Tanglewood concert reviews

Leonard Bernstein Centennial at Tanglewood, July 15, 2018

By Dave Read – Attending the Sunday afternoon (July 15, 2018) program in the Koussevitsky Music Shed at Tanglewood was no easy matter; every bit of it commanded your attention, from Mendelssohn’s beautifully familiar Italian symphony, through Yuja Wang’s dazzling performance of Beethoven’s 1st piano concerto, to the how-fit-in-these-fraught-times composition from the celebrated culture warrior Leonard Bernstein, Chichester Psalms.

Yuja Wang, piano
Rafi Bellamy Plaice, Boy soprano
Tanglewood Festival Chorus, James Burton, conductor
MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 4, Italian
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 1
BERNSTEIN Chichester Psalms

Besides being the summer of Lenny, another theme at Tanglewood has been brilliant pianists whose names rhyme. Yuja Wang (Lang Lang opening night) performed the Beethoven piano concerto with an ethereal artistry; I listened to a few minutes of the first movement with eyes closed and was startled upon opening them that people were responsible for the sounds I was hearing.

Yuja Wang performs Beethovens Piano Concerto No. 1 with Andris Nelsons leading the BSO at Tanglewood July 15, 2018; Chris Lee photo.

An unfortunate ancillary matter accompanied Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, the most awaited composition on the program. The Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the all-volunteer organization that became beloved under nearly fifty year leadership of founding director John Oliver is in upheaval. Since assuming leadership last year, James Burton has instituted practices that have insulted and angered TFC veterans. It is reminiscient of the furor at the Tanglewood Music Center that came about in the fourth decade of Seiji Ozawa’s overripe tenure running the whole operation.

Nontheless, it was a beautiful performance of a piece that is quintessential Bernstein, this composer with such a catholic appetite – treating ancient Hebrew texts with sounds and rhythms of a mid-twentieth century American ghetto! Not that he would have needed to be egged on in that direction, but the commissioning Anglican cleric mentioned to Bernstein that “… would be very delighted if there was a hint of West Side Story about the music.”

How many in the large audience were wondering his reaction to politics today, this artist who hosted a dinner party during the Nixon administration to raise money for the legal defense of several Black Panthers?

Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti, at Tanglewood

Thursday, July 12, 8 p.m. Seiji Ozawa Hall

Instrumental Ensemble
Charles Prince, conductor
Alexandra Silber, soprano
Shuler Hensley, baritone
Vocal Ensemble, Jamie Bernstein, directo

The July 12 All-Bernstein program in Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, selections from the Bernstein Songbook, followed by Trouble in Tahiti, was one of those events that require your attendance if you intend to get the most out of the local cultural scene. Leonard Bernstein was a member of the inaugural class of the Boston Symphony Orchestra‘s summer music school in 1940, now known as the Tanglewood Music Center. He was a protege of founder Serge Koussevitsky, became his conducting assisstant, and then rocketed to fame as assisstant conductor the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1943. He was the un-rehearsed last-minute replacement for Bruno Walter in a Carnegie Hall concert broadcast nationally that was praised on the front page of the next day’s New York Times.

Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti, cast photo with director Jamie Bernstein, at Tanglewood; Hilary Scott photo. — Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti, cast photo with director Jamie Bernstein, at Tanglewood; Hilary Scott photo.

His final conducting performance, with the BSO in a program of Britten and Beethoven at Tanglewood on August 19, 1990 was celebrated in newspapers around the world in articles that mentioned the coughing fit he suffered in the midst of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Diagnosed with emphysema in his fifties, he announced his retirement from conducting five days before his death Oct. 14, 1990.

The celebrated and re-calibrated acoustics of Seiji Ozawa Hall, which commands the Leonard Bernstein Campus, may not be ideal for selections such as on this program; whereas the singers made good and pretty sounds, it could seem an effort to discern the semantics of various songs. Maestro Bernstien’s daughter Jamie was easily understood in her role introducing the Selections from the Bernstein Songbook, though, and her direction of Trouble in Tahiti was happily applauded.

BSO opens 2018 Tanglewood season with Lang Lang

Article updated July 7, 2018 by Dave Read

Andris Nelsons led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in their 2018 Tanglewood season opener, featuring pianist Lang Lang in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24. Since the middle of June, the Popular Artist series has had the run of the place, through good weather and bad. Tonight felt nothing like any of our recent visits; the nearly week long heat wave broke yesterday, leaving today feeling almost autumnal!

Our seat in the Koussevitsky Music Shed afforded a view over Lang Lang’s right shoulder and while his entrance in the concerto neared, his left hand appeared to float above the piano keys, moving slowly as if suspended in some unseen solution. Then his right hand played his first notes of the composition, and we watched intently as something like a pantomime transpired in the midst of a musical performance that brought the audience to its feet in rapturous applause.

The pianist, among the world’s most celebrated, in his third Tanglewood appearance since 2003, conveys an image of weightlessness, as if he seeks to free his hands from the gravity of the body for the accomplishment of his incorporeal mission.

Lang Lang has played Tanglewood thrice

While the eye is diverted, the ear is delighted by Lang Lang’s artistry, which can include runs of notes that rush right up to and around each other. A single one can seem to linger; dozens dazzle in the span of a couple seconds, too. They are flawless, even if they do not present themselves for inspection.

Following an ovation and curtain-call, Lang Lang returned to play CHOPIN Nocturne in C-sharp minor, B. 49. He left the stage slowly, basking in the applause and acknowledging the audience as he departed; then he pulled an Elvis, tossing his handkerchief in the direction of an adoring fan!

Rounding out tonight’s program was Tchaikowsky’s Symphony No. 5, chosen because it was played on Leonard Bernstein’s storied seventieth birthday concert at Tanglewood thirty years ago. With melody after memorable melody created by way of every colorful nuance available, delivered with energetic drama, the orchestra has settled in to the summer of Bernstein.

2018 Tanglewood schedule

The 2018 Tanglewood schedulefeatures a season-long celebration of the centennial of Leonard’s Bernstein’s birth, culminating in the Aug. 25 Bernstein Centennial Celebration hosted by Audra McDonald, with Maestro Andris Nelsons, four guest conductors and soloists Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, and others.

Hotels near Tanglewood

Find hotels near Tanglewood with user reviews, check amenities, nearby attractions, availability and then book your room reservations at these lodging establishments through our partner, International Hotel Solutions (IHS), the leading provider of secure online hotel reservations.

Tanglewood tickets and box office information

Tickets for the 2018 Tanglewood season available through Tanglewood’s website, www.tanglewood.org, SymphonyCharge at 888-266-1200, and at the Symphony Hall Box Office at 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston MA.

Getting around the Tanglewood campus

The Tanglewood campus, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center comprises several hundred acres in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge. It is the location of the Koussevitsky Music Shed and Ozawa Hall, where hundreds of thousands attend concerts and a variety of events, including picnics. We always advise new visitors to arrive early and take their daily walking exercise wandering the beautiful Tanglewood grounds. This dynamic map of the Tanglewood grounds includes photos and information for such points of interest as Aaron Copland Library, Highwood Manor House, The Glass House, and The Lion’s Gate.

James Taylor at Tanglewood July 4, 2018

Article updated July 6, 2018 by Dave Read

Something about James Taylor’s Fourth of July concert at Tanglewood felt low-key, but that’s in reference to a dozen or so such, which always rank among the most exciting shows of the year. Our expectations may have been out of whack because his July 4, 2008 show exploded into a celebration of his sixtieth birthday. Maybe now that the ¾ century mark is within shouting distance, seventy is not so big a deal?

My reading of the show doesn’t extend to the usual aspects, such as the favorites-filled setlist of 25 songs, the 218 autographs from the lip of the stage during intermission, nor the revival-like 3 song encore when everybody got into the act, nor his awesome band. I thought he ceded primacy to Mike Landau on Steamroller, which his ace guitarist did not squander, before cutting loose with his own axe-indulgence during a coda that would not quit.

The stagecraft of James Taylor

James Taylor is a master of stagecraft, that aspect of a musician’s duty to an audience that cannot help but color his virtuosity and singing. Stagecraft, a.k.a. patter, is the golden thread a singer weaves through a performance. James Taylor is so good at it sometimes that it steals the show; tonight it was spot-on, meaning that I wouldn’t have noticed it, except that I had an eye out for it.

James Taylor’s Lawn Nation at Tanglewood

The Fourth of July James Taylor concert at Tanglewood is a “bucket list” sort of event; it is a musical performance with social implications elbowing their way to the fore. It is a generational thing, with an abundance of kids running around and no shortage of patrons for whom the metaphorical bucket is the last thing they want to be thinking about. Not annual, but since Mr. Taylor built a house near October Mountain seventeen years ago, there has been at least one James Taylor Tanglewood show almost every year.

Here are snapshots of Lawn Nation, as James Taylor likes to call his Tanglewood audience. The images were made around half past six, July 4, 2018.

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones at Tanglewood, June 29, 2018

Article updated July 2, 2018 by Dave Read

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones played a generous and rousing concert in Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood on Friday, June 29, 2018. We hesitate to describe the performance as firey or electrifying, because then the band may be blamed for the heat wave that followed in their wake and three days later has not let up. This show comes a little past the midway point in the Popular Artist Series and was the first of four that we’ll attend in a six day stretch, about which we’ll write more when it’s over! Meantime, here are photos from the show:

2018 Tanglewood schedule

Hotels near Tanglewood

Tanglewood tickets and box office information

Getting around the Tanglewood campus

Harry Connick, Jr. at Tanglewood June 23, 2018

Article updated June 25, 2018 by Dave Read

Harry Connick, Jr. transported the Tanglewood audience Saturday night from the high land overlooking Lake Mahkeenac to the Ninth Ward below Lake Pontchartrain by way of a concert/seminar of nearly two and a half hours that included a second-line parade through the Koussevitsky Music Shed.

Is it a coincidence that America’s sole contribution to the world of art – jazz, encompassing the blues (or vice versa) has its origins in the capital of the slave trade, America’s original sin? Probably not, since the two are inextricably linked; my guess is that one is compensation for the other, as if the beauty and transcendent power of jazz is how the universe seeks atonement for the horrors of slavery.

We Tanglewood patrons are likely to know as much about life in Latvia as we do about life in New Orleans; thanks to the musicianship and generosity of Mr. Connick and his band, we’ve gotten a taste of life in the Big Easy, without having to pay the dues required to make a living there. Perhaps most poignant tonight was Mr. Connick’s show-and-tell tribute to his childhood piano teacher James Booker, who got the gig thanks to the unconventional administration of justice by the District Attorney, Harry Connick, Sr.! After showing us how Booker taught him the rudiments of “stride” piano playing, he played a wistful Hear Me in the Harmony in tribute.

Other highlights from this show included solos and duets by Johnathan DuBose, Jr. on guitar, Arthur Lantin on drums, Lucien Barbain on trombone, and an amazing display of tap dancing by Mike Hawkins. Allen Touissaint‘s infectious Yes We Can Can was a party. An over-introduced Gospel segment preceded the band’s foray into the audience, for chorus after chorus of When the Saints Go Marching In, with umbrellas waving in genuine second-line fashion.

Wynton Marsalis and Louis Armstrong in the Berkshires

Harry Connick, Jr. spent a summer honing his classical chops here as a teenager, as did fellow New Orleanian Wynton Marsalis (Tanglewood Music Center Fellow 1979). Another denizen of the Crescent City, Louis Armstrong, held forth just down the road during Folk and Jazz Roundtables hosted by Stephanie and Phil Barber, which led to the brief but critically important Lenox School of Jazz – the first of its kind in the world.

[James Booker photo credit: By Lionel decoster – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link]

2018 Tanglewood schedule

Hotels near Tanglewood

Tanglewood tickets and box office information

Getting around the Tanglewood campus

Steven Stills and Judy Collins at Tanglewood June 17, 2018

Article updated June 20, 2018 by Dave Read

Tanglewood schedules present an embarrassment of riches, putting us at risk of fun-overload, which is as dangerous as second-helpings of pecan pie at Thanksgiving. Having covered Tanglewood since the Clinton Administration, we know enough to moderate, not overbook, and to look closely at the lineup so as to avoid regret.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has listed 15 concerts on the 2018 Popular Artist calendar before Maestro Andris Nelsons opens the BSO’s Tanglewood season on July 6. The first weekend included Roger Daltry and the Boston Pops performing The Who’s Tommy, followed by a show billed as David Crosby and Friends, and then Steven Stills and Judy Collins for Sunday afternoon.

Underwhelmed by last summer’s Pete Townsend/Boston Pops mashup, we eliminated this year’s Who remnant, leaving us to decide between factions of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. We chose the show scheduled for Sunday largely because Tanglewood is the most beautiful music venue in the world on a Sunday in June, but also because we figured Stills’ guitar chops will have aged better than Crosby’s front-man chops.

We were so right about the Sunday afternoon at Tanglewood aspect of our choice, but from what we hear, we missed a pretty exciting show Saturday night!