Tanglewood — 2024/07/05-07

 The BSO is back live at Tanglewood this weekend and WCRB is bringing us the concerts from the Music Shed as in previous years. Here's what we have to look forward to this weekend.

Here's WCRB's synopsis of tonight's concert:

Friday, July 5, 2024
8:00 PM

The 2024 Tanglewood season kicks off with a romantic tour de force: an all-Beethoven program headlined by violinist Gil Shaham in the composer’s Violin Concerto. Andris Nelsons also leads the BSO in the Symphony No. 3, the “Eroica” Symphony, an emotionally expansive piece that redefined what a symphony was by transforming the heroic journey into symphonic form.

Andris Nelsons, conductor 
Gil Shaham, violin

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Violin Concerto
Symphony No. 3 Eroica

Clearly, this is a program worth hearing. I'll listen to this rather than the Red Sox game.

Tomorrow it will be the Boston Pops, rather than the BSO. Of course, there is considerable overlap in the rosters of the organizations. WCRB tells us:

Saturday, July 6, 2024
8:00 PM

Keith Lockhart leads the Pops and a cast of Broadway superstars in selections from such Tony-winning musicals as Hamilton, In the Heights, The Light in the Piazza, Kimberly Akimbo, A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder, The Band's Visit, and Dear Evan Hansen.

Boston Pops Orchestra
Keith Lockhart, conductor
Victoria Clark
Mandy Gonzalez
Joshua Henry
Darius de Haas
Bryce Pinkham
Scarlett Strallen
Jason Danieley, director
Georgia Stitt, music supervisor

Broadway Today!: Broadway’s Modern Masters

I'm not familiar with this music. Doubtless it will be very good, but I just might listen to the Sox instead.

On Sunday we get an "encore broadcast," described as follows by our friends at WCRB:

Sunday, July 7, 2024
7:00 PM

Christina 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, pianos

Brian Raphael NABORS Pulse
Francis POULENC Concerto in D minor for two pianos and orchestra
Felix MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 3, Scottish

This 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. https://www.classicalwcrb.org/show/the-boston-symphony-orchestra/2021-10-05/twin-dynamism-with-the-naughton-sisters

For more information on Tanglewood concerts, visit the BSO box office.

This is a bit of a surprise, since there is a live concert (all Strauss) on Sunday afternoon with the BSO and Renee Fleming under the baton of Andris Nelsons. But the rebroadcast should be good. For whatever reason, WCRB isn't telling us yet what they plan to do next week. While they play it close to the vest, we'll just have to wait and see if this is going to be normal operating procedure (I hope not.) or what our British cousins call a one off.

At any rste they're following their pattern from past years of broadcasting the Friday and Saturday concerts live at 8:00 p.m. and delaying the 2:30 Sunday concert to 7:00 p.m. Lenox Time.

BSO/Classical New England — 2023/05/27

 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 PM

Christina 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, pianos

Brian Raphael NABORS Pulse
Francis POULENC Concerto in D minor for two pianos and orchestra
Felix MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 3, Scottish

This 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.

Tanglewood — 2022/07/30-31

 My apologies for not posting yesterday. For me this was going to be the highlight weekend of the summer: all five Beethoven piano concertod performed over the course of the three concerts. But then I was so distracted by serving on the Race Committee yeaterday, the Red Sox game in the evening and preparations for a trip that I never thought of Tanglewood until after the game was over, and I said to myself, "Darn! I forgot to lidten to the Tanglewood concert." In addition to the Beethoven, they are giving performances of works by women composers to open each program. On Friday, the Beethoven was Concertos Nos. 2 and 3. I'm sorry to have missed them and sorry not to have called your attention to them.

Saturday, July 30, 2022. Here's WCRB's synopsis:

Saturday, July 30, 2022
8:00 PM

Tonight at 8, Paul Lewis is the soloist in Beethoven’s Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 4, and Andris Nelsons leads the world premiere of the orchestral version of Caroline Shaw’s “Punctum.”

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Paul Lewis, piano

Caroline SHAW Punctum (world premiere of orchestral version; BSO commission)
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 1
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 4

For further information, including links to the program notes, see the BSO performance detail page. They summarize it with the following blurb:

Andris Nelsons and English pianist Paul Lewis collaborate on the second of three concerts encompassing all five of Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano concertos in one weekend. Each of these concerts opens with a BSO co-commissioned piece by an American woman. Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw’s Punctum, originally for string quartet, is a meditation on a brief moment in J.S. Bach’s St. MatthewPassion. Beethoven’s First Concerto (actually composed later than No. 2) is strongly anchored in the Viennese Classicism of Wolfgang Mozart and Joseph Haydn. The Fourth Concerto, written at the same time as Beethoven’s opera Leonore, is in the composer’s warm, lyrical style, but also makes room for brilliant virtuosity.

