Tanglewood — 2012/07/27-29

Since I'll be away later this week, I'm trying to schedule this to post on Thursday.

July 27.  The weekend begins with the Friday evening concert at 8:30. The BSO website only tells us what is on the program and links the program notes. But if you put your cursor on a picture, a pop-up box identifies the artist; and if you click on the picture, you get the artist's bio. It turns out the conductor is Marcelo Lehninger, and the pianist is Nelson Freire.

MOZART - Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K.466
VILLA-LOBOS - Momoprecoce, Fantasy for piano and orchestra
MUSSORGSKY (orch. RAVEL) - Pictures at an Exhibition

For Classical New England's preview material go to their BSO Tanglewood page, and scroll down to the weekend of July 27-29.




July 28.  Saturday night brings, per the website

BERLIOZ - La Damnation de Faust

Charles Dutoit conducts. You can check the website page for the singers and choruses. Not much at Classical New England's website for this one. Maybe more will come later.




July 29.  The Sunday matinee at 2:30 brings Charles Dutoit and Emmanuel Ax in the following program:

BEETHOVEN - Piano Concerto No. 3
TCHAIKOVSKY - Symphony No. 5

The BSO website is here. The CNE website (link above) has a preview of the Tchaikovsky.




Ron Della Chiesa's "pre-game show" begins a half hour before each concert, and for the hour before that they give something called "Tanglewood Today" with recordings that somehow relate to Tanglewood. As always, the webstream is at http://www.wgbh.org/995/ and the broadcasts on 99.5 FM.


Enjoy!

Tanglewood — 2012/07/20-22

Greetings, music lovers young and old, near and far. Another weekend arrives, and again we look to Tanglewood for three programs to be broadcast and streamed around the world from western Massachusetts by Classical New England.

July 20.  It's Berkshires Night at Tanglewood (1,000 free tickets have been made available to residents of the area), and there is a program of music by Bernstein and Tchaikovsky. Inexplicably, they aren't identifying the performers, either on the homepage or on the detail page, but they at least tell us what is scheduled to be performed.

BERNSTEIN - Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium) for violin and orchestra
TCHAIKOVSKY - Symphony No. 6, Pathétique

But Classical New England spills the beans.

Christoph Eschenbach conducts Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, the "Pathétique," and violinist Dan Zhu is the soloist in Bernstein's Serenade, live from Tanglewood.

Tonight at 7pm on Classical New England

I'm not familiar with the Bernstein Serenade, but having read the Symposium in college, I'd like to hear what he does with it. Unfortunately, I'll be out having dinner with the Race Committee, so I'll probably miss it.


July 21.  Saturday brings us an all Wagner program. Again, they don't tell us who's conducting this program, but the detail page does have a link to the program notes on the music.

ALL-WAGNER PROGRAM - 
Overture to Rienzi
Siegfried Idyll
Prelude and Love-death from Tristan und Isolde
Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre
Forest Murmurs from Siegfried
Prelude to Parsifal
Overture to Tannhäuser

Again, CNE is more forthcoming with information and links to their own preview material.

The BSO and conductor Asher Fisch re-create a 1937 Tanglewood program that's gone down in history./

Some of it is stuff I like, but I can do without the Liebestod. I don't quite recall the Parsifal  prelude, but in general, I can do without the opera. The Rienzi and Tannhäuser overtures, OTOH, are just my figurative cup of metaphorical tea.


July 22.  On Sunday afternoon we get an all Mozart program under the baton of Kurt Masur and his son Ken-David. Here the website is not afraid to give some details:

In yet another nod to history on Sunday, July 22, at 2:30 p.m., the BSO presents an all-Mozart program, a popular model in the early years of the festival, led by Kurt Masur (a Tanglewood guest more than 25 times), and his son, both conductor and grammy-nominated producer, Ken-David Masur, and featuring pianist Gerhard Oppitz in the Piano Concerto No. 24, among the very greatest and most dramatic of Mozart's works in the genre and one of just two in a minor key.

Also on the program are the Symphony No. 36, Linz-which bears the name of the Austrian city in which it was composed over a period of just four days in 1783-and one of Mozart's most enduringly popular works, Eine kleine Nachtmusik.

By now, you should know the drill: evening concerts at 8:30, Sunday afternoon at 2:30, all with introductory material beforehand.




I'll be in Europe  next week. If I get a chance, I'll put something about next weekend here before I go — maybe even try to  schedule it to publish while I'm gone. But if I don't get around to it, just check the BSO and Classical New England websites.

