrionic, he commands your attention – there was one passage where it looked as if he were an augur boring through the podium.

The program, with the “peace on earth” preface concluding in time for the national bell-ringing, reflects the orchestra’s decision to participate in what seems like a misguided project of the National Parks Service, of all people, to mark the anniversary of the arrival in the Virginia colony of a ship carrying slaves from Africa. We say misguided because the only people who may be up in the air about slavery today are busy dismantling America’s National Parks, and generally making life miserable for everybody.

Furthermore, descriptions of the ship’s arrival in 1619 betrayed the attention to detail of a Philadelphia lawyer, because 1619 did not mark the arrival here of slavery, which was a tactic used by indigenous peoples of North America, as it was on every other continent. Slavery is more a defect of human character, than an aspect of nationality.

Beethoven’s Ninth closes 2017 Tanglewood season

Beethoven's Ninth closes 2017 Tanglewood season

August 28, 2017 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

The honeymoon between Music Director Andris Nelsons, born 1978, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, born 1881, is over; their marriage was on full display for the 2017 season finale at Tanglewood, where they produced as beautiful performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 as you could imagine. With four soloists, and the estimable Tanglewood Festival Chorus, with new conductor James Burton, the Koussevitsky Music Shed, and the enormous audience, combined to become the locus of the music world, for one splendid late summer afternoon in the Berkshires, where autumn alone is sufficient to follow a summer of such splendid sounds.

Beethoven's Ninth closes 2017 Tanglewood season
Andris Nelsons conducts the BSO at Tanglewood; Hilary Scott photo
Beethoven's Ninth closes 2017 Tanglewood season

During the moment between movements, Maestro Nelsons stood still, his hands on the podium, as if connected to a charging station. After all, he is the only one of the 200+ musicians on stage with a role on every note in the hour-long composition. In that vein, the TFC deserve extra plaudits for their impossible stillness the forty plus minutes they are in place, but not singing. This marvelous musical tableau is completed by them.

Under Nelsons’ direction, today’s performance, perhaps the fifteenth time we’ve heard the BSO play Beethoven’s Ninth at Tanglewood, filled out the character we’d perceived when contemplating the great composer. It lifted some feeling that Beethoven hadn’t attained the full measure of satisfaction owed a hard working man. Now, I can imagine the joy he felt upon first hearing its performance.

Housatonic at Stockbridge, Charles Ives

The Housatonic at Stockbridge from Three Places in New England by Charles Ives was a sublime five minute meditative sketch made especially poignant because it depicts a locale on the sinuous river a few miles away as the composer felt on his honeymoon there. The conductor looked like an angler patiently working a fly under an overhang, while a light drizzle resolved in a thunderstorm.

Aug. 27, 2017 Sunday, 2:30pm

Koussevitzky Music Shed – Tanglewood, Lenox, MA

_
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Katie Van Kooten, soprano
Tamara Mumford, mezzo-soprano
Russell Thomas, tenor
John Relyea, bass-baritone
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
James Burton, conductor

IVES “The Housatonic at Stockbridge” from Three Places in New England
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9 (65 min)

Tanglewood tickets, : box office info.

Hotels near Tanglewood

Berkshires hotelsFind hotels near Tanglewood with user reviews, check amenities, nearby attractions, availability and then book your room reservations at these lodging establishments through our partner, International Hotel Solutions (IHS), the leading provider of secure online hotel reservations.

Getting around the Tanglewood campus

The Tanglewood campus, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center comprises several hundred acres in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge. It is the location of the Koussevitsky Music Shed and Ozawa Hall, where hundreds of thousands attend concerts and a variety of events, including picnics. We always advise new visitors to arrive early and take their daily walking exercise wandering the beautiful Tanglewood grounds. This dynamic map of the Tanglewood grounds includes photos and information for such points of interest as Aaron Copland Library, Highwood Manor House, The Glass House, and The Lion’s Gate.