I can't tell you anything about "punctum," but the program notes will. Of course, the piano concertos are well worth hearing.

Sunday, July 31, 2022. Sunday at 7:00 p.m we get the following, as WCRB tells us:

Sunday, July 31, 2022
7:00 PM (delayed broadcast of 2:30 PM concert)

Sunday at 7pm, Andris Nelsons leads the Boston Symphony in the world premiere of "Starling Variations," by Elizabeth Ogonek, as well as Farrenc’s Symphony No. 3 and Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto, with soloist Paul Lewis.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Paul Lewis, piano

Elizabeth OGONEK Starling Variations (world premiere; BSO co-commission)
Louise FARRENC Symphony No. 3
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor 

Further information, including links to the program notes, can be found at the orchestra's performance detail page:

Andris Nelsons and English pianist Paul Lewis collaborate on the third of three concerts encompassing all five of Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano concertos in one weekend. Each of these concerts opens with a BSO co-commissioned piece by an American woman. Elizabeth Ogonek was a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow in 2012. She has been a composer in residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and has also been commissioned by the BBC, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the London Symphony Orchestra. The French composer Louise Farrenc was one of the most accomplished musicians of the early Romantic era—an outstanding pianist, composer, and teacher. She wrote her Third Symphony in 1847. Completed in 1811, Beethoven’s Emperor was his final concerto, a work perfectly balancing virtuosity with substance and depth and epitomizing the composer’s “heroic” period.

I'm sure I'm not alone in considering the "Emperor" (a name not given to it by Beethoven, but still fitting) the greatest piano concerto of all time. My freshman college roommate had a recording of it which he played every Sunday. I never got tired of it.

I won't be able to post next Friday, so here's WCRB's scoop on August 5, 2022.

Friday, August 5, 2022
8:00 PM

Friday at 8pm, Christina 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, pianos

Brian Raphael NABORS Pulse
Francis POULENC Concerto in D minor for two pianos and orchestra
Felix MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 3, Scottish 

The BSO adds:

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.

While it's not at the pinnacle of Beethoven, the Mendelsohn symphony is quite good, IMO. The BSO gave a performance of the Poulenc concerto with the Jussen brothers on piano in September 2019. At the time I wrote, "The Poulenc concerto was enjoyable to listen to. Unfortunately over the radio you probably won't be able to tell which one is playing — which was a good part of the enjoyment — but it should be okay as a strictly aural experience." For information about "Pulse," I refer you to the program notes via the link on the performance detail page for next Friday"

So I recommend it overall, even though I can't say more about "Pulse" than, "Why not give it a try?"

BSO/Classical New England — 2020/09/12

Tonight's encore performance is of a concert originally given earlier this year, on January 11. Here's what I wrote at the time (edited to remove material no longer relevant):

This evening the BSO gives us a Francophile's delight (unless your taste in French music runs more to Marc-Antoine Charpentier or Hector Berlioz): a French conductor, a French organist, and three French composers. Details and links are to be found, appropriately, on the orchestra's performance detail page, where we read:

French conductor Alain Altinoglu, who first conducted the BSO in spring 2017, returns with an all-French program featuring the debut of the outstanding French organist Thierry Escaich in two works showcasing the Symphony Hall organ. Francis Poulenc described his ambitious 1938 Organ Concerto as being close in intent to his religious music. The concerto was given its American premiere by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops with organist E. Power Biggs in 1941 in Symphony Hall. Closing the program is Camille Saint-Saëns’ popular, exuberant Symphony No. 3, which features the organ as a solo and orchestral instrument. Altinoglu also leads his own orchestral suite of music from Claude Debussy’s uniquely gorgeous and probing operatic masterpiece Pelléas et Mélisande.

(Some emphasis added.)

The Thursday concert was part of my subscription, but it was a cold night at the end of a cold snap, and Debussy and Poulenc aren't my favorite composers, and I've heard  the Saint-Saëns several times,so I decided to stay home. The rave reviews in the Globe and the Intelligencer tell me that I made a big mistake and that we should all be listening when WCRB broadcasts and streams it … this evening at 8:00 EST. … Check out their website for links to more about the concert, as well as other programming.

