Tanglewood — 2016/08/10-12

This weekend the BSO is deviating from their usual format. Instead of the usual 8:00 p.m. concert on Friday, they are giving a one-hour Young People's concert at 7:00 p.m., in homage to Bernstein's Young People's Concerts when he was Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. WCRB will not be broadcasting it, but I thought you might like to see the description from the BSO's program description page.

Young People's Concert

Tanglewood 

Koussevitzky Music Shed - Lenox, MA - View Map

Building on a tradition of educational concerts for young listeners that dated back decades, in 1958 Leonard Bernstein, who had just begun his tenure as conductor of the New York Philharmonic, initiated his own series of "Young People's Concerts" to be broadcast on CBS television. The fourteen-season series-totaling fifty-three episodes in all-became a model for educational programming, making a point of avoiding condescension and pedantry, not shying away from the unfamiliar, and allowing Bernstein's boundless enthusiasm and charisma to carry the day. It was lightning in a bottle-only rarely have similar programs approached the show's popularity since it went off the air in 1972. Bernstein's guests included Aaron Copland, the then-fifteen-year-old Israeli composer Shulamit Ran, singers Marni Nixon and Walter Berry, conductors Seiji Ozawa and James DePreist, and the "New York Rock and Roll Ensemble," among many others. Between 2004 and 2013, these programs were released on DVD.

The first few programs, beginning with the introductory "What Is Music?" telecast in January 1958, had a broad focus-American music, orchestration, the nature of classical music, and the like. As the series progressed, there were segments on more specific subjects-the music of Mahler, Sibelius, Hindemith, and Charles Ives, birthday celebrations of Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, and Dmitri Shostakovich, the acoustics of concert halls, and an entire show on Beethoven's opera Fidelio-subject matter that few elementary educational curricula would dare broach today. But perhaps Bernstein was onto something there: by trusting and challenging his countless young listeners to go beyond their own expectations of themselves, he planted seeds of curiosity that long continued to bear fruit.

WCRB will give us a rebroadcast from a couple of years ago at the usual time.


Friday, August 10, 2018.  WCRB rebroadcasts and streams the Tanglewood concert of August 27, 2016. The program detail page is no longer available on the BSO website, but here's the synopsis I copied at the time.

Tanglewood favorite Yo-Yo Ma joins the Boston Symphony Orchestra and conductor Michael Stern on Saturday, August 27, to open the final weekend of the BSO's 2016 Tanglewood season, performing Haydn's Cello Concerto in C and John Williams's Heartwood,for cello and orchestra, and Rosewood and Pickin', for solo cello, on a program that also includes Bernstein's Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront and Respighi's Pines of Rome.

(Some emphasis added.)

The order of performance is Bernstein, Haydn, Williams, and Respighi. I suppose the intermission is after the Haydn. It should be worth listening to.


Saturday, August 11, 2018.  It's Boston Pops this evening, playing film music, as described, with extreme brevity on the program detail page:

John Williams' Film Night

Tanglewood 

Koussevitzky Music Shed - Lenox, MA - View Map

John Williams' Film Night has long been established as one of the Tanglewood calendar's most consistently captivating evenings. Join Mr. Williams as he presents this year's celebration of the music of Hollywood and beyond, featuring the Boston Pops and BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons.

(Some emphasis added.)
My father used to use the line about concerts at the bandstand in the park: "You can't tell from where you're sitting what the band is going to play." Just listen and enjoy.


Sunday, August 12, 2018.  At 7:00 p.m., we get to hear the afternoon concert. As a curtain raiser, Michael Tilson Thomas conducts a piece he composed, Then we hear Rachmaninoff and Mahler. More detail comes from the BSO's page:

Michael Tilson Thomas conducts Tilson Thomas, Rachmaninoff and Mahler

Tanglewood 

Koussevitzky Music Shed - Lenox, MA - View Map

San Francisco Symphony Music Director and former BSO Assistant Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas returns to Tanglewood, where he won the Koussevitzky Music Prize as a student of Bernstein's in 1969. To open the program, he leads the BSO in his own Agnegram, a 1998 work that is alternately jazzy, elegant, humorous, and direct. Brilliant young Russian pianist Igor Levit then takes center stage for Rachmaninoff's virtuosic and glittering Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Closing the concert is Mahler's at times brooding, at times vigorously energetic Symphony No. 1. Bernstein's championing of Mahler's symphonies was a big factor in making his music a staple of the orchestral repertoire.

(Some emphasis added.)


So there you have it — three concerts for your enjoyment on air and on line over WCRB.