Tanglewood — 2014/07/18(belated)-20

I'm sorry to be late with this. The Friday concert has already been completed, of course; but since it will be available for listening on demand, it might be still worthwhile for me to include the information about it.

Friday, July 18  From the BSO's performance detail page, we get the usual program notes, audio previews of some of the works, and performer bios, as well as the following blurb:

Edward Gardner joins the BSO at Tanglewood in his BSO debut for Strauss's musical joke about the German peasant, folk hero and trickster, Till Eulenspiegel. Baritone Thomas Hampson, dubbed "the ambassador of American song," performs Aaron Copland's deceptively plain Old American Songs. Beethoven's Symphony 7 rounds out a program that is in turns, dark, joyful, nostalgic and hopeful.

(Emphasis added)

They also note:

Conductor Christoph von Dohnányi has been forced to cancel his upcoming concerts at Tanglewood because of serious illness in his family. The concert on Friday, July 18 will now be led by British conductor Edward Gardner  in his BSO debut. The concerts on Friday, July 25 and Saturday, July 26 will be conducted by Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck in his Tanglewood debut. Programs and soloists remain unchanged.

Saturday, July 19  The concert, which begins at 8:30 p.m., Boston Time, includes the Brahms Symphony No. 3; Rolf Martinsson's "Bridge," Trumpet Concerto No. 1, with Håkan Hardenberger as soloist; and Capriccio Italien by Tchaikovsky: all under the baton of Andris Nelsons. Instead of describing the concert, the performance detail page gives information about procedures for area residents to obtain tickets for this Berkshire Night concert. It also gives the usual links to background material.

Sunday, July 20  Andris Nelsons returns to the podium for Rapture, by Christopher Rouse, Lalo's Symphonie espagnole for violin and orchestra — with Joshua Bell as soloist — and the ever popular Fifth Symphony of Beethoven to close the program and evoke a standing ovation. Go to the performance detail page for the usual links.

The Sunday Concert begins at 2:30. Both it and the 8:30 Saturday concert will be broadcast and streamed approximately live (a few seconds delay) by WCRB, whose own BSO page includes a link to an interesting-sounding interview with Maestro Nelsons as well as brief descriptions of all three concerts for this weekend, the schedule for this summer's remaining Tanglewood broadcasts, and other links and information. They have a sort of preview show beginning ½ hour before the scheduled concert time. (The BSO, in my experience, never actually starts on time. They always begin at least 5 minutes late, which provides a little grace period for audience members who might have been on time but for some slight delay.)

I'm not familiar with the Martinsson, Rouse, or Lalo pieces, but I'm curious to hear them. I don't care much for Brahms, but I'm sure the Tchaikovsky and the Beethoven will be good. Enjoy.