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Beethoven's Ninth

Beethoven’s Ninth closes 2017 Tanglewood season

August 28, 2017 Tanglewood concert review by

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.


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

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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

August 28, 2016 Tanglewood concert review by

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.