It certainly seems worth listening to.

BSO/Classical New England — 2020/05/09

This week WCRB gives us the concert that opened the 2019-2020 season. Here's what I wrote about it for the September 21 broadcast:

This evening we get the first Saturday concert of the new season. Here's the orchestra's synopsis from their program detail page:

BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons leads the opening concerts of the orchestra’s 2019–20 season, which feature the world premiere of the second BSO commission by the young American composer Eric Nathan, his Concerto for Orchestra, which highlights the virtuosity of the BSO’s various instrumental sections. Two Poulenc works of diverse character frame the program: his exciting, neo-Baroque Concerto in D minor for two pianos—here featuring the Dutch duo-pianist brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen in their BSO debuts—and one of the most significant works first premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the French composer’s optimistic and lyrical Gloria, here with soprano Nicole Cabell and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. In addition, the TFC, six recent Vocal Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center, and piano soloist Arthur Jussen join the BSO for Beethoven’s majestic Choral Fantasy.

(Some emphasis added.)

I couldn't find a review in the Boston Globe. The one in the Boston Musical Intelligencer is detailed and generally quite favorable.

I was there live on Thursday evening. The Poulenc concerto was enjoyable to listen to. Unfortunately over the radio you probably won't be able to tell which one is playing — which was a good part of the enjoyment — but it should be okay as a strictly aural experience. The Beethoven Choral Fantasy is basically a cheerful work, and I really looked forward to being able to hear it in the hall. The best part is at the end when the singing takes place, and I wish Beethoven found a way to extend that and maybe not spend quite so long building up to it. But all is well at the end. After intermission, the Nathan concerto seemed to be musical at points, and rarely just plain cacophonous — not nearly so bad as a quick glance at the program notes had led me to believe. That was a pleasant surprise. Finally, the Poulenc "Gloria" had some very nice singing from the soprano.

So I think it'll be mostly good listening over WCRB beginning at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time. I can't get their home page to come up on my computer so I can link their url, but you can find it in previous posts.

It turns out there was also a review in the Globe — quite favorable.

The WCRB home page is here, and the concert page, with links, is here.

So enjoy, especially the first half.

BSO — 2020/01/11

This evening the BSO gives us a Francophile's delight (unless your taste in French music runs more to Marc-Antoine Charpentier or Hector Berlioz): a French conductor, a French organist, and three French composers. Details and links are to be found, appropriately, on the orchestra's performance detail page, where we read:

French conductor Alain Altinoglu, who first conducted the BSO in spring 2017, returns with an all-French program featuring the debut of the outstanding French organist Thierry Escaich in two works showcasing the Symphony Hall organ. Francis Poulenc described his ambitious 1938 Organ Concerto as being close in intent to his religious music. The concerto was given its American premiere by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops with organist E. Power Biggs in 1941 in Symphony Hall. Closing the program is Camille Saint-Saëns’ popular, exuberant Symphony No. 3, which features the organ as a solo and orchestral instrument. Altinoglu also leads his own orchestral suite of music from Claude Debussy’s uniquely gorgeous and probing operatic masterpiece Pelléas et Mélisande.

(Some emphasis added.)

The Thursday concert was part of my subscription, but it was a cold night at the end of a cold snap, and Debussy and Poulenc aren't my favorite composers, and I've heard  the Saint-Saëns several times,so I decided to stay home. The rave reviews in the Globe and the Intelligencer tell me that I made a big mistake and that we should all be listening when WCRB broadcasts and streams it live this evening at 8:00 EST. This week they are promising the usual encore broadcast/webstream, on January 20. Check out their website for links to more about the concert, as well as other programming.

BSO — 2019/09/21

This evening we get the first Saturday concert of the new season. Here's the orchestra's synopsis from their program detail page:

BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons leads the opening concerts of the orchestra’s 2019–20 season, which feature the world premiere of the second BSO commission by the young American composer Eric Nathan, his Concerto for Orchestra, which highlights the virtuosity of the BSO’s various instrumental sections. Two Poulenc works of diverse character frame the program: his exciting, neo-Baroque Concerto in D minor for two pianos—here featuring the Dutch duo-pianist brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen in their BSO debuts—and one of the most significant works first premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the French composer’s optimistic and lyrical Gloria, here with soprano Nicole Cabell and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. In addition, the TFC, six recent Vocal Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center, and piano soloist Arthur Jussen join the BSO for Beethoven’s majestic Choral Fantasy.

