2005 Tanglewood reviews

James Levine’s Tanglewood debut as BSO Music Director

July 8, 2005 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

James Levine’s Tanglewood debut as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, July 8, 2005, was a stunning success, his tenure heralded by a majestic performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, (reprising his Symphony Hall opening last October) that was received most enthusiastically by the dressed-up audience in the Shed and by a handful of diehards huddled under trees on the damp lawn after a rainy day.

Dubbed “The Symphony of a Thousand” when Mahler performed it in 1909 in New York with an orchestra of 171 and 858 singers, there were 361 musicians onstage for thiss performance, which was just the 3rd time it has been performed at Tanglewood. In addition to the BSO, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and the American Boychoir, there were 8 soloists, sopranos Susan Neves, Deborah Voigt and Heidi Grant Murphy, mezzo-sopranos Yvonne Naef and Jane Henschel, tenor Johan Botha, baritone Eike Wilm Schulte and bass-baritone John Relyea.

With Mahler’s composition being built around the ninth century Pentacostal hymn Veni, creator spiritus and the final scene from Goethe’s Faust, this was a program that could sanctify the occasion, as well as edify (and entertain) the audience.

Once the orchestra and singers were in place, all dressed in white, Maestro Levine, wearing a tuxedo, entered to a great roar of applause, which he acknowledged with a little kiss-blowing gesture before taking his seat on the podium.

An instant later the organ rang out and the singers sent their call heavenward:

Come, Creator Spirit
visit these Thy souls,
Fill them with heavenly grace
Whom Thou hast created of Thy spirit.

Some twenty-five minutes later an off-stage brass septet blew a brilliant accentuation to the movement-closing “Glory be…” being sung and played in rapturous fashion – and thus, the Tanglewood tenure of James Levine was begun. The second movement, lasting about twice as long as the first, was testament that the opening prayer had been answered. It seemed something whole, rather than a sum of several parts; something of ineffable beauty and complexity that moved this way and that so that it was made apparent in any number of tones and hues to evoke the gamut of emotion.

One scanned the white sea of musicians and singers as the aural locus shifted, even up above the acoustical panels where soprano Heidi Grant Murphy sang the truly high notes. And one always returned to the calm black-clad figure at the center of it all, the seated maestro conducting it all with an absolute minimum of movement.

He used his left hand for little more than to turn the pages of the score and the baton he barely raised above or beyond his shoulder. Except toward the end when he laid aside the baton and used both hands, sometimes with coaxing gestures; and he was most demonstrative, almost in conversation with, first violins Malcom Lowe and Tamara Smirnova during a sublime passage just before the finale.

And so the great inter-regnum has come to a close, nearly four full years since Seiji Ozawa ended his tenure as BSO Music Director on August 4, 2001 with a performance of Richard Strauss’ Salome, Opus 54.

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2005 Tanglewood on Parade review

July 26, 2005 Article by Dave Read

The 2005 Tanglewood on Parade may be remebered as the Five Conductors show for the parade of maestros to the podium in the Serge Kousevitsky Music Shed during the gala concert that culminated the all-day musical celebration for the benefit of the Tanglewood Music Center, now 65 years old. By nightfall, an audience of 12,345 had massed at the Shed after an afternoon of recitals, concerts, and demonstrations throughout the campus by students of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center.

First to the podium was Music Director James Levine to lead the B.S.O. in Berlioz’ Roman Carnival Overture. Wearing a tuxedo on a very hot day, the ruddy-faced maestro wrung a rousing performance from his casually clad players. So swept up was he in the final measure that it looked like he was twirling a lariat, about to rope a brace of basses. Smart programming that, forcing the audiences attention back to the delights of music and away from the joy of the fancy picnic.

Up next was Boston Pops principal guest conductor Bruce Hangen to lead the Pops in the Symphonic Dances from T.M.C. alumnus Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. This was a bravura performance that showcased both the brilliance of the orchestra and the genius of the composer. There were moments when you could’ve mistook Hangen and the Pops for Benny Goodman and his Big Band, so swell did they swing!

