Tanglewood concert reviews

James Levine’s Tanglewood debut as BSO Music Director

July 8, 2005 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

James Levine’s Tanglewood debut as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, July 8, 2005, was a stunning success, his tenure heralded by a majestic performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, (reprising his Symphony Hall opening last October) that was received most enthusiastically by the dressed-up audience in the Shed and by a handful of diehards huddled under trees on the damp lawn after a rainy day.

Dubbed “The Symphony of a Thousand” when Mahler performed it in 1909 in New York with an orchestra of 171 and 858 singers, there were 361 musicians onstage for thiss performance, which was just the 3rd time it has been performed at Tanglewood. In addition to the BSO, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and the American Boychoir, there were 8 soloists, sopranos Susan Neves, Deborah Voigt and Heidi Grant Murphy, mezzo-sopranos Yvonne Naef and Jane Henschel, tenor Johan Botha, baritone Eike Wilm Schulte and bass-baritone John Relyea.

With Mahler’s composition being built around the ninth century Pentacostal hymn Veni, creator spiritus and the final scene from Goethe’s Faust, this was a program that could sanctify the occasion, as well as edify (and entertain) the audience.

Once the orchestra and singers were in place, all dressed in white, Maestro Levine, wearing a tuxedo, entered to a great roar of applause, which he acknowledged with a little kiss-blowing gesture before taking his seat on the podium.

An instant later the organ rang out and the singers sent their call heavenward:

Come, Creator Spirit
visit these Thy souls,
Fill them with heavenly grace
Whom Thou hast created of Thy spirit.

Some twenty-five minutes later an off-stage brass septet blew a brilliant accentuation to the movement-closing “Glory be…” being sung and played in rapturous fashion – and thus, the Tanglewood tenure of James Levine was begun. The second movement, lasting about twice as long as the first, was testament that the opening prayer had been answered. It seemed something whole, rather than a sum of several parts; something of ineffable beauty and complexity that moved this way and that so that it was made apparent in any number of tones and hues to evoke the gamut of emotion.

One scanned the white sea of musicians and singers as the aural locus shifted, even up above the acoustical panels where soprano Heidi Grant Murphy sang the truly high notes. And one always returned to the calm black-clad figure at the center of it all, the seated maestro conducting it all with an absolute minimum of movement.

He used his left hand for little more than to turn the pages of the score and the baton he barely raised above or beyond his shoulder. Except toward the end when he laid aside the baton and used both hands, sometimes with coaxing gestures; and he was most demonstrative, almost in conversation with, first violins Malcom Lowe and Tamara Smirnova during a sublime passage just before the finale.

And so the great inter-regnum has come to a close, nearly four full years since Seiji Ozawa ended his tenure as BSO Music Director on August 4, 2001 with a performance of Richard Strauss’ Salome, Opus 54.

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Tanglewood tickets and box office information

Tickets for Tanglewood concerts are 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. Download the 2018 Tanglewood season brochure.

Steely Dan at Tanglewood

The July 26, 2011 Steely Dan concert at Tanglewood attracted close to a capacity crowd that seemed to enjoy the rare opportunity to witness live renditions of all-time favorites such as Aja, Bodisatva, Dirty Work, My Old School, Show Biz Kids, and Reelin’ in the Years. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, calling themselves “jazz-rock ambassadors to the galaxy,” brought their Shuffle Diplomacy Twenty Eleven tour to the Berkshires, not far from Bard College, where they first teamed up in the 60s. They were accompanied by the Miles High Big Band and the Embassy Brats.

Photos of Steely Dan at Tanglewood

Photos by Mark Connolly.

More info: Tanglewood 2011 schedule.

James Taylor, Amy Grant, Vince Gill at Tanglewood

July 3 & 4, 2011 concerts reviewed by Dave Read.

Independence Day weekend 2011 is bound to be remembered as the Dawn of the New Millennium of Peace & Understanding because that was when James Taylor leapt across the cultural divide into the arms of Amy Grant and Vince Gill, in front of back-to-back sold-out audiences at Tanglewood. This was a big surprise; we don’t do country at Tanglewood.

(Photo: Scott Caltron )

They tried it Fourth of July 2006 with LeAnn Rimes – really good concert, but half-empty Shed. That experience may have factored in to the secrecy leading up to these shows and the fact that the guest performers weren’t announced until the day before the show, well after they had been sold out, even though the date had been made months earlier.

Here’s the shocking news: the two shows were seamless; there were no jolts, nothing at all abrupt in the transitions between the several numbers each of the guests did in the midst of Taylor’s concert routine. It’s all pop entertainment, people, despite the machinations of merchandisers and principalities such as the CMA and the Grammys.

Furthermore, any dissimilarity between and among songs of James Taylor, Amy Grant, and Vince Gill were washed away by the sameness of self-deprecating adulation each evinced for the other headliners on stage.