(Some emphasis added.)

I couldn't find a review in the Boston Globe. The one in the Boston Musical Intelligencer is detailed and generally quite favorable.

I was there live on Thursday evening. The Poulenc concerto was enjoyable to listen to. Unfortunately over the radio you probably won't be able to tell which one is playing — which was a good part of the enjoyment — but it should be okay as a strictly aural experience. The Beethoven Choral Fantasy is basically a cheerful work, and I really looked forward to being able to hear it in the hall. The best part is at the end when the singing takes place, and I wish Beethoven found a way to extend that and maybe not spend quite so long building up to it. But all is well at the end. After intermission, the Nathan concerto seemed to be musical at points, and rarely just plain cacophonous — not nearly so bad as a quick glance at the program notes had led me to believe. That was a pleasant surprise. Finally, the Poulenc "Gloria" had some very nice singing from the soprano.

So I think it'll be mostly good listening over WCRB beginning at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time. I can't get their home page to come up on my computer so I can link their url, but you can find it in previous posts.

Tanglewood — 2015/07/10-12 (Updated July 11)

This weekend we get a full schedule of concerts from Tanglewood. Mostly, it's music that's more or less familiar to classical audiences (and in some cases, the general public); but there are a couple of items that are new to me, at least, and that I look forward to hearing, along with most of the classics.


Friday, July 10.  The Friday concert features works for organ, with Cameron Carpenter as soloist, and frequent guest conductor Stéphane Denève on the podium. BSO assistant timpanist Daniel Bauch (who seems to play timpani at least a third of the time at Symphony Hall) will be the other soloist in the concerto. Here's how the BSO's performance detail page describes it:

Popular guest conductor Stéphane Denève leads a program featuring the BSO debut of superstar organist Cameron Carpenter performing Poulenc's Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Timpani and Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3, Organ, on a program with Barber's Adagio for Strings. Following his BSO appearance, organist Cameron Carpenter will give a short recital of virtuoso solo works, featuring his Marshall & Ogletree touring organ.

(Some emphasis added.)
See the performance detail page for links to program notes, audio previews, and performer bios (click on the thumbnail picture), as during the Symphony Hall season.

The Barber seems to be the curtain-raiser. It's quite familiar, and deservedly so, IMO. I don't think I've ever heard the Poulenc, and I'm looking forward to hearing it — not that I like Poulenc all that much; I just wonder what it will be like. The Saint-Saëns organ concerto is given now and then at Symphony Hall to showcase the organ there, and it's not bad. I do wonder how the organ will sound outdoors and on what must be a smaller instrument that the one in Symphony Hall. It may well sound fuller over the radio than on the Tanglewood lawn. The show begins at 8:30 p.m., Pittsfield Time (same as Boston Time).


Saturday, July 11.  In an interesting bit of programming, the overture to Verdi's La Forza del Destino will precede a concert performance of the first act of Puccini's Tosca. The BSO performance detail page is concise in its description and has no audio previews, but does give program notes and performer bios along with the following:

Bramwell Tovey will lead an all-Italian program to include a concert performance of Act I from Puccini's Tosca featuring Bryn Terfel as Scarpia and Sondra Radvonovsky as Tosca.

(Some emphasis added.)
The Verdi overture is a good piece: a nice patchwork of music from the opera itself. It seems to me that if Maestro Tovey felt it necessary to precede the Puccini with something else, it would have made sense to go outside the operatic repertoire, rather than preceding it with something designed to precede a different opera. Maybe it will work, though. We'll see. On the other hand, Puccini isn't a big favorite of mine, and I may well listen to the Red Sox after the Verdi. (See edit below.)**

Again, the concert starts at 8:30.


Sunday, July 12. The concert begins at 2:30, with The Light That Fills the World, by John Luther Adams.* Next will be Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3, K. 216, with Pinchas Zukerman as soloist. After intermission, they'll perform Symphony No. 7 by Dvořák. Former BSO assistant conductor Ludovic Morlot, now Music Director of the Seattle Symphony, will conduct the performance. I've told you everything that's mentioned in the blurb on the BSO performance detail page, but it's still worth seeing for the links to program notes, audio previews, and performer bios.

When I saw the Adams work on the program, I was curious about it, and I tracked down a YouTube video of a performance.

