Saturday, July 22nd, 2023
8:00 PMDavid Afkham leads the BSO at Tanglewood in Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony and his Piano Concerto No. 25 with soloist Martin Helmchen, as well as Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll.
David Afkham, conductor
Martin Helmchen, pianoRichard WAGNER Siegfried Idyll
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Piano Concerto No. 25 in C, K.503MOZART Symphony No. 41, Jupiter
WCRB has this to say about this evening's concert:
Friday, July 14th, 2023
8:00 PMGreat American Songbook ambassador Michael Feinstein and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet join Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops at Tanglewood in a celebration of iconic American composer George Gershwin.
Keith Lockhart, conductor
Michael Feinstein, vocalist and piano
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, pianoALL-GERSHWIN PROGRAM
Two Pianos: Who Could Ask for Anything More?
It's the Boston Pops and Gershwin — should be a great evening.
Tomorrow it's a night at the opera:
Saturday, July 15th, 2023
8:00 PMAndris Nelsons conducts a concert version of Mozart’s famous Italian opera “Così fan tutte” with the BSO and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.
Andris Nelsons, conductor
James Darrah, director
Nicole Cabell, soprano (Fiordiligi)
Kate Lindsey, mezzo-soprano (Dorabella)
Meigui Zhang, soprano (Despina)
Amitai Pati, tenor (Ferrando)
Elliot Madore, baritone (Guglielmo)
Patrick Carfizzi, bass-baritone (Don Alfonso)
Tanglewood Festival Chorus,
James Burton, conductor
I've never given this opera my undivided attention, but it's Mozart, so it's perfectly pleasant and acceptable, probably very enjoyable at times.
Then on Sunday, the program takes us from the sublime to the ridiculous or maybe just the bombastic:
Sunday, July 16th, 2023
7:00 PMErin Morley, Reginald Mobley, Will Liverman, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus bring you Orff’s bawdy and intimate Carmina Burana.
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Erin Morley, soprano
Reginald Mobley, countertenor
Will Liverman, baritone
Tanglewood Festival Chorus,
James Burton, conductor
Boston Children’s Chorus,
Emily Howe, conductor
Kenneth Griffith, music directorLudwing Van BEETHOVEN Leonore Overture No. 3
Carl ORFF Carmina burana
When I was in college, the Latin professor was pleased to have a musical setting of these medieval poems available. Later I learned that early music people had been able to decipher the melodies indicated in the original manuscript. I much prefer the medieval music settings (e.g.,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Elgdpk65gM&t=2715s just dip in here and there if you don't want to listen all the way through) to Carl Orff's vulgar 20th century music for the poems. Of course, the Beethoven is magnificent and well worth listening to.
The BSO's calendar has links to each concert, but I don't see any program notes for background information about any of the music.
So enjoy what you can. Maybe you'll even like Orff's music for Carmina Burana.
BTW, the "i" in carmina is short, so it's CARmina, not carMEEna.
The Boston Symphony has returned to Tanglewood and will present concerts in the customary format: separate concerts on Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday evening over the next seven weekends. (Occasionally, the concerts are by a different ensemble, such as the Boston Pops, or the Tanglewood Musical Center Orchestra.) WCRB transmits the Friday and Saturday concerts live, and the Sunday concert by a delayed braodcast in the evening. Here's what well get for opening weekend, per WCRB: https://www.classicalwcrb.org/show/the-boston-symphony-orchestra/2023-06-08/opening-night-at-tanglewood-with-trifonov-and-the-bso
Friday, July 7th, 2023
8:00 PMMusic Director Andris Nelsons, soloist Daniil Trifonov, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra kick off a new summer season with Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, along with Marsalis' “Herald, Holler, and Hallelujah” and Tchaikovksy’s Symphony No. 4.
