Tanglewood concert reviews

Seiji Ozawa conducts Salome at Tanglewood

August 4, 2001 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

For his Tanglewood swan song as BSO Music Director, Seiji Ozawa chose to conduct Richard Strauss’ Salome, Opus 54, performed without staging and costumes – no dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils. No matter; Strauss’ music and Oscar Wilde’s poetry, brought to life by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and an impressive cast of vocalists, led by Deborah Voigt, were more than enough to elicit an eruption of applause that lasted well after Maestro Ozawa had scurried off the stage of the Koussevitsky Music Shed. (Photo shows Seiji Ozawa seated behind podium while soloists took their bows.)

Salome Dancing Before Herod, by Gustave Moreau

This was an hour and three-quarters of incomparable aural beauty; a sonic statue sculpted by Ozawa. Whenever anyone present muses on the Maestro’s Tanglewood tenure, this performance should reverberate in memory, as Haiku does. Instead of a set full of scenery and costumes for the singers, they stood on a platform behind the orchestra. The opera’s literary and artistic antecedents include the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, a short story by Gustave Flaubert Herodias, and a panoply of paintings, including one by Gustave Moreau that inspired Oscar Wilde.

With only minimal dramatic action to follow on stage, one was free to focus on Oscar Wilde’s poetry via the supertitles. For example: As soon as Salome’s entreaty to Jokanaan,

“I am amorous of thy body!… The roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia are not so white as thy body… Nor the feet of the dawn… Nor the breast of the moon…”

is rebuffed by Jokanaan: “Back daughter of Babylon! By woman came evil into the world…”

– Salome revises her opinion on his body and shifts her attention to his hair: “Thy body is hideous… It is like a plastered wall where vipers have crawled. It is like a whitened sepulchre full of loathsome things…. It is of thy hair that I am enamored, Jokanaan. Thy hair is like clusters of grapes… The long black nights, when the moon hides her face, when the stars are afraid, are not so black as thy hair.”

Left on the page, such language may look overblown, if descriptive and colorful. Its magic lays in the rhythm, the repartee of the dialogues, the contradictions and emotional swings. In performance, it allows the singers to display the full range of their gifts, as the score does the orchestra. What better choice than Salome as Ozawa’s swan song to Tanglewood!

It is delicious to speculate on the similies Wilde would draw if he were to describe Ms. Voigt’s performance. She was a commanding and brilliant presence; her performance was a masterpiece, rich as a Michelangelo.

This was Seiji Ozawa’s good bye to his beloved Tanglewood, delivered with the full vocabulary of music. He spoke no words to the audience – which would have been as silly as shining neon lights on the Sistene Chapel.

(Editor’s note: It would be 4 years before James Levine’s Tanglewood debut as BSO Music Director, with a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8.)

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Seiji Ozawa Tanglewood on Parade

July 31, 2001 Article by Dave Read

Nearly 20,000 fans witnessed Seiji Ozawa’s last turn leading Tanglewood on Parade, the annual celebration of (and fund-raiser for) the Tanglewood Mucic Center. It was probably the last time we’ll see him cue the cannon of the Eastover artillery battery that joins the massed orchestras for the 1812 Overture, the traditional close to the program, but probably not his swansong as cannoneer. That’s because he received as a parting gift an authentic Civil War cannon, which is more likely to end up at his West Stockbridge cottage than to follow him to Austria, where he becomes director of the Vienna State Opera next year.

The spectacle of Tanglewood on Parade reminds us that these Berkshire acres are the world of music’s summer home. This year’s TMC fellows, who will go on to careers with the world’s great orchestras, came to Lenox from places such as: Tirana, Albania; Shannxi, China; County Louth, Ireland; Jerusalem, Israel; Amarillo, Texas; and Kishinev, Moldovia. Throughout the bright, sunny afternoon, they gave recitals, ensemble, and chamber performances across the Tanglewood campus.

Maestro Ozawa, of course, was the star of the evening program, taking turns on the podium before and after stints by André Previn, Keith Lockhart, and John Williams. Second star went to Chris Brubeck, whose composition, Convergence: Concerto for Pops Orchestra was given a wonderful performance by Lockhart and the Boston Pops.

The 8 PM brass fanfares by the TMC Fellows, including Copland’s elegiac Fanfare for the Common Man, serves to draw the audience’s attention away from the conviviality of the lawn and toward the Shed. The opening number, Verdi’s Overture to La forza del destino, focused their attention on music. It was loud and fun, marked by crescendoes that one could’ve walked away humming if it hadn’t been followed by even more memorable music.

Previn followed Ozawa on the podium to conduct the TMC orchestra performing Benjamin Britten;s Sinfonia de Requiem, which was commissioned in celebration of the 2600-year history of Imperial Japan in 1940. Previn, whose conducting style looks the antithesis of Ozawa’s, elicited a fine performance from the orchestra, which brought the piece to a stirring close.

