Tanglewood — 2023/07/14-16

 WCRB has this to say about this evening's concert:

Friday, July 14th, 2023
8:00 PM

Great 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, piano

ALL-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 PM

Andris 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 PM

Erin 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 director

Ludwing 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.

BSO/Classical New England — 2020/07/11

Today we get last summer's Tanglewood concert of July 21. At the time neither I nor the performance detail page had much to say — "just the facts."

[This evening] we'll have a chance to hear some more or less familiar music. I quote the performance detail page: www.bso.org/Performance/Detail/100263/

Jean-Yves Thibaudet is the featured soloist for two works by Gershwin—Piano Concerto in F and Variations on “I Got Rhythm,” for piano and orchestra; Andris Nelsons leads the BSO in a performance of Stravinsky’s Petrushkato complete the program.

(Some emphasis added.)

Neither the Globe nor the Intelligencer has a review I can find. So we are left with the links on the performance detail page. Well, Gershwin is familiar enough, and "Petrushka" is the least jarring (to me, anyway) of Stravinsky's three most famous ballets. So it should be a pretty good evening, beginning at 8:00 on WCRB.

BSO/Classical New England — 2018/06/30

This evening at 8:00, Boston Time, WCRB wont't be giving us a rebroadcast of a concert, but "A Preview of Tanglewood 2018!" Here's how they describe it on their page:

Saturday at 8pm, join WCRB's Brian McCreath for a look at the upcoming 2018 Tanglewood season, celebrating the centennial of Leonard Bernstein, through works by Bernstein himself, Mahler, and many more!

Saturday, June 30, 2018
8:00 PM

BERNSTEIN Dances from On the Town (Boston Pops; John Williams, conductor)
MAHLER Symphony No. 3 in D minor: III. Comodo. Scherzando. Ohne Hast (Boston Symphony Orchestra; Seijii Ozawa, conductor)
BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 16 in F: III. Lento assai e cantante tranquillo, and IV. Grave - Allegro - Grave (Emerson String Quartet)
SIBELIUS Symphony No. 2 in D: III. Vivacissimo, and IV. Finale (Boston Symphony Orchestra; Andris Nelsons, conductor)
BERNSTEIN Overture to Candide (Boston Pops; John Williams, conductor)
John WILLIAMS Stargazers, from E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (Jessica Zhou, harp; Boston Pops; Keith Lockhart, conductor)
GERSHWIN Piano Concerto in F: III. Allegro agitato (Kirill Gerstein, piano; St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; David Robertson, conductor)
BERNSTEIN from Serenade (after Plato's Symposium): I. Phaedrus: Pausanias (Lento-Allegro marcato), and II. Aristophanes (Allegretto) (Itzhak Perlman, violin; Boston Symphony Orchestra; Seiji Ozawa, conductor)
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 5 in D minor: IV. Allegro non troppo - Allegro - Piu mosso (Boston Symphony Orchestra; Andris Nelsons, conductor)

Recordings from the Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, BSO Classics, Myrios Classics, and EMI labels

That page also has links to the complete Tanglewood broadcast schedule and additional information about the season at Tanglewood.

I don't know why they think they need to talk up the Tanglewood season, but it could be interesting to hear what they say about it.

Tanglewood — 2017/08/25-27

It's the final weekend of this year's Boston Symphony season at Tanglewood. As has become traditional, the final piece on Sunday will be Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Friday evening's concert will be the score to "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" performed by the Boston Pops to accompany a showing of the movie. For whatever reason, it will not be broadcast. Perhaps it doesn't work without the visuals. Instead, WCRB will give us a reprise of a concert from last summer.



Friday, August 25, 2017.  WCRB tells us they will rebroadcast

Sir Andrew Davis, conductor
Lisa Batiashvili, violin

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
DVORÁK Violin Concerto
SIBELIUS Symphony No. 5 

Recorded July 22, 2016.
This encore broadcast is not available on-demand. 

(Emphasis added.)