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Daniil Trifonov, pianoWynton MARSALIS Herald, Holler, and Hallelujah
Sergei PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 3
Pyotr TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 4
Then on Saturday we get the Pops: https://www.classicalwcrb.org/show/the-boston-symphony-orchestra/2023-06-08/lockhart-the-pops-and-ragtime-at-tanglewood
Saturday, July 8th, 2023
8:00 PMKeith Lockhart leads the Boston Pops in a specially written concert version of the Broadway hit Ragtime! Nikki Renée Daniels, Alton Fitzgerald White, Elizabeth Stanley, and John Cariani are among the celebrated cast of performers.
Boston Pops Orchestra
Keith Lockhart, conductor
Jason Danieley, Stage Director
Alton Fitzgerald White (Coalhouse Walker Jr.)
Elizabeth Stanley (Mother)
John Cariani (Tateh)
Nikki Renée Daniels (Sarah)
David Harris (Father)
A.J. Shively (Mother’s Younger Brother)
Klea Blackhurst (Emma Goldman)
Ragtime EnsembleRagtime: The Symphonic Concert
For whatever reason, WCRB hasn't posted the program for Sunday yet (or if they have, I can't find it) but here's the equivalent information from the BSO's own page: https://www.bso.org/events/bso-bullock-hahn?performance=2023-07-09-14:30
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Julia Bullock, classical singer
Hilary Hahn, violinIman HABIBI Zhiân (world premiere; BSO commission)
Jessie MONTGOMERY Freedom Songs (BSO co-commission)
Intermission
BRAHMS Violin Concerto
The BSO page doesn't include program notes for any of the pieces to be played, and of course there are no reviews possible yet. So, more I cannot tell you.
WCRB gives us something different this evening: a retrospective on the Ozawa years through recordings and interviews. Here's the program:
Saturday, July 1, 2023
8:00 PMSeiji Ozawa's 29 years as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is the longest tenure for any conductor in that position in BSO history. He also led more BSO recordings of individual works than any other conductor. In this program, four members of the orchestra - Principal Horn Richard Sebring, violinists Tatiana Dimitriades and Bonnie Bewick, and Associate Principal Double Bass Lawrence Wolfe - along with BSO Vice President for Artistic Planning Tony Fogg, tell the stories of the most memorable recordings they made with Ozawa.
On the program:
MAHLER - Symphony No. 3, movements IV and V
with soprano Jessye Norman, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and the American BoychoirMAHLER - Symphony No. 4, movements III and IV
with soprano Kiri Te KanawaRAVEL - Alborada del Gracioso
BARTÓK - Violin Concerto No. 2, movement III
with violinist Anne-Sophie MutterDUTILLEUX - The Shadows of Time
BERLIOZ - The Damnation of Faust, Part 1
with tenor Stuart Burrows and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus
Since this is not a (re)broadcast of a live concert, there is no performancse detail page nor review to link. These are not pieces of music that are on my personal favorites list, although Mahler is pretty good and Berlioz usually gives us something worth hearing. I just don't remember anything specific from these pieces. The reminiscences could be very interesting, so on balance, I think this should be a good show.
This week's encore broadcast is also from last summer at Tanglewood. WCRB gives us the basics:
Saturday, June 24, 2023
8:00 PMLegendary violinist Itzhak Perlman is the soloist in Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto, and Dima Slobodeniouk conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 and Unsuk Chin’s “subito con forza.”
Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor
Itzhak Perlman, violinUnsuk CHIN subito con forza
Max BRUCH Violin Concerto in G minor
Johannes BRAHMS Symphony No. 1This concert was originally broadcast on August 21, 2022 and is no longer available on demand.
Further information is available via links on the BSO's performance detail page.
There is a favorable review in the Boston Musical Intelligencer. I can't find one in the Globe.
Worth listening to.
Another "blast from the past." WCRB has the basics on their page:
Saturday, June 17, 2023
8:00 PMYo-Yo Ma returns to the Boston Symphony’s summer home as the soloist in Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and Cristian Măcelaru conducts works by Debussy and Ensecu, as well as Anna Clyne’s “Masquerade.”