Lockhart and the Pops opened the second half of the program with the very engaging and intriguing Convergence: Concerto for Pops Orchestra, which was commissioned just last year by the BSO and premiered at Symphony Hall on May 16. As the 49 year old Brubeck wrote then, “They wanted a piece that would weave classical, jazz, and even funk elements…to challenge and showcase all the sections of the orchestra.” Well, he scored big time, particularly in the second movement which had great jazz elements, including a trumpet and trombone duet, some deft brushwork by the drummer, and a teasing coda that fooled many in the audience.

This august institution on sacred grounds amid these hallowed hills being all about tradition, a new one seems to be Pops emeritus conductor John Williams‘ cienmatic interlude. This year’s entry was “Hedwig’s Theme” from the upcoming blockbuster movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Williams followed that with the lovely A Hymn to New England, which he wrote to accompany a documentary-travelogue for the Museum of Science in Boston.

Then Williams made the presentation to Ozawa of the cannon, which was rolled onto the stage temporarily. After brief remarks by the Mastro, he led the combined orchestras in a fresh and powerful rendition of Tchaikovsky’s famous overture. One wonders what thoughts lay behind the enigmatic expression on Ozawa’s face as he turned to cue the cannoneers one last time? Everything else was clear as a bell, including the sky over Stockbridge Bowl where the fireworks show brought a brilliant close to a memorable day.

George Benson, Poncho Sanchez, Nicholas Payton at 2001 Tanglewood Jazz Festival

September 2, 2001 preformance; article by Dave Conlin Read

Tanglewood sculpture tribute to Louis Armstrong; photo, Dave Conlin Read.

The audience responded enthusiastically to the set performed by Nicholas Payton and the Louis Armstrong Centennial Celebration Band leading off the triple-bill that closed the 2001 Tanglewood Jazz Festival. Though plagued by problems with the sound system, the band, featuring a seven-piece horn section, delivered a number of impressive solos on such Armstrong favorites as Potato Head Blues, Saint James Infirmary, and Hello Dolly.

This is not a tribute band in the sense of imitating Armstrong in performance; they are about copying the spirit of Satchmo and making new music from that, which is a lofty and laudable goal, but may be a disappointment for someone looking for an Armstrong fix.

Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band

After one of the longest introductions in Shed history, the Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band delivered a captivating set that combined Cuban, African, and Caribbean rhythms, soulful harmonies and sparkling improvisation. Among the many highlights was Sal Cracchiolo’s trumpet solo on the Thelonious Monk composition In walked Bud.

The Grammy award-winning Sanchez, who got his start with vibraphonist Cal Tjader in 1975, has said that “Our main goal is always to keep Latin jazz alive, growing and moving, while being authentic to the music that we love…And, as I always say in clinics, this music is not just for Latino people. It was born in the United States and it is American music. It is for everybody!’

And thanks to the exhortations of bongo master Jose “Papo” Rodriguez, everybody in the nearly-full Shed showed they “got it” by rising from their seats toward the end of the set and filling the aisles in a most improbable display of dancing.

George Benson at 2001 Tanglewood Jazz Festival; Photo: Dave Conlin Read.

Capping off the festival was the dual-threat George Benson, who hit the mark with both his steamy lyrics and his searing guitar licks. He gave an inspired and generous performance that stretched way past 11; he paid tribute to the locale, “Wo Tanglewood, I finally made it!!”; and he got the audience to engage him in a scat duel. He also took on a loudmouth in the audience, telling him: “Get your own show – now let me finish this crazy shit here.”

Benson’s performance proved that commercial popularity and artistic integrity are not mutually exclusive terms; although he has been head-lining at big shows around the globe for more than two decades, he played and sang tonight like he had something to prove.

Itzhak Perlman conducts BSO at Tanglewood

August 19, 2000 performance review by Dave Conlin Read

Current Tanglewood schedule and ticket info.

Itzhak Perlman’s performance in the dual role of conductor and soloist made compelling a program of less than spectacular selections from Beethoven, Mozart, and Brahms. It was an unforgettable evening, as much for his exuberant conducting as for his brillant musicianship.

Beethoven – Romance No. 1 in G for violin and orchestra, Opus 40
Romance No. 2 in F for violin and orchestra. Opus 50 Mozart
Symphony No. 29 in A, K.201(186a) Brahms
Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Opus 98

It’s hard to believe a man with such a Ruthian record had a debut left in him, but this was Isaac Perlman’s conducting debut with the BSO (after perfecting the dual role of conductor and soloist on the road for three years: at Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto, Houston, et al.).

He has played with every major orchestra in the world; his TV debut came at age 13 on the Ed Sullivan show (in 1958); his awards include the Medal of Liberty and honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Brandeis, Roosevelt, Yeshiva and Hebrew Universities; fifteen Grammys and four Emmys.

He has made annual appearances at Tanglewood since 1986 and also hosts The Perlman Summer Music Program, his own mini-Tanglewood for pre-college musicians in East Hampton, NY.

Perlman began the program playing the first measure of Beethoven’s Romance No. 1 in G solo. Then, with the violin tucked between his chin and shoulder, he used his left hand, his head, and the violin bow to communicate with the orchestra. There were moments during the Beethoven Romances when Perlman evoked a stern schoolmaster, flailing the air with the violin bow, his face grimaced from pinching the violin to his shoulder.