At the time the performance took place, the BSO performance detail page told us

English conductor  Sir Andrew Davis-currently music director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago and chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra-returns to the Shed stage for the first time since 2008. To open the program, he leads the  Boston Symphony Orchestra  in Vaughan Williams's haunting  Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, inspired by a melody by the great English Renaissance composer. Renowned Georgian violinist  Lisa Batiashvili joins the orchestra for Dvořák's Violin Concerto, and Maestro Davis and the BSO close the program with Sibelius's soaring Symphony No. 5, written in 1915 on commission from the Finnish government in celebration of the composer's 50th birthday and subsequently revised in 1916 and 1919.

It should be worth listening to.


Saturday, August 26, 2017,  brings vocal soloists to the stage along with the Boston Symphony. To wit:

On Saturday, August 26, soprano Kristine Opolais, bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus join Music Director Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra for an evening of opera and song.Bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel replaces baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Saturday, August 26, opera gala program at Tanglewood.

(Some emphasis added.)

But wait, there's more from the performance detail page. Here's the complete list of pieces:

PUCCINI Tosca, Act IIWAGNER "Entrance of the Guests" from Tannhäuser, Act IIWAGNER "Wie duftet doch der Flieder" (Hans Sachs' "Flieder monologue")from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Act IIDVOŘÁK "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka, Act IDVOŘÁK Polonaise from Rusalka, Act IIGERSHWIN From Porgy and Bess:Introduction and Jasbo Brown Blues, from Act I"Summertime," from Act I"I got plenty o' nuttin'," from Act II"Bess, you is my woman now," from Act II

The program notes, available by a link from the performance detail page, tell who will perform in which pieces.

I'll have to miss this one because my high school class, most of whom were born in 1942, is having a 75th birthday party that evening. Opera may not exactly be your cup of tea; and I must admit, the selections (other than the Entry of the Guests, which is magnificent) are not what I would have chosen. So I can understand if you decide to give it a pass. On the other hand, if you don't know the music, why not give it a try. I'd listen if I were at home.


Sunday, August 27, 2017.  For several years, the Beethoven 9th was the only piece performed at the Sunday afternoon season finale. Recently, there has been a curtain raiser to precede it, as is the case this year. Again, the performance detail page gives some particulars:

For the second year in a row, Andris Nelsons leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in its traditional season-ending performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Sunday, August 27. The performance features soprano Katie Van Kooten in her BSO and Tanglewood debuts; mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford; tenor Russell Thomas; and bass-baritone John Relyea, along with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Maestro Nelsons and the BSO open the program with Charles Ives's tribute to Western Massachusetts, "The Housatonic at Stockbridge" from Three Places in New England.

(Some emphasis added.)


As usual, you can hear it all via WCRB at 8:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 7:00 on Sunday, EDT. Enjoy.

Between now and the opening of the Symphony Hall season on September 22, they will rebroadcast concerts from last April. In addition, they will broadcast and stream Opening Night on Friday, September 22, beginning at 5:30. You can see the specifics at their Upcoming BSO page.

Tanglewood — 2016/07/15-17

I'm sorry to be late with this. Safari basically froze on me earlier on Friday and only unfroze just before 8:00, when it was far too late to write and post this item in time for the concert. So I listened, wile watching the Red Sox game. ("We" won!) Still, I'll include the Friday concert in this post since WCRB's on demand feature will make this concert available to listen to soon, they say.

Friday, July 15.  This an all Mozart concert with Pinchas Zukerman as conductor and violin soloist. The orchestra's program detail page gives the following description:

Violinist Pinchas Zukerman, a frequent BSO guest over the years and a renowned Mozart performer, joins the Boston Symphony Orchestra once again Friday, July 15, at 8 p.m., as both conductor and soloist for a program devoted entirely to that composer's music. From the podium, Mr. Zukerman will lead the orchestra in the Haydnesque Symphony No. 25 and one of Mozart's great, final three symphonies, No. 39 in E-flat. At the heart of the program, he takes up his violin to lead the BSO as soloist in the Violin Concerto-or the second, third, and fourth movements-from the composer's Serenade in D, K.250, Haffner.

The page also has links to audio previews and program notes, with performer bio available by clicking the thumbnail picture.