Cristian Măcelaru, conductor
Yo-Yo Ma, celloAnna CLYNE Masquerade
Edward ELGAR Cello Concerto
Claude DEBUSSY La Mer
George ENESCU Romanian Rhapsody No. 1This concert was originally broadcast on August 14, 2022 and is no longer available on demand.
For more details, check the BSO perforrmance detail page:
The Catherine and Paul Buttenwieser Concert
Romanian conductor Cristian Măcelaru, a 2010 Tanglewood Music Center Fellow, makes his BSO debut. Masquerade, by the U.S.-based English composer Anna Clyne, evokes the unique milieu of mid-18th-century London promenade concerts; this is the BSO’s first performance of Clyne’s music. Tanglewood favorite Yo-Yo Ma joins for Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, one of the English composer’s final works, in part a profoundly lyrical meditation on a world in turmoil after the devastation of World War I. Claude Debussy’s La Mer—a work given its American premiere by the BSO in 1907—is virtually a three-movement symphony miraculously depicting in music the changing states of the sea and sun over the course of a day. Closing the concert is Romanian composer Georges Enescu, one of the 20th-century’s greatest musicians. His familiar Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, based on his country’s folk music, is a delightful and finely wrought staple of Pops orchestras.
It's all fairly familiar except for the first piece. You can read about it in the program notes. The Globe review of the weekend has almost nothing to say about the Clyne piece, but is quite favorable to the concert.
It shoud lbe an enjoyable evening.
More from last summer at Tanglewood:
Saturday, June 10, 2023
8:00 PMDima Slobodeniouk leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in music by Dutilleux and Debussy, as well as Ravel’s “Mother Goose,” and Leonidas Kavakos is the soloist in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.
Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor
Leonidas Kavakos, violinHenri DUTILLEUX Métaboles
Felix MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto
Claude DEBUSSY Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Maurice RAVEL Mother Goose (complete)This concert was originally broadcast on August 13, 2022 and is no longer available on demand.
From the performance detail page:
The Serge and Olga Koussevitzky Memorial Concert
Conductor Dima Slobodeniouk returns to Tanglewood and is joined by violinist Leonidas Kavakos in Felix Mendelssohn’s buoyant Violin Concerto, one of the most popular works in the genre. Henri Dutilleux’s 1964 Métabolesfeatures the French composer’s intricately imaginative scoring and his innovative, organic approach to form. Claude Debussy’s revolutionary Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun, a contemplation of a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, is one of the clearest sources of 20th-century musical modernism. Maurice Ravel composed his Mother Goose for a friend’s children to play on piano, but its incisive character sketches and the brilliant orchestral canvas he later created make it a satisfying piece for any listener.
Enjoy.
This week's encore broadcast isn't a symphony concert but an an evening of chamber music from last summer at Tanglewood. Here's the description from WCRB:
Saturday, June 3, 2023
8:00 PMPianist Emanuel Ax anchors a celebration of Czech composers, including Dvorák, Janácek, and Kaprálová, with Yo-Yo Ma, Leonidas Kavakos, and Antoine Tamsetit, at Tanglewood.
Emanuel Ax, piano
Leonidas Kavakos, violin
Antoine Tamestit, viola
Yo-Yo Ma, celloAntonín DVOŘÁK Romantic Pieces for violin and piano, Op. 75
DVOŘÁK Gypsy Songs, Op. 55, Nos. 3-5, for viola and piano
Vítězslava KAPRÁLOVÁ Ritournelle, for cello and piano, Op. 25
Leoš JANÁČEK Fairy Tale, for cello and piano
DVOŘÁK Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat, Op. 87This concert was originally broadcast on August 12, 2022 and is no longer available on demand.
