By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, August 2, 2024 performance – Boston Pops conductor emeritus John Williams was unable to attend the concert he prepared for performance in the Koussevitsky Music Shed. In his stead, David Newman joined guest conductor Ken-David Masur for a concert of music composed for Hollywood and TV. Maestro Newman is the son of famed composer Alfred Newman, whom Williams met at 23, to begin a lifetime friendship with the Newman family.
Half of the ten items on the program were composed by Maestro Williams, the balance by Korngold, North, Mancini, Bernstein (Lenny, not Elmer), and Raskin.
Early on, Maestro Masur, son of famed New York Philharmonic music director Kurt Masur, whose finale with the New Yorkers was here in the Shed in 2002, told us that Williams wants us to understand that film music is a genre in its infancy, compared to ancient classical music.
If so, then Tanglewood’s own John Williams qualifies for progenitor status in the emerging genre. Another way to look at it is to consider movie music the place where the art of orchestral composition meets the entertainment of motion pictures. Entertainment is like fastfood – it has to be the same in natural, upscale Nantucket as it is in beautiful, downtown Burbank.
The production of movies and TV is so expensive that financiers seldom back experimentation, the essential element of every work of art. Financed projects that produce big profits are likely to produce sequels, even prequels, so that no profit is left unharvested.
Tonight’s program includes a photo that shows the bust of Aaron Copland, in the Formal Garden at the eastern edge of the Tanglewood campus. It is yet another gift to us all from Maestro Williams, who already stands alongside Koussevitsky, Copland, Bernstein, and Ozawa in Tanglewood’s Inner Circle.