You can't go wrong with Mozart. I thought there were a couple of spots in the first half where some players got out of sync, but it was very good apart from that. But the big surprise for me was that there is a violin concerto embedded in the Haffner Serenade. I'd never heard that before. Although the program doesn't say so, they performed not only the three "violin concerto" movements but also the opening movement of the serenade, which the "concerto" immediately follows.


Saturday, July 16.  Here's the description from the BSO's program detail page:

On Saturday, July 16, at 8 p.m., BSO assistant conductor Ken-David Masur returns to Tanglewood, along with celebrated American soprano Renée Fleming, for a performance of Strauss's powerfully emotional and autumnally beautiful Four Last Songs, the last major piece the composer wrote before his death a year later in 1949. Also on the program are Tchaikovsky's beloved Symphony No. 6, Pathetiqué-which was also its composer's final work before death-and Ives's atmospheric and ruminative The Unanswered Question, perhaps his most popular work. Ms. Fleming made her BSO debut at Tanglewood 25 years ago, on July 13, 1991, performing Mozart's Idomeneo  with the BSO and Seiji Ozawa.

**Conductor Christoph von Dohnányi, who was scheduled to conduct the BSO concert this Saturday, July 16 and a portion of the TMCO concert on Monday, July 18, has, with great regret, been forced to withdraw from these performances due to complications following recent cataract surgery. BSO Assistant Conductor Ken-David Masur will replace Maestro von Dohnányi for both concerts. The programs remain the same.

Maestro von Dohnányi looks forward to returning to Tanglewood to lead the BSO in the orchestra's traditional season-ending performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 on Sunday, August 28.

(Some emphasis added.)

The program detail page has the usual links to background information. It's the second Saturday in a row that the scheduled conductor has had to withdraw because of health problems. A generation of well-known and revered conductors is passing away. Still, the orchestra should be in good hands with Mr. Masur.

Ives is an unusual composer, unconstrained by the normal rules of form and harmony of his youth, so his music can be jarring. I hope the brief piece of his which opens the program will not chase anybody away. If you're unfamiliar with Ives, be sure to read the program note for the piece before listening if possible. The title of WCRB's podcast, "The Answered Question," is, of course, a take-off on Ives' title, "The Unanswered Question."

The Strauss songs are lush, and the Tchaikovsky symphony probably deserves its status as a "warhorse" of the orchestral repertoire. While I think orchestras would do well to give it a rest and program other, less-performed, deserving works, I'm sure it will be fun to listen to.


Sunday, July 17.  On Sunday, the program is mostly well-known and popular pieces, with the Ravel probably the least well known. The BSO program detail page informs us:

Spanish conductor Gustavo Gimeno makes both his BSO and Tanglewood debuts on Sunday, July 17, at 2:30 p.m., leading the orchestra in Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1, Classical-a work that was inspired by and intended as a tribute to Haydn, and which is one of the earliest pieces in the so-called neoclassical style that became popular in the first half of the 20th century-and the suite from Stravinsky's breakthrough early ballet, The Firebird. Brilliant Chinese pianist Yuja Wang joins Mr. Gimeno and the BSO for two heavily jazz-influenced works: Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, at turns breathless and beautiful, and Gershwin's infectious and well-known Rhapsody in Blue.

(Some emphasis added.)

The Friday and Saturday concerts can be heard via WCRB radio or web at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time, and the Sunday program will be aired and streamed at 7:00, p.m. (not live at 2:30). That home page, in addition to the link to listen over the web, gives information about other special programming which may be of interest. Their BSO page, in addition to brief descriptions of the Saturday and Sunday concerts, gives similar information about the remaining Tanglewood concert broadcasts and various other interesting items and links. Regrettably, the decision to delay the broadcast means that I'll have to miss this one, as I'll be away from my radio and computer at that time. I hope you'll be able to catch these standards.