It turns out what I saw is the original version of the piece for a chamber ensemble. The composer decided to orchestrate it for a normal-sized symphony orchestra, and that's the version the BSO will play. I found it easy enough to listen to. If you're at all uncertain about contemporary concert music, I suggest reading the composer's description, which is included in the program notes, and listening to the video. I'm looking forward to hearing it again.

* Not to be confused with John Coolidge Adams, the composer of the operas "Nixon in China," "The Death of Klinghoffer," and "Doctor Atomic," among other things.


As always, you can listen to these concerts approximately live over WCRB — either via broadcast, if you're within range of their signal, or via streaming on the world wide web — at the times indicated. The station's BSO page gives a very brief synopsis of each program, as well as a listing of future concerts they'll carry from Tanglewood. Note also, on their home page, an opportunity to vote for concerts from the past year to be broadcast/streamed during the interval in August and September between the end of the Tanglewood season and the beginning of the Symphony Hall season.


**Edited to add: It turns out the "Forza del Destino" overture isn't the only Verdi work on the program. They'll also present his "Stabat Mater," followed by "Ella giammai m'amò" from Don Carlo — which I really like — and "Ehi! paggio! l'onore" from Falstaff — which I don't really know. Then there's an intermission, followed by the Puccini. With these additional pieces, the program makes a lot more sense than just the two pieces shown of the BSO program detail page. I don't understand why the BSO won't list all works in a program on the performance detail page.

BSO — 2015/02/19-21

The BSO program detail page puts it well:

French conductor Stéphane Denève returns for this program of works all premiered in Paris in the early 1920s. Canadian violinist James Ehnes is soloist in Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1, which begins with an amazingly long-breathed, lyrical melody, and also features a brilliantly exciting scherzo. Stravinsky's Pulcinella and Poulenc's Les Biches were both composed for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Stravinsky's score reworks music mostly from the Baroque era for an effect both contemporary and out of time; Les Biches was completely au courant, a light and frothy tableau of a swank party in the south of France. Milhaud's seminal, lively ballet score Creation of the World is an important mainstream example of Paris composers' fascination with American jazz in the years after World War I.

(Some emphasis added.)
The blurb above doesn't list the works in the order they are to be performed. For the performance order, see the rest of the page. Of course, there are also links to good audio previews, program notes, and performer bios on the page as well.

The beginning of "Pulcinella" — which is the only piece on the concert I'm at all familiar with — seemed slower than what I'm used to, and I don't think that's a good thing. I think it should feel livelier than it did on Thursday. Apart from that, I have no criticism of the way any of the music was performed. The violin concerto was inoffensive. "The Creation of the World" was enjoyably jazzy; and "Les Biches" felt a bit too impressionistic for my taste and maybe a bit overlong (perhaps as a result of coming after all the rest). All in all, though, it was a pleasant concert. Unfortunately, as in the previous couple of weeks, the audience was sparse. Sections of the balconies were nearly or entirely empty. I suppose the travel conditions had something to do with it, but people who might have attended and didn't missed a nice evening at Symphony.

The Globe review provides a bit of description of how the violin concerto was played, and reminds me that there was a nice encore by the violinist — no telling whether there will be one this evening or, if so, what it will be. The Boston Musical Intelligencer review gives a fuller description of the music, including a rave for the violinist in the Prokofiev.

So tune your radio or your computer or other web listening device to WCRB this evening at 8:00  p.m. Boston Time for some pleasant listening without much heavy lifting for the listener. Their BSO page includes a link to an audio preview with the conductor and the violinist (which runs over 28 minutes). If you miss the concert this evening, there will be a rerun on March 2 at 8:00 p.m.

The rerun on Monday the 23rd will be last week's concert of Debussy, Birtwistle, Liadov, and Stravinsky.

Tanglewood — 2013/08/02-04

Yikes! I thought I still had a day to post about this weekend's Tanglewood concerts. I just realized that it's already Friday, and the first concert of the weekend is already over. Here's their description of what I missed:

Several Friday-evening Shed performances will be part of the popular UnderScore Friday series this season. At these performances, patrons will hear comments about the program directly from an onstage BSO musician. Dates: July 12, August 2, August 23. 

Stéphane Denève, chief conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, returns to Tanglewood on Friday, August 2, at 8:30 p.m. leading a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with pianist Lars Vogt. Compared with the Third that preceded it and the Fifth that followed, the Concerto No. 4 is a sharply contrasting interlude, a less imposing but more original sideways step with which Beethoven explored the lyrical and discursive possibilities of the form. The program opens with Strauss's searching tone poem Death and Transfiguration, a young man's vision of a far-off death, and ends with Poulenc'sStabat Mater for soprano, chorus, and orchestra, featuring the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.

