By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, August 16, 2024 performance – Another felicitous program choice makes this concert especially memorable. Guest conductor Samy Rachid led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Prokofiev’s Violin concerto No. 1 in D, Opus 19, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. The decision to open the program with a brief “Symphonic Picture,” Dawn in the Field, by Yevgeny Svetlanov (1928-2002), amounted to the ideal appetizer for a sumptuous concert.
How wonderful, at dusk on an overcast day, to be musically transported to dawn in the field; in my case, the field was near the sea, and there were crickets. What a painter was Maestro Svenlanov, how lucky are we Tanglewoodies, to attend the BSO’s first performance of his music.
Prokofiev met us in whatever field we’d wandered to, and found us wide awake and ready for the celebrated violin prodigy, Midori, and her performance of his rather quiet concerto. Besides being a tour de force for the violins and bigger strings, this concerto demonstrates the musical value of silence, of the many tiny increments of space that make the numberless notes of a composition add up to the sounds that tickle us, that rouse or soothe us, that sometimes make us burst into applause.
For us in the Berkshires, Midori is doubly twinned to Leonard Bernstein. The violin soloist’s Tanglewood debut catapulted her to fame as had Bernstein’s conducting debut, which was done without rehearsal, as a last minute substitute for an ill conductor.
At age 14, on a bill conducted by Bernstein in 1985, while performing the conductor’s Serenade, Midori twice broke a sting, each time calmly borrowing a nearby violin to keep the performance on track. Music lovers are well-advised to add a measure of incense to their Calliope altars, in gratitude for calling our attention to Bernstein and Midori way sooner than ordinary circumstances would have.
The decision to invite Samy Rachid as guest conductor was just as smart, as he added a dynamic visual element, besides eliciting such a beautiful performance from the orchestra and soloist. As quiet and sombre as was the Prokofiev concerto, Tchaikovsky’s symphony was loud and rousing – not volume-turned-to-10 loud, just so loud as to make you wish there was more of it. As tired as an old man gets late at night, tonight I wanted to listen a little longer before returning to the noisy world.