Tanglewood — 2011/08/19-21 — Boston Pops on Saturday

Once more, the BSO website gives us the basics for this weekend.

Schoenberg, Schumann and Beethoven 

Friday, August 19, 8:30PM

Conductor Christoph von Dohnányi returns to the BSO podium on August 19 for his second program of the 2011 Tanglewood season, leading the BSO in Beethoven’s revolutionary Symphony No. 3, Eroica, a piece that never seems to age no matter how much it is performed, and Schumann’s powerful yet lyrical Piano Concerto, the only work in the genre the composer completed despite a number of other attempts, with pianistMartin Helmchen in his BSO and Tanglewood debuts as soloist. Opening the program is Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1, a fascinating and eloquent early work for chamber orchestra that distills the traditional symphonic form into a single concise movement. 

Film Night at Tanglewood 
Saturday, August 20, 8:30PM

One of the season's most enduring and popular traditions, the annualFilm Night at Tanglewood concert August 20 celebrates the music of the movies. This summer, John Williams and the Boston Pops are joined by frequent collaborator Gil Shaham in a program featuring film music arranged for violin and orchestra, including Gardel’s Por Una Cabeza (Tango from Scent of a Woman), three pieces from Schindler’s List, and excerpts from Fiddler on the Roof. Also on the program will be Mr. Williams’s nostalgic evocation of early 20th-century America from the 1969 The Reivers, based on the book of the same name by William Faulkner, with special guest Morgan Freeman as narrator. Along with The Reivers, Williams will lead the orchestra in a salute to the Hollywood Western, including John Dunbar’s Theme from Dances with Wolves, the theme from How the West Was Won, and Williams’s own The Cowboys Overture. 

All-Mozart Program 
Sunday, August 21, 2:30PM

Bernard Labadie, renowned Music Director of the Canadian Baroque and Classical specialist orchestra Les Violons du Roy, makes his Tanglewood debut August 21 as he brings his expertise to the BSO in an all-Mozart program. Opening the concert is the Chaconne from the early opera seria Idomeneo, the composer’s first mature opera. Pianist Benedetto Lupo makes his BSO and Tanglewood debuts as soloist for the Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat, K. 456, and the program concludes with the Symphony No. 41, Jupiter, Mozart’s final symphony and one of history’s greatest works in the genre.

And, as always, you can get the concerts and WCRB's pre-concert features beginning 1 1/2 hours before the scheduled start of each concert via their webstream.

There is also online info available about these concerts both at the WCRB link above and at additional pages of the BSO website for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.