Tanglewood — 2017/08/04-06

My father had a record (now mine), which he very much liked listening to, of Chopin's first piano concerto, with Edward Kilenyi as soloist. He also had Chopin's second — possibly on the same record or possibly another. We didn't listen to the 2nd nearly as often as the 1st, but I've heard it on the radio several times over the years. So I'm very much looking forward the becoming reacquainted with these friends from the past when they open the show tonight and tomorrow. The rest of the weekend from Tanglewood should be good too.


Friday, August 4, 2017.  The orchestra's program detail page has this synopsis of the program:

UnderScore FridayHans Graf conducts Chopin and Rachmaninoff featuring pianist Garrick Ohlsson 
Tanglewood 
Koussevitzky Music Shed - Lenox, MA - View MapOn Friday, August 4, Mr. Ohlsson performs Chopin's First Piano Concerto, written shortly after the composer finished conservatory. Maestro Graf also leads the BSO in Rachmaninoff's melancholic Symphony No. 3, the composer's final work in the genre, written almost 30 years after his second.

(Some emphasis added.)

The page, as usual, has links to audio previews, program notes, and performer bios. This is another of their "Underscore Fridays," in which they enhance our enjoyment of the music by having an orchestra member give brief introductory remarks from the stage before the music begins. This evening we'll hear from violinist Jennie Shames.


Saturday, August 5, 2017.  The second Chopin piano concerto is followed after intermission by Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream." The program detail page provides additional information:

On Saturday, August 5, Mr. Ohlsson returns to perform Chopin's Second Piano Concerto with the BSO, a virtuosic and remarkably successful work considering it was written when the composer was still a student and just 20 years old. The second half of the program features one of the best-known musical works inspired by Shakespeare-Mendelssohn's incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream-in a specially designed production adapted by stage director Bill Barclay, which received its world premiere with the BSO at Symphony Hall in Boston in early 2016 as part of the BSO's three-week Shakespeare celebration honoring the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death. Mr. Graf and the orchestra are joined for this performance by soprano Kiera Duffy, mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer, and singers from the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Chorus, as well as four actors, including Will Lyman as Oberon; Karen MacDonald as Titania; and Caleb Mayo as Felix Mendelssohn/Puck. The costumed actors will perform various passages from A Midsummer Night's Dream interspersed throughout the performance, as prescribed in Mendelssohn's score, with costumes by Kathleen Doyle and sets by Cristina Todesco.

(Some emphasis added.)

See the program detail page for the additional background material linked there. As mentioned in the program notes, the Mendelssohn performance was given (after two other pieces) in 2016. At that time, I posted about it. Here's my reaction to it at that time:

The Boston Musical Intelligencer … found the presentation of the Mendelssohn well done by some participants but flawed in concept.

I tend to agree with BMInt on the Mendelssohn. It makes sense to put music intended to accompany a play into context, but as constructed the whole seemed less than the sum of its parts. I wonder how it will all come across over radio or webstream without the action being visible. 

Sunday, August 6, 2017.  As the program detail page tells us:

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma returns to the Shed on Sunday, August 6, with David Zinman on a program featuring two works by Schumann-the free-flowing and adventurous Cello Concerto, featuring Mr. Ma, and the elevating Symphony No. 2 in C, the longest of the composer's four symphonies. The afternoon concert opens with Mozart's Symphony No. 25, last performed by the BSO at Tanglewood in 2000. 

At the advice of his doctors, Maestro Christoph von Dohnányi regrets that he cannot appear with the Boston Symphony this summer at Tanglewood. He is continuing to heal from a fall he suffered earlier this year and looks forward to leading the BSO as scheduled in November.
Conductor David Zinman replaces Maestro von Dohnányi for the Sunday, August 6, program featuring Yo-Yo Ma in Schumann's Cello Concerto. The program also includes Mozart's Symphony No. 25 and Schumann's Symphony No. 2.

(Some detail added.)

You can also access additional information via that page.


WCRB will transmit the concerts on air and over the web. The Friday and Saturday programs begin at 8:00 p.m., and Sunday's will be provided at 7:00 p.m. (all times EDT). The home page, in addition to the Listen Live button, has links to pages about these concerts and other programming on the station.

It looks like an enjoyable series of concerts.