Amy Grant is a knock-out, plain and simple, wholesomely pretty appearing toward the end of the first set in sexy summer dress with shawl that got lost for the second set both nights as did her shoes! She did her 20 year old Baby Baby to everybody’s delight.

Vince Gill too looked right at home in the Koussevitsky Music Shed, wearing grey slacks and jacket with a black collarless shirt – rather metropolitan. His song Pretty Little Adriana was a highlight of his mini-sets, especially his deft, searing blues guitar playing. No wonder Gill is a regular at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads festival.

James Taylor was no less good, and effusive as always in his regard for his band with whom he worked up a fresh sampling from his ouvre for these shows. Our favorite both nights was Steamroller, delivered in about half the time but with maybe double the oomph of earlier Tanglewood performances. Two or three minutes into it, ace sideman Larry Goldings took the lead on the Hammond B3, then it segued neatly back to Walt Fowler on muted trumpet, before coming front and center for James Taylor and Vince Gill’s guitars. Very cool.

Another highlight for us was some jazzy singing by Taylor – several little riffs that were like the vocal equivalents of guitar solos. They emphasize the joy he takes in his work and make it feel as is he is truly into the current presentation of the song and bringing it to life rather than merely involved in yet another recitation of it.

We sensed that, in his patter this week, Taylor has given additional prominence to his 1968 anointing by the Beatles. As grateful as we are to him for introducing Amy and Vince to us this year, perhaps he’ll be more Beatle-esque next summer and invite to Tanglewood some mixed-up homesick youngster at the dawn of a startling career?

BSO opens 2011 Tanglewood season

The Boston Symphony’s summer residency at Tanglewood in the Berkshires got underway July 8th with a all-Italian program under the direction of guest conductor Charles Dutoit. Here is a video clip from the opening night performance, showing Angela Meade singing an excerpt from Bellini’s opera Norma.

James Taylor with the Boston Pops and John Williams at Tanglewood

July 1, 2011 concert reviewed by Dave Read.

The Boston Pops tuned up for their annual 4th of July concert for hundreds of thousands on the Esplanade in Boston by sharing the bill at Tanglewood on July 1 with James Taylor for a relatively intimate gathering of eighteen thousand souls. Led by laureate conductor John Williams, the Pops had the Koussevitsky Shed stage to themselves for the first half of the program and fairly thrilled the audience with a suite of excerpts from Williams compositions, opening with a fanfare for the city of Boston called Jubilee 350, and including pieces from the movies Far and Away, Cath Me If You Can, and Superman.

The Pops got to display their jazz chops for the Escapades from Catch Me If You Can, which featured an ad hoc sax, vibes, and bass trio that the crowd applauded loudly, especially the solo bass coda that allowed simple notes to reverberate through the Shed with the same force, but maybe more eloquence, as a multi-instrument finale.

After intermission, James Taylor appeared, looking like a tycoon in suit and tie but seeming somewhat like a tyro – displaying an unusual nervousness. Undaunted, he began with an ironic choice in his chosen hometown, Getting to Know You, even whistling some.

But just a few tunes into the set, by the time keyboardist Larry Goldings had taken the lead on Mean Old Man, Taylor seemed completely at ease. Perhaps it took the involvement of his sidemen, Goldings plus Jimmie Johnson and Chad Wackerman on bass and drums, for him to achieve work mode? Whereas the artist named James Taylor is an individual, there’s a performer with the same name who’s hardly ever alone, and who is most comfortable while plying his trade amid peers.

It was an earlier James Taylor Boston Pops John Williams triple bill that set an attendance record of 24,470 which resulted in such traffic snarls that the BSO promised the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge to cap ticket sales at 18,000.

2011 A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood

Just as Tanglewood is important to the Berkshires, so too is it important to Garrison Keillor, who told the audience in 2000 during the first live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood that it was where he and his wife had their second date. Keillor and his nonpariel radio crew have come back every year since, putting on shows in the Koussevitsky Music Shed on the Saturday before the Boston Symphony Orchestra arrives for their summer residency.

It is an aspect of Garrison Keillor’s genius that he can basically do the same thing week after week year after year for decades and have each program feel like a singular work of art. The lineup for the 12th annual broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood hasn’t been announced, but it takes only a glance at a list of guests from the first eleven shows to be assured that it will be a winner. Follow the links to see our review, plus photos and/or video from that show.

Tanglewood picnic with Garrison Keillor and Andrea Suchy

This video clip of Garrison Keillor and Andrea Suchy serenading Tanglewood patrons minutes before the start of the June 28, 2010 live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood shows an element of the show unknown to the radio audience.

An extra benefit from attending the live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion are the encores, such as these from the 2009 show posted to our Youtube channel: