Friday, August 21, 2009

Tanglewood August 21 – 23, 2009: End of Symphony Season — Not to Be Missed!


"Kurt Masur Conducts Beethoven and Mendelssohn

Kurt Masur opens the BSO's final Tanglewood weekend August 21 leading two classical masterworks, Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 and Haydn's Symphony No. 88. The program's centerpiece is a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25 in C, featuring the BSO debut of one of Mr. Masur's favorite collaborators, the young French pianist David Fray. Mr. Fray has received numerous prizes and awards, and was BBC Music Magazine's "Newcomer of the Year" in 2008.

August 22, 2009 8:30 PM Kurt Masur dedicates a concert to showcasing the music of one of his most admired composers, Felix Mendelssohn. This BSO program features Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4, Italian, one of the composer's most beloved works, evoking the warm climes of the Mediterranean, as well as The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) Overture, begun during a visit to the Hebrides archipelago off the coast of Scotland. The evening's centerpiece is Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, featuring one of the BSO's most popular guest artists, the American violinist Gil Shaham.


Michael Tilson Thomas Conducts Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

On August 23, Michael Tilson Thomas leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra's final program of the 2009 festival season, the annual grand finale performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. The masterwork features the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, soprano Erin Wall and mezzo-soprano Kendall Gladen in their BSO debuts, tenor Stuart Skelton in his Tanglewood debut, and bass-baritone Raymond Aceto. The program begins with Ives' Decoration Day, the composer's stirring ode to Memorial Day."


The Friday and Saturday concerts are at 8:30 p.m. and are streamed on WAMC. The Sunday concert is at 2:30. It is also streamed on WAMC; and WGBH streams it with a "pre-game show" beginning at 2:00. All times are Eastern.


More info is available at the website on the Tanglewood pages.

2 comments:

  1. Natur- Im sure you've probably heard it before, but if not i suggest you take a listen to: Beethoven - Symphony No.7 In A Major, Op.92- II. Allegretto. I'm not much of a classical music lover, but i really do like this one

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  2. Thanks, Forsaken03. In fact I have heard that movement. IOM it's a very good one. For anyone who isn't familiar with it, here's a performance on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqtPVEuAbzM&feature=PlayList&p=950FB34000151B8B&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=7 And if someone wants to hear what comes before and after, the person who posted this part has also posted the rest of the symphony.

    The thing the it so remarkable about Beethoven is that he can take a tune and find ways of making it new by changing the instruments that are playing it or how loud or soft it is. Then he can break it down and do stuff with just a couple of notes from it. He'll toss a phrase back and forth in the orchestra. He'll change the tune a little bit. Sometimes when you've heard something many times, all of a sudden you'll notice something you never notice before.

    If you aren't familiar with Beethoven's Symphony No.5, you might want to follow some links until you can find it. Also the 3rd Symphony, especially the second movement, a funeral march with some consoling moments. In a way it has a feeling like the allegretto from the 7th. Here's a url which leaves out some material at the beginning, but gives you a pretty good flavor of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yn9IgOBjkU
    for the last bit, you have to listen to the first 2:09 of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2gmx1FzfEA&feature=related
    Why couldn't they break the video between movements??? Grr!!!

    As an alternative you could watch this one with both the first and second movements. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFltqVS8d9I&feature=related The second, the funeral march, begins at 14:28. Unfortunately, it continues the 5:40 of part 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVQtcd0clu4&feature=related

    It so happened that a neighbor had given me her ticket to a Friday afternoon Boston Symphony Orchestra concert. When I got to Symphony Hall, there was a flyer inserted in the program booklet, informing us that former President Eisenhower had just died, and the orchestra would begin the concert by playing this funeral march in his memory. The audience was asked to stand for the funeral march, and not to applaud at the end. It has always been one of my favorites since then.

    Hope you enjoy.

    And thanks again for the reminder about No. 7.

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