Andris Nelsons conducts Beethoven’s Ninth at Tanglewood

Andris Nelsons leads BSO, Tanglewood Festival chorus, and soloists in Beethoven's Ninth at Tanglewood, Aug. 28, 2016; Hilary Scott photo.

August 28, 2016 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

Andris Nelsons conducted Beethoven’s Ninth at Tanglewood August 28, 2016, in a program that included Aaron Copland’s Quiet City, which gave the Boston Symphony Orchestra the opportunity to bid farewell to trumpeter Thomas Rolfs and English hornist Robert Sheena. Before proceeding with Beethoven’s beloved symphony, almost always programmed to close the BSO’s Tanglewood season, music director Nelsons addressed the audience, going on at unexpected length, to voice the organization’s gratitude and best wishes to the departing players, but also to speak of his excitement with the day’s program and with the setting, expressing his gratitude to the audience and inviting them this fall to Symphony Hall in Boston “another great place to make music.” He said also that he is looking forward to returning to the Berkshires next year for the the first two and last two weeks of the Tanglewood season – news that was announced today.

Andris Nelsons addresses audience before leading BSO, Tanglewood Festival chorus, and soloists in Beethoven's Ninth at Tanglewood, Aug. 28, 2016; Hilary Scott photo.
Andris Nelsons addresses audience before leading BSO, Tanglewood Festival chorus, and soloists in Beethoven’s Ninth at Tanglewood, Aug. 28, 2016; Hilary Scott photo.
It feels as if Maestro Nelsons is settling in, and perhaps we’re at the beginning of another long tenure, to close out the ferquently unsettled interregnum since the departure of Seiji Ozawa during the 1st Geo. W. Bush administration. Last month, the BSO announced the extension of Nelsons’ contract through the 2021-2022 season, with an evergreen clause for automatic renewal. Today’s concert ratified the wisdom of that bit of business, as the performance was brilliant, with the audience erupting in applause at the glorious conclusion – leading the ovation from his seat in Sec. 3 was another Tanglewood stalwart, James Taylor.

Andris Nelsons is kinetic sculpture on the podium

So soon after determining that the greatest concert we’ve attended was last week’s performance of Aida, which itself was close on the heels of 5 star shows by The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma and the Chick Corea Trio, it’s time to recognize that such absolutes cannot obtain here, at Tanglewood, where breathtaking excellence may be acheived more than once, even a few times in a single month!

Besides the ineffably beautiful music Maestro Nelsons inspires the orchestra and vocalists to produce, he also becomes a work of kinetic sculpture on the podium – balletic, athletic, military, and architectural by turns. And I’ll wade all the way into a metaphorical morass to state that observing his baton gestures close up is like getting to watch the stitchery at the same time as you’re marveling at a beautiful tapestry.

  • Boston Symphony Orchestra
  • Andris Nelsons, conductor
  • Thomas Rolfs, trumpet
  • Robert Sheena, English horn
  • Rachel Willis-Sørensen, soprano
  • Ruxandra Donose, mezzo-soprano
  • Joseph Kaiser, tenor
  • Wilhelm Schwinghammer, bass
  • Tanglewood Festival Chorus
  • COPLAND Quiet City
  • BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9

Hotels near Tanglewood

Berkshires hotelsFind hotels near Tanglewood with user reviews, check amenities, nearby attractions, availability and then book your room reservations at these lodging establishments through our partner, International Hotel Solutions (IHS), the leading provider of secure online hotel reservations.

Berkshies transportation

For how to get to the Berkshires and public transportation within Berkshire county, see this page: Amtrak and Peter Pan bus schedules.

Tanglewood tickets and box office information

Tickets for Tanglewood concerts are available through Tanglewood’s website, www.tanglewood.org, SymphonyCharge at 888-266-1200, and at the Symphony Hall Box Office at 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston MA. Download the 2018 Tanglewood season brochure.

Beethoven Symphony 9 at Tanglewood

Beethoven Symphony 9 at Tanglewood Aug. 24, 2014 final program by the Boston Symphony Orchestra summer home in the Berkshires, led by Charles Dutoit.

Beethoven Symphony 9 at Tanglewood

Article by Dave Read

The August 24 performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 was the final item on the 2014 schedule of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s season at Tanglewood, as it almost always is. It is such an immense work of art that to call it a fitting way to close the season is silly. Each eight week season of music by the BSO and their guests here in the Berkshires generates its own themes and patterns, hits and misses. Beethoven’s Ninth fits regardless where it gets scheduled.

Beethoven Symphony 9 at Tanglewood Aug. 24, 2014 final program by the Boston Symphony Orchestra summer home in the Berkshires, led by Charles Dutoit.Esteemed Maestro Charles Dutoit conducted today, eliciting a performance that was both ethereal and thrilling. And as they’ve done before, the amateurs of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus attained the same heights of perfection as their professional colleagues of the BSO.

We didn’t time the performance, but would guess that it was longish; it certainly wasn’t hurried, and we did slip into reverie in the first movement, which seems to invite the mind to detach, after establishing the basic theme, which ignites a long slow fuse of anticipation for its fulfillment an hour hence.

There was a vast audience today, occupying areas of Lawn that had been vacant since James Taylor’s concerts on July 3 & 4.

Andris Nelsons Tanglewood program with Joshua Bell Beethoven’s Fifth

Tanglewood July 20,2014 Andris Nelsons led the BSO along with violin soloist Joshua Bell

Andris Nelsons Tanglewood program with Joshua Bell Beethoven’s Fifth

Article by Dave Read


The program at Tanglewood on Sunday July 20, 2014, a mix of the new, the rare, and the familiar, with Andris Nelsons conducting the BSO, and guest soloist Joshua Bell, attracted a very big audience to the Koussevitsky Music Shed on a splendid summer afternoon. It was the fourth and final Tanglewood appearance of the season for Nelsons, whose tenure as BSO Music Director begins in September. From this amateur’s perspective, and judging too from the way the audience responded today and last week, this was a good hire by the masters of the BSO.

Tanglewood July 20,2014 Andris Nelsons led the BSO along with violin soloist Joshua BellThe program opened with Christopher Rouse’s Rapture, an eleven minute piece described by the composer as depicting “a progression to an ever more blinding ecstasy.” A former composer-in-residence at Tanglewood, Rouse was called onstage by Nelsons after the orchestra’s performance of this thrilling piece, which is highlighted by very cool timpani passages.

Joshua Bell reprises 1989 Tanglewood debut

Next, Indiana native Joshua Bell performed French composer Edouard Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, last heard here in 1989, when Bell made his Tanglewood debut. Symphonie espagnole is really a five movement violin concerto (despit it’s whimsical title), and today’s performance manifested the orchestra’s brilliance in the role of accompanist to the violin soloist. Virtuosity across the board: Bell, BSO, and Nelsons.

Andris Nelsons led the BSO along with violin soloist Joshua Bell (Hilary Scott)Today’s concert wasn’t all high-minded seriousness, not that it ever is at Tanglewood – where the demographic is more elastic than at Symphony Hall, with plebs picnicing in close proximity to patricians and many people making their debuts as patrons of an orchestra. They make themselves know by awkward applause at the end of the first movement, before getting schooled by seatmates.

Beethoven Symphony No. 5 at Tanglewood

A soloist of Mr. Bell’s stature and popularity attracts such newcomers to the audience and some of them will become next season’s ssshhhers. Bell and Nelsons themselves were responsible for a bit of fun after the 3rd movement when the violinist paused to tidy his hair and the conductor mimicked him in turn, much to the delight of the throng.

After intermission, the audience’s attention is immediately reclaimed with the four note opening motif of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, probably the most recognizable phrase in the history of art. Maestro Nelsons and the BSO were an organic whole responsible for benefitting the audience with thirty-plus minutes of transcendent beauty. There was not a scintilla of cliche in this performance – it had a freshness and originality that betrayed its age and familiarity. Just as Serge Koussevitsky himself would have expected, having chosen it for the very first program at Tanglewood!

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