Tanglewood — 2012/07/13-15

July 13  Friday evening's concert, beginning at 8:30, is all Mozart. As the BSO website succinctly puts it:

All-Mozart Program: July 13 at Tanglewood

Eminent German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter follows up her July 11 Ozawa Hall recital with an appearance as both soloist and conductor on Friday, July 13, at 8:30 p.m. Mutter, who opened the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 2011-12 subscription season with performances of the five Mozart violin concertos, rejoins the orchestra at Tanglewood for the composer's Second, Third, and Fifth concertos.

There are links to program notes and audio material at this page.


July 14  For Saturday evening, they are giving us a "Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Celebration."

To celebrate Tanglewood's 75th Anniversary, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and Tanglewood Festival Chorus will all appear, along with conductors John Williams, Keith Lockhart, Andris Nelsons, and David Zinman; soloists Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Peter Serkin, James Taylor, and Anne-Sophie Mutter. The program will be wide-ranging and will include works by Tanglewood legends including Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein.

Here's a more complete rundown from the detail page.

Program to include -
COPLAND - Fanfare for the Common Man
BERNSTEIN - Three dance episodes fromOn the Town
- Selections from The Great American Songbook
HAYDN - Piano Concerto in D, 2nd and 3rd movements
TCHAIKOVSKY - Andante cantabile, for cello and strings
SARASATE - Carmen Fantasy, for violin and orchestra
RAVEL - La Valse
BEETHOVEN - Choral Fantasy

I'm definitely looking forward to the Choral Fantasy. The rest of it should be okay, too.



July 15  Here's the official description of the Sunday afternoon concert:

Stravinsky and Brahms: July 15 at Tanglewood

Latvian conductor and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Music Director Andris Nelsons, who has previously conducted the BSO only at Carnegie Hall, makes his Tanglewood debut Sunday, July 15, at 2:30 p.m. Mr. Nelsons and the orchestra are joined by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus for Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. The program also includes Brahms's exhilarating Symphony No. 2.

And here's the link to the page with the links to notes and audio previews. As I noted when it happened, the BSO and Tanglewood Festival Chorus, with Bernard Haitink as conductor, performed the Symphony of Psalms in the program which concluded the regular season two months ago.

The usual broadcast/webstreams are available from Classical New England, which also has its own information about the music to be performed.

Tanglewood — 2012/07/06-8

It has kind of "snuck up" on me. (For my foreign readers, the correct word is theoretically "sneaked," but "snuck" is regularly used colloquially, as if it were an irregular verb like a German strong verb.) The Tanglewood season of the Boston Symphony opens this evening, July 6, at 8:30, Eastern Time. Since this is the 75 Anniversary season of BSO concerts at Tanglewood, and they'll be performing a lot of music from that season or related to their 75  years at Tanglewood, I had been thinking of doing a season preview with just dates and composers, but I procrastinated too much, so I'll just try to do the weekly previews.

July 6  The BSO website says

July 6 is Opening Night at Tanglewood!

On August 5, 1937, what was then the Berkshire Symphonic Festival's largest crowd assembled under a tent for the first Tanglewood concert, an all-Beethoven program including the Leonore Overture No. 3 and the Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6. To open the 75th Tanglewood season, revered conductor and 1952 Tanglewood Music Center alumnus Christoph von Dohnányi and the BSO reprise that program on Friday, July 6, at 8:30 p.m.

For links to program notes and audio previews, you can go to the page for this concert.

I'm definitely looking forward to this one.

July 7  The website tells us

Barber, Ravel, Meyer and Tchaikovsky: July 7 at Tanglewood

On Saturday, July 7, at 8:30 p.m., Kansas City Symphony Music Director Michael Stern makes his BSO and Tanglewood debuts in a concert featuring popular violinist Joshua Bell Tanglewood guest every year since 1989-and bassist-composer Edgar Meyer, who last appeared at Tanglewood in 2000.

The page for this particular program also has links to notes and audio. It also gives this fuller description of the program:

Kansas City Symphony Music Director Michael Stern makes his BSO and Tanglewood debuts in a concert featuring popular violinist Joshua Bell-a Tanglewood guest every year since 1989-and bassist-composer Edgar Meyer, who last appeared at Tanglewood in 2000. The program will include the world premiere of Mr. Meyer's Double Concerto for violin, double bass, and orchestra-an appropriate programming nod to Tanglewood's founder and BSO Music Director 1925-1949, Serge Koussevitzky, himself a virtuoso bass player. Bell and Meyer have collaborated for many years in music ranging from bluegrass to classical. The program also includes Barber's Overture to The School for Scandal and two works by Tchaikovsky: Meditation, for violin and orchestra and the Symphony No. 4, a work performed as part of the second-ever Tanglewood concert on August 7, 1937.

Unfortunately, my brother will probably call from Japan during the world premiere of the Meyer concerto. I'll try to remember to set up my tape recording system (yes, I still record on audiocassettes) so I can listen later — maybe during the Pops concert on Sunday.  ;)

July 8  On Sunday we get

JUL8

Sunday, 2:30 PM

Boston Pops Orchestra with Bernadette Peters

Further detail from the day's page:

Broadway superstar Bernadette Peters has dazzled audiences with performances on stage and screen. With Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops, she returns to Tanglewood with her singular style, presenting selections such as Let Me Entertain You, Fever, and Some Enchanted Evening.http://www.bso.org/Performance/Detail/37049/

As usual, you can listen to the concerts on Classical New England's webstream (or broadcast, if you're within range of the transmitter.) They tell us somewhere that the broadcast/webstream will begin at 8:00 this evening, but I can't find the times for the remaining broadcasts. I'll guess that they will also be 1/2 hour before the scheduled concert time — therefore 8:00 again on Saturday, and 2:00 on Sunday. But your guess is as good as mine. Classical New England also has a page where they have links to all sorts of audio material — mostly the producer, Brian Bell, analyzing some of the music to be played and interviewing conductors and performers. Some of that material may also be included in the pre-concert broadcast and during intermissions. You can reach that page either through the link I provided or by clicking on "Boston Symphony Orchestra" under the heading "Classical New England Programs" on the right side of the CNE home page.

Edited July 7 to correct date in title.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau R.I.P.

I just learned from Morgenländer's blog that Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau has died. He was certainly one of the great baritones of the past 60 years. May he rest in peace.

BSO — 2012/05/3-5 "Last Night at Symphony" Info and Reviews

This week's concerts are the last of the 2011-2912 BSO subscription season. They will be on hiatus until the Tanglewood season begins for them on July 6. Then they will play three different concerts almost weekend — Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoon — through August 26. I expect Classical New England to carry them all live. Information about the schedule is posted at www.bso.org if you click on Tanglewood at the top of the page.

But back to the present. This week it's two works with chorus: Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms and the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven. As the BSO website says:

The 2011-12 BSO season closes triumphantly with the last of three Bernard Haitink-led concerts, a program of two very different works for voices and orchestra. Stravinsky's beautifully austere Symphony of Psalms was commissioned to commemorate the Boston Symphony's 50th anniversary and was given its American premiere by the BSO under Serge Koussevitzky in December 1930. Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, one of the most beloved, familiar, and compelling works in the repertoire, still startles with its radical departures from the symphonic tradition that Beethoven inherited and developed. American soprano Jessica Rivera and American mezzo Meredith Arwady are making return engagements with the BSO. Italian-German tenor Roberto Saccà and German bass Günther Groissböck make their BSO debuts.

I enjoyed the Thursday evening performance. I thought Maestro Haitink enabled all the instrumental lines to be heard except in the loudest passages when it's inevitable that some get drowned out: this performance was so well balanced that most of the time every voice, instrumental and vocal, could be heard. The bass soloist in the Beethovenwas particularly good, I thought.  The Globe's reviewer was not so happy with it. He thought the pairing of works made no sense, and he found fault with various elements of the performance. Despite what he thinks, I recommend listening this evening, tomorrow or on demand. I hope the clarity of Thursday evening's performance comes through on the radio or via the webstream.

BTW, now the concerts will be available for streaming for a year, rather than just two weeks, and they'll be on the BSO website as well as Classical New England, but I'm not sure how to access them from the BSO site.

