Tanglewood — 2023/08/19-20

 Again I apologize. I didn't think of the Friday evening Tanglewood concert until the Red Sox game was over, about 10 o'clock. It was a couple of piano concertos, preceded by something titled "Four Black American Dances." Here's a link to the BSO announcement. If you didn't listen last evening, you can try to find it in the "On Demand" on the WCRB homepage.

This is the final weekend of the BSO's Tanglewood Season, so it will end with the traditional Beethoven Ninth Symphony. That's on Sunday. This evening WCRB will transmit the following:

Saturday, August 19th, 2023
8:00 PM

Leonidas Kavakos is the soloist in Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, and Andris Nelsons leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 at Tanglewood.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Leonidas Kavakos, violin

Pyotr TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto
Sergei PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 5

Leonidas Kavakos appears courtesy of Sony Classical, a label of Sony Music Entertainment

Leonidas Kavakos can't perform with the BSO unless Sony Classical permits him to? Wow!

The Tchaikovsky is good listening; I don't know the Prokofiev, so no comment on it. But there are links on the BSO page for the concert where you can read the program notes for each of the works.

As promised, on Sunday we get the Beethoven Ninth, after a "curtain raiser." As WCRB tells us:

Sunday, August 20th, 2023
7:00 PM

Susanna Mälkki leads the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with soloists Amanda Majeski, J’Nai Bridges, Stephen Costello, and Jongmin Park. BSO Choral Director James Burton leads the TFC in Tippett's breathtaking Spirituals from A Child of Our Time.

Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
Susanna Mälkki, conductor (Beethoven)
James Burton, conductor (Tippett)
Amanda Majeski, soprano
J’Nai Bridges, mezzo-soprano
Stephen Costello, tenor
Jongmin Park, bass
Tanglewood Festival Chorus

Michael TIPPETT Spirituals from A Child of Our Time
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9

The Beethoven Ninth is pretty well known since the second movement was used as the theme music for the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC. Unfortunately the BSO page for the concert doesn't give us a link to the program note for the Tippett music, while it does give us one for the Beethoven.