Then Pops conductor emeritus John Williams took over, and delighted the audience that had so warmly welcomed him by conducting the Pops in two passages from his own Star Wars score. Maestro Levine came back onstage after intermission, straddling a chair backwards like a kibitzer at a card table, to invoke the spirit of Serge Koussevitsky, express his feelings about being at Tangelwood, and to introduce his predecessor, “colleague and friend” Seiji Ozawa.

The beaming Ozawa sprinted to center stage, hugged Levine, glanced at the adoring audience, clasped hands with four or five T.M.C. players and got right to work leading the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in a thrilling performance of Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3.

They simply blew the roof off the joint, these young musicians who didn’t know each other until last month and who weren’t even born until Seiji Ozawa was into the second decade of his Tanglewood tenure. The nimble Ozawa, whose contract with the Vienna State Opera was recently extended through the 2009-10 season, was lithe as ever on the podium – a whole body conducting manner that’s both commanding and eloquent.

Frequent Tanglewood guest conductor Hans Graf was the right choice to lead the combined orchestras in the grand finale, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Wearing a white tunic and projecting a stately demeanor, he conducted a fine aural war, satisfying our appetites for the lush and romantic as well as the savage and martial.

(There were 4 conductors on the Tanglewood on Parade program in 2001, Seiji Ozawa’s last as B.S.O. Music Director, including Andre Previn. A new composition by Chris Brubeck was given its Tanglewood debut, and Ozawa was given an authentic Civil War cannon.)

James Taylor – Tanglewood – July 4, 2005

July 4, 2005 performance, reviewed by Dave Conlin Read

(Originally published on NewBerkshire.com)

James Taylor made it all new again on the Fourth of July, casting a spell from the stage of the Koussevitsky Music Shed that carried the faithful legion back to where they’d first had love, or loss, or longing, or lonliness, made known to them alone in a room listening to a record.

James Taylor fans on Tanglewood lawn

While those emotions are at the core of Taylor’s catalogue of beloved songs, the whole point of crafting songs around them, and setting them to music, is to create another space where you can just get on with it.

And this Taylor did – big time – in a show that began with him casually walking onto the stage shortly after 7, unannounced, to sing the national anthem. A startlingly simple gesture that virtually cast a net over the capacity crowd that had been streaming onto the Tanglewood grounds throughout a perfectly splendid July afternoon.

In an instant, the picnics were put aside, frisbees fell on the lawn, the excited chatter stopped as everyone stood and sang along.

Then our host said, “Play Ball!” and the party was on, with the entrance of his teriffic band: Steve Gadd (drums), Jimmy Johnson (bass), Michael Landau (guitar), Luis Conte (percussion), Larry Goldings (keyboards), Walt Fowler and Lou Marini (horns), Andrea Zonn (fiddle & backing vocals), and Arnold McCuller and Kate Markowitz on backing vocals.

This is a cohort of happy campers, each of whom is an ace musician, and all of whom seem to be as happy to be at a James Taylor concert as anyone in the audience is.

Each was given a generous introduction at an appropriate segment in the 2½ hour show, usually timed to coincide with a song that showcased their playing.

In a show of highlights, one we especially enjoyed and which was a complete surprise, was a Celtic fiddle number by Zonn with bodhrain-sounding accompaniment by Gadd and Conte. It was so good that if you weren’t looking, you could’ve thought you were at a Chieftains concert.

To note the artful structure of the show – how the 2 dozen song setlist was arranged, the Celtic rave-up was preceded by poignant, harmonized, rendition of “The Water is Wide” and followed immediately by a funny anecdote about a friend of Taylor’s who saw Riverdance on a busted t.v. that showed only the upper torsos of the dancers.

Of course, you had to be there to get the joke, which was made when Taylor mimed the upper torso part of Celtic step-dancing. And that was just one of many bits of physical comedy; others were his bad-ass low-down guitar jams with Landau, pogo-stick bouncing, and during the knockout “Steamroller,” he went through such contortions that he looked like a mad Robin Williams imitation of himself!