It was given on a Friday evening, which is usually a time for an orchestral concert, but management has apparently decided they need to shake things up a bit. The performance detail page is still available with its link to full program note after this general description:
Pathways from Prague, Program 3
DVOŘÁK Romantic Pieces for violin and piano, Op. 75
DVOŘÁK Gypsy Songs, Op. 55, Nos. 3-5, for viola and piano
KAPRÁLOVÁ Ritournelle, for cello and piano, Op. 25
JANÁČEK Fairy Tale, for cello and piano
DVOŘÁK Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat, Op. 87Featuring three Tanglewood favorites and the Tanglewood debut of French violist Antoine Tamestit, this final concert of the Emanuel Ax-curated Pathways from Prague series explores chamber music by three Czech composers. Opening with rarely heard works for violin and piano and viola and piano by Antonín Dvořák, the concert closes with the composer’s Piano Quartet in E-flat, Op. 87, from 1889—one of his supreme achievements in chamber music. Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma play works for cello and piano by Leoš Janáček — his rhapsodic, three-movement Fairy Tale — and Vitěslava Kaprálová, who, though she died in 1940 at age 25, had an outsized impact on Czech music. Her brief, energetic Ritournelle, Op. 25, was among her last completed works.
Ticket includes admission to 6pm Prelude Concert.
Gates open at 5:30pm
The Intelligencer apparently didn't review the concert. As usual the Globe published a review of all three major weekend concerts, and the reviewer was very happy with this one.
I didn't write anything about it back then, but based on the description and the review, it sounds like a nice "chang of pace."
While we await the opening of the BSO 2023 season at Tanglewood, WCRB continues with encore broadcasts from Tanglewood 2022. https://www.classicalwcrb.org/show/the-boston-symphony-orchestra/2022-06-13/twin-vivacity-with-the-naughtons-at-tanglewood
Saturday, May 27, 2023
8:00 PMChristina and Michelle Naughton are the soloists in Poulenc’s firecracker Concerto for Two Pianos, and Earl Lee leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” Symphony and “Pulse,” by Brian Raphael Nabors.
Earl Lee, conductor
Christina and Michelle Naughton, pianosBrian Raphael NABORS Pulse
Francis POULENC Concerto in D minor for two pianos and orchestra
Felix MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 3, ScottishThis concert was originally broadcast on August 5, 2022 and is no longer available on demand.
Hear an interview with Christina and Michelle Naughton, recorded at Symphony Hall in October 2021.
I was coming home from my visit to PEI so I didn't post about the concert last August 5, although I did post about the Saturday and Sunday concerts that weekend. Here's a link to the BSO performance detail page, which has the usual links to program notes etc. and synopsizes the show as follows:
BSO Assistant Conductor Earl Lee makes his BSO debut, joined by the virtuosic piano duo of twins Christina and Michelle Naughton in their Tanglewood debuts performing Francis Poulenc’s impish neoclassical Concerto for Two Pianos. American composer Brian Raphael Nabors’ exciting and rhapsodic Pulse reflects on the varieties of experience that we might encounter every day. Felix Mendelssohn found inspiration for his intensely Romantic Symphony No. 3 on a trip to Scotland in 1829. Composed a decade later, it was his last completed symphony.
The review in the Intelligencer mistakenly attributes the concert to Saturday evening. It describes the Nabors and Poulenc pieces more than speaking about the quality of the performance, The reviewer was unenthusiastic about how the Mendelssohn was played. The Globe review of the weekend was happier.
All in all, it seems worth listening to.
Another Tanglewood concert is this evening's rebroadcast on WCRB:
Saturday, May 20, 2023
8:00 PMIn a concert by the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Andris Nelsons leads Gustav Mahler’s meditation on grief and triumph, and soprano Christine Goerke sings a rarely heard work by Berlioz.
Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Christine Goerke, sopranoHector BERLIOZ The Death of Cleopatra
Gustav MAHLER Symphony No. 5This concert was originally broadcast on July 23, 2022 and is no longer available on demand.
This concert took place the day after the one they rebroadcast last week, so my comments from that weekend still apply, and the link to the BSO performance detail page still works. The portion of the Globe review of the weekend dealing with the Saturday concert is favorable, noting that it was a student orchestra, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. The reviewer singled out the principal trumpet and the principal horn for well played solos in the Mahler. Again, no review in the Intelligencer.
So it should be a good evening.