BSO/Classical New England — 2016/05/28

I'm pressed for time, but here's the basics for this evening from the WCRB homepage:

BOSTON POPS
A Gershwin Celebration with Nicole Cabell!The American soprano joins conductor David Charles Abell, vocalist Nmon Ford, pianist Charlie Albright and the Boston Pops for a Gershwin Celebration, in concert at Symphony Hall!
Saturday at 8pm on 99.5 WCRB

As usual, there are links to further information on that page, and you can also go to the BSO website.

Enjoy.

Tanglewood — 2015/07/03-04

The Boston Symphony returns to Tanglewood this weekend. Opening night is Friday, with the concert and broadcast/webstream over WCRB beginning at 8:30, Boston Time. The BSO program detail page describes the program as follows:

For its first concert of the 2015 Tanglewood season, the Boston Symphony Orchestra celebrates our country's heritage during Independence Day weekend with an all American program of music by John Harbison, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Duke Ellington. The dynamic Jacques Lacombe conducts, with the exciting pianist Kirill Gerstein, equally renowned in jazz and classical repertoire, featured in Gershwin's Concerto in F. John Douglas Thompson will be the speaker in Copland's Lincoln Portrait. 

(Some emphasis added.)

The WCRB BSO page identifies the Harbison and Gershwin works as well.

Kirill Gerstein is the soloist in Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F, and John Douglas Thompson is the narrator of Copland's Lincoln Portrait in an All-American Tanglewood Opening Night that also includes Harbison's Remembering Gatsby and Ellington's Harlem, all with conductor Jacque Lacombe.

That page also has various links, including one to an interview with the pianist, and the remaining Tanglewood broadcast/stream schedule.

In the Saturday BSO time slot, WCRB returns to Boston to give us
The Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular!

Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops - along with hundreds of  thousands of fans - celebrate the Fourth of July at the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade, with special guest vocalists Melinda Doolittle, Michael Cavanaugh, and Michelle Brooks-Thompson, vocal ensemble Sons of Serendip, the Boston Crusaders drum and bugle corps, and the USO Show Troupe, all hosted by Ron Della Chiesa and Laura Carlo.

There is a link to more info on the WCRB page.

Enjoy both evenings. Apparently Sunday afternoon broadcasts from Tanglewood begin on July 12.

Tanglewood — 2014/07/05-06

It's the Boston Symphony's season opener at Tanglewood, with programs Saturday evening at 8:30 and Sunday afternoon at 2:30.

The BSO program detail page describes the opening night program as follows:

Celebrated soprano Renée Fleming opens the 2014 BSO season at Tanglewood in an all-American program. With the Boston Symphony, she will present great works of the American concert hall and opera stage, plus favorites from musical theatre and popular genres. 

(Emphasis added)

The program detail page has links to performer bios (click on the pictures) and program notes Composers are Schwantner, Copland, Barber, Adams, Gershwin, and Rodgers, conductors William Eddins and Rob Fisher.

The page for Sunday afternoon has this to say:

Jerusalem-born conductor Asher Fisch leads a Romantic program fitting for a mid-summer Berkshires' evening. "I've just finished a tiny, tiny piano concerto," Brahms wrote to a friend, referring with great understatement to his piano concerto number 2, a piece as expansive and passionate as a symphony and as intimate at times as a string quartet, and performed alongside the BSO by the magisterial American pianist, Garrick Ohlsson. The preface to the score of Liszt's Romantic symphonic poem Les Preludes reads, in part, "Love is the enchanted dawn of existence," a sentiment echoed in the closing excerpts from Wagner's sunniest opera, Die Meistersinger, a tale of love fulfilled.

(Some emphasis added, and editorial corrections made)

Go there for the usual links, including an audio preview of the Brahms.

As usual, it's all available approximately live on radio and over the web via WCRB. Their BSO page has the whole Tanglewood season broadcast/webstream schedule, as well as links to an interview with Miss Fleming and lots of other things (including recent Pops concerts).

BSO — 2012/09/27-29

As the detail page (with links for audio preview and program notes) of the BSO website informs us, this week they're giving us "Porgy and Bess."

