Tanglewood — 2014/07/25-27

This weekend we get some mainstream composers from the late 18th to the early 20th century in roughly chronological order.

Friday July 25  We kick off the proceedings with Manfred Honeck leading the orchestra in music of Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn. As the BSO performance detail page describes it:

Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck, who last led the BSO this spring at Symphony Hall, makes his Tanglewood debut with two BSO performances Friday, July 25, and Saturday, July 26. The July 25 concert, at 8:30 p.m., features English piano soloist Paul Lewis, who elicited raves for his Symphony Hall performances with the orchestra in October 2013, in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K. 414. Maestro Honeck also leads the orchestra in Beethoven's rarely performed overture to his ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, as well as Mendelssohn's dashing, breathless Symphony No. 4, Italian, which the composer called "the jolliest thing I have ever done."

(Some emphasis added.)

This should be very enjoyable. Although they don't mention it, Maestro Honeck is Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Check out the links on the detail page for further info (including performer bios by clicking on the thumbnail photos).


Saturday July 26  Maestro Honeck returns on Saturday evening to lead a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection." See the performance detail page for links to program notes, audio preview, and performer bios. They offer this synopsis:

Manfred Honeck leads the BSO, Tanglewood Festival Chorus, soprano Camilla Tilling, and mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly in Mahler's sprawling and transcendent Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, both one of the great works and the great spectacles of the symphonic repertoire. At approximately 85 minutes in length and calling for an oversized orchestra in addition to the numerous vocal forces, this massive work shakes the rafters and stirs the soul in equal proportions, demonstrating Mahler's ultra-Romantic musical language as well as the intense spirituality ever-present at the core of his work.

Again, worth hearing, in my opinion.


Sunday July 27  The matinee includes music of Rachmaninoff and Verdi and features the debut of conductor Jacques Lacombe. As always, there are links to background info on the performance detail page, which also give this description of the program:

Canadian conductor Jacques Lacombe makes his BSO and Tanglewood debuts on Sunday, July 27, at 2:30 p.m., leading a varied program of Rachmaninoff and Verdi. On the first half of the program, Venezuelan-American pianist Gabriela Montero plays Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, full of passionate emotion and hummable melodies that stick with the listener long after the performance has ended. The operatic second half of the program-featuring soprano Marjorie Owens, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Bishop, tenor Issachah Savage, baritone Stephen Powell, and basses Morris Robinson and Julien Robbins-is devoted to the music of Verdi, including the Overture and Va, pensiero (Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) from Nabucco and the Finale of Act II from Aida.

(Some emphasis added.)

Another very enjoyable concert, I think. The Verdi excerpts are all first rate.


WCRB will broadcast and stream all three concerts. Those on Friday and Saturday are scheduled for 8:30 p.m., Boston (and Lenox) Time, and Sunday's is at 2:30 p.m. Each will be preceded by a half-hour warm-up. These usually include recordings of other works by the composers on the concert or performances by the soloists or the conductor. The station's BSO page also gives overviews of the concerts, along with the schedule for the remainder of the Tanglewood broadcasts and links relating both to this weekend and to other BSO matters.

Enjoy.