Taylor likes to disparage himself by saying of his new material that it sounds the same as all the older stuff; does it? If it does it’s because he got a handle on something quite a while ago, something that worked, and he’s been working it – and working on it – ever since. And when he shares it with an audience, he’s got another attribute that sets him apart from his peers – a mastery of stagecraft that makes every performance a unique and especially memorable event.

He has been awarded all the prizes available to a popular artist: six Grammy Awards, more than 40 gold, platinum, and multi-platinum awards, an honorary doctorate of music at the Berklee College of Music, the 1998 Billboard Lifetime Achievement Award, and induction in 2000 into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame.

Now we’d like to propose that a new one be inaugurated in recognition of that element of a James Taylor concert that makes it nonpariel – his stagecraft. We’ve never seen a musician who is as entertaining between songs as Taylor is. (The only one who came close was the late Dave Van Ronk.)

2005 A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood

July 3, 2005 Article by Dave Read

The sixth annual visit of A Prairie Home Companion, with Garrison Keillor to the Koussevitsky Music Shed at Tanglewood on July 2, 2005 may be remembered by the 11,000+ in attendance as the “Palms of Victory” show because of the little “non-sectarian” hymn they were taught by Mr. Keillor, who told them they could use it as a call-sign if they should ever encounter him in the airport, but it also will be remembered particularly for Gillian Welch & David Rawlings and Inga Swearingen, who gave strikingly evocative performances that left the audience eager for more.

The humor was as good as it gets, too; the Royal Academy of Radio Acting nailed the Guy Noir episode about the Sprocket tycoon’s $200 million gift to Tanglewood being hijacked for the establishment of the Tanglewood Center for Songwriters, Inc; a wickedly funny Cafe Boeuf with Peter Schickele, and then Schickele’s P.D.Q. Bach duet with David Dusing on the loopy “If Love is Real.”

With the virtual town of Lake Wobegon and it’s fabulous citizenry at its heart, Mr. Keillor’s show is all about community and when the show is on the road, an effort is made to embrace the actual locale, and not only with the funny business. To make that point most emphatically, this show, recognizing that “this is Mohican land,” included a song composed by a Wisconsin-Stockbridge Mohican, Brent Michael Davids.

Inga Swearingen, Prudence Johnsonm, Guys All Star Shoe Band, Edith Wharton String Quartet perform Mohican song

It was sung by Ms. Swearingen and Prudence Johnson, accompanied by the crackerjack Guys All Star Shoe Band, and the Edith Wharton String Quartet, culled from the Tanglewood Music Center just for this show. The latter group acquitted themselves splendidly and no doubt will have fond tales to tell of this day decades down the road when they are wiley veterans of orchestras in places such as Cleveland, Chicago, and Boston.

This was no Tanglewood debut for Mr. Davids; his “Mohican Soup” was sung by Chanticleer to open Tanglewood’s 1999 Festival of Contemporary Music in Seiji Ozawa Hall. In his remarks to the audience that day, he attributed the creative energy in the Berkshires to a foundation established by the Mohicans during their 6,000 year stewardship of the region.

We contacted Mr. Davids at his studio in St. Paul to learn more about him and his song. Several weeks ago he met Mr. Keillor at a local literary gathering and once their conversation got around to their mutual Tanglewood connections, Keillor said “We’re doing a show there next month, will you write something for it?”

So he wrote Stockbridge Mohican Song and sent Keillor the music, lyrics, and demo mp3 file and, as of yesterday (July 5), hasn’t heard from him again. He did listen to the broadcast and liked what he heard, though. In response to our surprise that the whole operation was accomplished so quickly, Mr. Davids said simply, “That’s what I do, I’m a composer.”

Stockbridge Mohican Song

We are coming together (k’MUH yuh WE h’now)
We say Thanks (o NEE oh we KSEE now)

We see the old ones (NAH wuh hah kah CHIGH sock)
We say Thanks (o NEE oh we KSEE now)

Today is a beautiful day (o NAHH kuh MAOW NO no)
We say Thanks (o NEE oh we KSEE now)

Mohican Land (muh HEE kun NEEw AHH kee)
We say Thanks (o NEE oh we KSEE now)