Spring Orgy® Period 2012

WHRB has begun their Orgy Period today with the Psychedelic Unknowns and are now into the Blue Note 1500 Series Orgy, which will continue through Friday interspersed with the Psychedelic Unknowns tonight and the Smiths and Morrissey overnight Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Classical music orgies will begin on Saturday evening at 5:00 with the Max Bruch Orgy. Then on Sunday from 3:00 p.m. until midnight they will present the Warhorse Orgy. Further Orgies will include

• Siegmund Romberg — begins Monday, May 7, at 7:00 p.m.
• Sergei Prokofiev — begins Tuesday, May 8, at 5:00 a.m. and runs, with overnight intermissions, through Friday, May 11
• Musikpolitik — Sunday, May 13, 1:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
• Igor Markevitch Centenary — begins Monday, May 14, at 1:00 p.m.
• Albert Roussel and Florent Schmitt — begins Tuesday, May 15, at 10:00 a.m., resumes May 16 at 1:00 p.m.
• Wilhelm Stenhammar — begins Thursday,  May 17, at noon
• Ton Koopman — begins Friday, May 18, at noon

In general, orgies end at 10:00 or 11:00 p.m., and in the case of the ProkofievOrgy, it resumes at 5:00 on the successive days. Further information about performers and works to be performed and approximate timings is available in the Program Guide at the WHRB website. The same site also gives you a Listen Online button so you can listen to the orgies via webstream.

For any readers who have not read about earlier Orgy® Periods, WHRB is a largely student-run station at Harvard University, and the orgy periods began as a way for disc jockeys who were also students to avoid spending a lot of time deciding on programming during university exam periods. They would just play everything they had by a particular composer or performer, and then move on to another.

BSO — 2012/04/26-28 Info and Reviews

Here's what the BSO website says about this week's concert.

In the second of his three BSO programs this season, Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink leads Beethoven's warm and ever-popular Pastoral Symphony, which depicts a pleasant day in the country (notwithstanding a brief thunderstorm). Equally pastoral, but from a different world, is Debussy's lush, languid, modern Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun, which reveals the still-young composer's mastery of a new musical language. Austrian pianist Till Fellner makes his BSO debut in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat, composed while he was working on his great opera The Marriage of Figaro.

I was there on Thursday evening as part of my regular subscription series, and again on Friday afternoon with a priest friend who had wanted to go with me to a concert and selected this week's program. He didn't want to have to be driving after dark, so he didn't join me on Thursday evening. I could have exchanged my Thursday evening ticket for one on Friday afternoon, but I decided that the Mozart and Beethoven would be worth hearing twice; and I'm glad I did. I thought Mr. Fellner, making his debut with the BSO, did very well, and the orchestra also was flawless. The reviewer for the Boston Globe also found it very good.

So I think you won't be disappointed if you listen to the stream from Classical New England at the usual times. And you may also want to check out the background features there as well as at the BSO site.

BSO — 2012/04/12-14 & 18-24 Info and Reviews

Sorry I've been late posting about these, but it's not too late to listen to the on demand webstream from Classical New England.

I missed the earlier performance,

Former Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Esa-Pekka Salonen makes a long-awaited return to the BSO podium with a sparkling program, including a recent work of his own, the highly admired Violin Concerto. The critically acclaimed and popular Canadian-born virtuoso Leila Josefowicz, for whom Salonen wrote the piece, is soloist in these performances. Ravel's familiar Le Tombeau de Couperin is the composer's own orchestration of four movements from his 1917 piano suite of the same name. Stravinsky's complete The Firebird ballet score, composed in 1910 for the Ballets Russes, launched the composer's international reputation with its kaleidoscopic orchestration and exotic sound. It remains one of his most popular works. http://www.bso.org/Performance/Detail/23006/

because I had a meeting to attend that Thursday.

 I was at Symphony Hall for the Beethoven and Mendelssohn on the 19th

 BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink leads three weeks of programs to conclude the 2011-12 season. He is joined by popular actress Claire Bloom as narrator and the bright young singers Layla Claire and Kate Lindsey for Mendelssohn's delightful complete incidental music to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, also featuring the women of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Opening these three weeks of concerts, each of which features a Beethoven symphony, is the composer's Symphony No. 1, a piece many years in the making that helped establish Beethoven's status as the major inheritor of the Viennese Classical style from Mozart and Haydn. http://www.bso.org/Performance/Detail/23009/

 and thought they were good.

The earlier concert sounded good on the radio, and the Globe reviewer was enthusiastic. http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/04/13/esa-pekka-salonen-makes-triumphant-bso-return-with-his-violin-concerto/Rm5yvrfiwFJiLtwG2EMahP/story.html The review for this week's program wasn't quite such a rave, but overall favorable. http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2012/04/20/sturdy-beethoven-sparkling-mendelssohn/fp3VAfbmy8DAngxdv6h3aK/story.html

So I think you'll find them both listening to. http://www.wgbh.org/995/