Hopefully, you were alert enough to realize that this was a concert night and listened even without my prompting. Of course, the links on the performance detail page may still be of interest, especially the audio of the concerto and the interview with Maestro Denève.


August 3  Still to come, as of this writing, is a Saturday evening program of music by Ravel and Beethoven conducted by Charles Dutoit with Lang Lang as soloist in the Beethoven. A fuller description follows:

Acclaimed Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit leads the BSO in two programs, Saturday, August 3, and Sunday, August 4, continuing the BSO's multi-year survey featuring Maestro Dutoit in repertoire from the early- to mid-twentieth century. On Saturday evening at 8:30 p.m., Chinese superstar pianist Lang Lang  joins the BSO and Maestro Dutoit as soloist in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. The program will also include Ravel's hauntingly beautiful Pavane for a Dead Princess, one of his many works inspired by the music and culture of Spain, and the composer's complete ballet score Daphnis et Chloé, a signature piece for both Mr. Dutoit and the orchestra.

Again, see the performance detail page for links to performer bios (by clicking on the photos), program notes, and audio previews.


August 4  The Sunday afternoon concert has Maestro Dutoit returning to conduct two pieces by Stravinsky, with Yo-Yo Ma soloing in the Dvořák Cello Concerto. As always, the performance detail page gives links to bios, program notes, and audio material, as well as the "official description" of the program:

On Sunday, August 4, at 2:30 p.m., cellist Yo-Yo Ma joins the orchestra for Dvořák's romantic Cello Concerto, an ardent piece full of tuneful melody and impassioned music that is one of the composer's finest works and is infused with the Slavic flavor present in all of Dvořák's oeuvre. The program also includes Stravinsky's brief orchestral fantasy, Fireworks, an early work that finds the composer still writing in the mold of his mentor Rimsky-Korsakov, and The Rite of Spring, an iconic work that demonstrates Stravinsky's early maturity and which celebrates its centennial in 2013.

Classical New England will broadcast and stream the concerts at the usual times (see previous posts for specifics). See their BSO page for links. BTW, I just noticed that they have links to the Verdi Requiem broadcast and the all Mozart program on that page. I'm not sure how long they'll be available, since no earlier concerts are linked on that page.

Tanglewood August 27-29, 2010

I'm sorry I missed posting info about last weekend's concerts, but I was in the midst of running sailboat races from Tuesday through Saturday, and just too busy. Anyway, here's what the BSO website says about this weekend.

"Final Weekend at Tanglewood 

David Zinman and The Planets 

Friday, August 27, 8:30PM

The BSO's final weekend at Tanglewood this season gets underway Friday, August 27, at 8:30 p.m in the Shed as David Zinman (TMC Fellow 1958) joins the orchestra for a performance of The Planets, Holst's vivid, ever-exciting musical journey through the solar system. Opening the program is Poulenc's Gloria—which was commissioned in honor of Serge Koussevitzky and premiered by the BSO in 1961—with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver, conductor, and soprano soloist Isabel Bayrakdarian.

Brahms and Dvořák 

Saturday, August 28, 8:30PM

Celebrated American pianist Emanuel Ax, who made his BSO debut at Tanglewood on August 6, 1978, joins the BSO and conductor David Zinman in the Shed at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 28, to perform as soloist in Brahms's mercurial Piano Concerto No. 2. Joining the concerto and concluding the program is one of the most well known symphonic works ever written: the New World Symphony by Dvořák, who was a frequent correspondent and friend of Brahms's.

Bach and Beethoven 

Sunday, August 29, 2:30PM

At 2:30 p.m in the Shed on Sunday, August 29, the Tanglewood season comes to an end as always with Beethoven's immortal Symphony No. 9, this year conducted by the distinguished German maestro Kurt Masur, who has been an influential figure in the classical music world for more than half a century. The BSO is joined by vocal soloists soprano Nicole Cabell, mezzo-soprano Marietta Simpson, tenor Garrett Sorenson, and bass-baritone John Relyea, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, which opens the program with Bach's Jesu, meine Freude."

Same drill as always: you can hear Ron Della Chiesa's "pre-game show" 1/2 hour before each concert time, the intermission features, and the concerts over WCRB's webstream.