Tanglewood 2023 reviews

By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, August 20, 2023 performance – The best thing about great works of art is that, being products of natural people rather than of nature herself, they may serve us for a hundred generations. If Ludwig van Beethoven were a paternal ancestor, he’d be my 12th or 13th great grandfather.

But, he’s not, because I need a map to find middle C on a piano, and one of those popular DNA/ancestor tests ruled me out of any Teutonic inheritance.

Point is that musical art has eternity within its grasp, but only so long as we mortals breathe life into it. Something like a dozen generations of people, from all over the earth, have been thrilled and uplifted by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. People of a hundred tongues, practitioners of a hundred religions, members of a hundred political parties, citizens of more than one hundred nations keep alive this sound art made by a virtually deaf man.

Go figure.

Here in the Berkshires, home to the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer performance venue and training academy, we are invited annually to attend its performance, by world-class musicians in a breath-taking setting. It usually is performed by the BSO with a guest conductor; today it was played by the ephemeral Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra (TMCO), under the baton of Susanna Mälkki, conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.

With the BSO already away on a European tour, the audience had an opportunity to listen to a generous sample of the musicians who will populate the world’s great orchestras for the next fifty years. The TMCO begins life in July as a most casual cohort, singing Alleluia, the choral work by Randall Thompson commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky for the academy’s 1940 opening. [Our report of 2022 opening exercise, w/ video]

After eight weeks of intense instruction and varieties of performance, the TMCO rightly commands Tanglewood’s Shed; they are right at home in this world-class venue. Command and share, I should say, because every bit their equal is the amateur Tanglewood Festival Chorus, which transforms Schiller’s German Ode to Joy into the sung language that stirs the soul of all the world’s people.

The TFC underwent something of a rejuvenation when James Burton became its second director in 2017, following the 45-year tenure of founder John Oliver (1939-2018). After announcing that the entire chorus would have to re-audition for membership, Burton was made to withstand withering criticism. As reported by expert critics and ordinary enthusiasts alike, he did the right thing, and the child of his predecessor is poised now to thrive as it thrills audiences for generations.

Today’s vocal soloists: Amanda Majeski, soprano, J’Nai Bridges, mezzo-soprano, Stephen Costello, tenor, and Jongmin Park, bass. Five Spirituals from A Child of Our Time, composed by Michael Tippett opened the program.

By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, August 16, 2023 event – Sumptuous treats are available in the Berkshires, home to the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home and training academy. Besides being a world-class venue for musical performance, Tanglewood also hosts one of the most respected music academies in the world, the Tanglewood Music Center.

Founded in 1940 by Russian emigre Serge Koussevitsky, on 110 acres given to the BSO, Tanglewood was expanded in the 1980s by the gift of an adjacent 40 acres, where Seiji Ozawa Hall was opened in 1996, and the Tanglewood Learning Institute, in 2019.

“If you don’t evolve, you expire” said former BSO CEO Mark Volpe at the dedication of the TLI, which now affords the public the very rare and very enlightening opportunity to witness the final stage in the parturition of brilliant musicians.

Which calls to mind one of the best corny jokes: “Q How do you get to Carnegie Hall? A. Practice, practice, practice.”

If only it were that simple! As the scores of enthusiasts drawn to today’s violin workshop in the TLI’s stunning Linde Center learned, anyone determined to perform on the world’s most prestigious stages, must be prepared to hear great quantities of, “Ok Ok no no wait wait do it again do it again.” Practice is one thing, expert instruction a whole ‘nuther thing, friends.

Anybody interested in playing at Carnegie Hall – or at Tanglewood, needs not only to practice their instrument, but also to earn an invitation to be bossed around by generous experts, such as we observed today. Tai Murray, with music diplomas from the School of Music at Indiana University and Julliard, also is on the faculty at the Yale School of Music. She appears to be that rare sort of person, who is able to perform at a high level of excellence while also being able to help others maximize their own artistic potential.

Dominick Kossakowski, who last year received a doctorate from the Karol Szymawoski Academy of Music in Katowice, Poland, was in the role of tutee in today’s highly entertaining tutor-tutee duet. Would that more of the general population shared the dedication to excellence and devotion to education embodied by these violin workshoppers – not only would the world sound better, it would be better, too!

Four days later, Mr. Kossakowski was in the first row of violinists as the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 for its magnificent swan song, while also lowering the curtain on the BSO’s 2023 Tanglewood season. (our report)

(Workshop photos by Hilary Scott; first and last photos by Dave Read.)

By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, August 13, 2023 performance – Berkshire county’s favorite adopted son and one of the world’s most popular musicians, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, was substituted because of Covid on today’s program by the beloved soprano and frequent Tanglewood guest artist, Renée Fleming. That today’s program was put together virtually overnight is testament to the devoted professionalism of all involved, but especially Ms. Fleming and Maestro Nelson, who combined to flood the Koussevitsky Music Shed and lawn with the sounds of beautiful music.

Resplendent in jewels and a gown of spring green hues, Ms. Fleming appears intent to satisfy our vision as much as her singing will reward our listening. But, this is an instance where costume is a mere courtesy; from the instant we hear her voice, the visual plane becomes utterly irrelevant.

Irrelevant also is whether the audience understands German or has any clue about what the poems mean, for which Richard Strauss composed such gorgeous settings. Nontheless, electronic supertitles crawl thirty feet over the heads of the orchestra, for anybody who wishes to ground the soaring sounds made by Ms. Fleming in literal sense!

When set to music and sung, words transition into being vehicles for the conveyance of sound rather than of sense, as they are in print; their literal meaning becomes subordinate to the sounds produced by their singers.

After intermission, Maestro Nelsons led the orchestra in a lively reading of the 1947 version of Petrushka, the ballet composed by Igor Stravinsky in 1911 for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. The orchestra opened the program with a reprise of a piece premiered here last year, Julia Adolphe’s Makeshift Castle.

By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, Aug. 9, 2023 – Here is an assortment of cellshots of the Tanglewood campus made during sundry events through the first week of August.

By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, August 6, 2023 performance – The most important and the most difficult part of reporting on concerts is to get the temple within ready to receive the music about to be produced in the temple without – at Tanglewood, it’s the Shed, consecrated to the memory of Serge Koussevitsky.

My last errant thought before today’s concert was, “We can land a man on the moon, but we can’t make a double piano?” One of these days, I’ll do a little research, just to see how close some fellow daydreamer has come to designing such an instrument.

Who knows if such an idea has ever occurred to the Dutch brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen, who performed the Mendelssohn Concerto in E for two pianos and orchestra, on a pair of shiny black pianos that looked like a single object.

As much as the brothers may resemble one another at rest, today’s aural delight was augmented by the visual of them playing – one with his head tilted back in as if in ecstasy, the other bowed over the keyboard with vehemence, then vice versa as dictated by Mendelsshon’s score.

Some extra measure of genius must’ve been employed by the composer to create something like a duet within a duet. To my non-expert mind, a concerto is a duet between some instrument and the orchestra. With two instruments, although united in their conversation with the orchestra, they do not echo one another, but must converse so well with one another, that the orchestra – and the audience, hears the single voice.

And so the genius of the composition become measure after measure of gorgeous sound thanks to the artistry of the Jussen brothers and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the expert baton of toady’s guest conductor, in his Tanglewood debut, Kazuki Yamada. Maestro Yamada is about to become chief conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

After intermission, audience was treated to Symphonie fantastique, Episode from the life of an artist, Opus 14, by Hector Berlioz. It seemed a perfect selection for a perfect summer afternoon in the Berkshires.

Kazuki Yamada, conductor
Lucas and Arthur Jussen, pianos

MENDELSSOHN Concerto in E for two pianos and orchestra
Intermission
BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique

By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, July 30, 2023 performance – Violin virtuoso Joshua Bell thrilled a large audience at Tanglewood today, playing Paganini’s Violin concerto No. 1 on a program that opened with a piece inspired by politics and closed with a piece inspired by love.

Mr. Bell has not been a stranger to the Berkshires audience since his July 1989 debut here. The first Boston Symphony Orchestra performance of this concerto was in 1883, but it wouldn’t be until 1978 that it was played in the Koussevitsky Music Shed, by Shlomo Minz; Midori gave the previous performance in 1987.

As much as we’re fans first and foremost of the orchestra, it is important every season to attend one or two programs that include master soloists, not only for the singular thrill of their playing, but to be reminded of the role of the instrument itself – its various qualities and how it communicates with its many instrument-siblings.

Following intermission, the orchestra played Music from the ballet Romeo and Juliet, Opus 64, by Prokofiev. This selection offers perfect accompaniment to a sunny summer afternoon with friends. It won’t interfere with any daydream you may wish to indulge, nor will it bore you to sleep!