Reprising a highlight of the 2011 Tanglewood season, English conductor Bramwell Tovey, the BSO, a distinguished cast of soloists-headlined by Alfred Walker and Laquita Mitchell in the title roles-and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus present concert performances of George Gershwin's great American masterpiece, the blues-and-jazz inflected Porgy and Bess. Described by the composer as an "American folk opera,"Porgy and Bess premiered on Broadway in 1935 and only slowly gained traction in the traditional world of opera. Three quarters of a century later, it has assumed its rightful place among the greatest works of America's music.

The show runs nearly three hours, and garnered a mixed review from the Boston Globe. I was shocked to learn after the fact that the singing of the soloists was amplified. Hitherto, management has assured us that they never amplify the music, so this represents an unsettling precedent. It also explains why the singing was ear-piercingly loud at times. If you listen on the radio or internet, you can adjust the volume, an option I didn't have in Symphony Hall on Thursday evening. I suppose it was worthwhile as part of the experience a cultured person should have, and it's good to know how the highlights I had heard work as parts of the overall drama — and it is effective as drama. I just can't get over my disappointment that they decided to artificially amplify those operatically trained voices in a supposedly acoustically perfect hall.

As always, you can listen to the broadcast or the webstream from Classical New England. But they say that on Sunday, instead of rebroadcasting/streaming it, they will reprise the John Williams 80th Birthday concert from last summer at Tanglewood.

Tanglewood — 2011/08/26-28 — Season Finale

The BSO website informs us:

Final Weekend of BSO Concerts at Tanglewood! 

Gerswhin's Porgy and Bess 
Friday, August 26, 8:30PM

The BSO begins its final weekend of the 2011 Tanglewood season Friday, August 26, with its first-ever  performance of George Gershwin’s great American masterpiece, the blues-and-jazz-inflected Porgy and Bess, which examines African-American life in the South during the 1920s. Described by the composer as an “American folk opera,” Porgy and Bess premiered on Broadway in 1935. Three-quarters of a century later, the work has assumed its rightful place among the greatest of America’s music, and its songs are sung all over the world. 

All-Beethoven Program 
Saturday, August 27, 8:30PM

The great Itzhak Perlman joins the orchestra August 27 for an all-Beethoven program that demonstrates his talents as both violinist and conductor. Mr. Perlman will act as soloist and leader for the Romances Nos. 1 and 2 for violin and orchestra, two relatively brief early-period works (written 1798–1802) that possess an understated elegance and foreshadow Beethoven’s great Violin Concerto, which would follow a few years later. Mr. Perlman then trades his fiddle for a baton and conducts the composer’s First and Fifth symphonies. 

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 
Sunday, August 28, 2:30PM

On August 28, the Boston Symphony Orchestra brings its portion of the 2011 Tanglewood season to a close with the traditional season-ending performance of Beethoven’s transcendent Symphony No. 9. Eminent maestro Lorin Maazel presides over this year’s final evening and is joined by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, soprano Joyce El-Khoury (BSO and Tanglewood debut), mezzo-soprano Margaret Gawrysiak (BSO and Tanglewood debut), tenor Garrett Sorenson, and bass-baritone Eric Owens (Tanglewood debut). The all-encompassing Ninth Symphony is not only one of the greatest and most well-known works ever, but also is a rare example of music that leaves behind the time in which it was written and heralds the arrival of a new era.

Further info is available both on the website of WCRB (which streams the concerts, with pre-concert coverage beginning 1 1/2 hours before each concert) and on the BSO's own website. Here's a link to the WCRB page which includes interviews with performers scheduled for Friday and Saturday evenings and with BSO General Manager Mark Volpe. The BSO's page for Friday evening lists cast and conductor. The Saturday page has links to notes and audio for the symphonies, and the page for the Sunday concert lists soloists, conductor and chorus, with links to notes and audio. The BSO pages also give info about broadcasts on other stations as well as WCRB, so if you're in range for any of the broadcast stations you can listen there, as well.

"But just a minute," you say, "what about the hurricane which is expected to be around?" Well, a little while ago the announcers on WCRB said that as of then, all systems were "go" for all three concerts as far as the BSO was concerned. They pointed out that never in the 74 years of concerts at Tanglewood has a concert been cancelled because of weather.