His solos were lush, seamless passages that would have been exhilirating, but for the composition’s lack of emotional heft. The music was enjoyable, but in the same sense as it would have been fun to watch Babe Ruth take batting practice.

There were passages where he affected an “air fiddler” bowing broad strokes leaning in toward the violins; he reached near the floor and swept the baton upward to signal the cellos; and he looked like a scat singer, puffing out his cheeks as if to mimic the sound of the double basses.

Concluding the program was Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 in E minor, which Jan Swafford described in his program notes as, “an elegy for a craft and a culture (Brahms) saw dying…in the forms of solemn and mournful dances.” Composed near the dawn of the 20th century, Brahms saw doom and gloom on the horizon. As things turned out, he wasn’t a bad prognosticator. But, if he had known the century would produce Itzhak Perlman, it would’ve brightened his day.

Dave Brubeck 2004 Tanglewood Jazz Festival

September 5, 2004 performance review by Dave Conlin Read

Tanglewood Jazz Festival 2004 came to a close shortly
before eleven o’clock Sunday September 5 and the last notes
played were not the work of Brubeck, or Connick, or
Marsalis – to name just 3 of the teriffic weekend’s headliners – but
old Johannes Brahms, whose “Lullaby” was played on flute by
Bobby Militello of the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Militello toosed off a few lines of the song on flute
(with his saxophone tucked under his arm) when the quartet
came back onstage to acknowledge the audience’s ovation;
everybody cracked up, nobody expected a real encore; it was
another light, funny moment folded into a seriously
brilliant two and a half hour concert, including a dazzling
second set with the DBQ accompanied by the 23-piece Brubeck
Symphonette.

The audience was cued to Dave Brubeck’s playful mood
right from the start, when, after introducing his band, he
said: “I made a tune list and as we walked out here, I told
the boys to forget it. I’m going to play an old tune from
the 30s called ‘Margie’.”

Brubeck introduced the second number with an anecdote
about life on the road – more precisely, about getting
cranky deep into the Quartet’s third European tour of the
year and being placated by being setup with digs in London
for the remainder of the tour.

When he was told that, “We’ll put you up in a London
flat,” he said “Sharp!” It took the audience a moment to
get the joke: he gave them a chance at redemption when his
story continued in the form of introduction to “London Flat
London Sharp,” which Mr. Brubeck said he composed to dispel
the gloomy mood all the travel had gotten him into.

“Now, my left hand will run down the piano in Flats, and
my right hand will go up the piano in … .” SHARPS rang
out from the vast audience, now totally attuned and settled
in for a great musical experience.

The number featured a searing alto sax solo by Militello
and was followed by something completely different, “Theme
for June” from brother Howard Brubeck’s 1959 composition
“Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra.” Beginning with
sublime and quiet notes on the piano, it lead into a bass
solo wherein Michael Moore evoked a feeling of loneliness
so palpable it could make one shudder.

Randy Jones moved the tune along with whispering
brushwork, picking up the pace until Militello’s sax
lightened the feeling and finally Brubeck gave the whole
idea a second thought with a fanciful run of notes before
getting quiet again and fading to silence.

Brubeck spent a few minutes talking about his brother’s
composition, that it gave more room for the jazz musicians
to improvise than earlier pieces for jazz and orchestra,
and that Leonard Bernstein heard it at the original Music Inn in Lenox and
decided to record it, conducting the New York Philharmonic
with the DBQ in 1960.

Brubeck continued by telling us that in the early 50s
and even in the 40s, he “was messing around with crazy time
signatures” but that it didn’t work because people couldn’t
dance to the tunes. Then he began to do popular tunes,
doing them simple at first and then playing them crazy,
“because people didn’t listen once they were on the dance
floor!”

Around the same time he began listening to the little
yellow records of his kids and thought they were pretty
good. One of them was “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” from
which Brubeck wrote an arrangement of “Someday My Prince
Will Come.” Roundly dissed at the time for being so un-hip
as to embrace pop music, Brubeck reminded the audience that
it wasn’t long before the uber-cool Miles Davis put out his
own version of “Some Day…”

Listening to it tonight, one could waltz, march, and/or
just groove to Brubeck’s polyrhythmic genius. It was
followed by the recent piece, “Elegy,” written in memory of
Norwegian jazz journalist Randi Hultin, which featured
Moore’s sorrowful bowing bass and Militello’s plaintive
flute. Drummer Randy Jones had the spotlight as they ended the set
with “Out of the Way.”

For the second set, the quartet was joined onstage by
the 23-piece Brubeck Symphonette, all strings save for one French horn, conducted by Russell
Gloyd, who embellished on Brubeck’s earlier remarks by
saying that one of those London gigs was with the London
Symphony Orchestra during their 100th Anniversary
celebration, with Queen Elizabeth II in attendance. Gloyd
continued in M.C. mode, telling the story of how “Blue
Rondo A La Turk” came to be written by Brubeck after he was
intrigued by the rhythms he heard street musicians playing
in Istanbul while on a State Department tour during the
Eisenhower administration.

Besides “Blue Rondo…”, the set included “Brandenburg
Gate” which Brubeck described as being based on the rhythm
of ‘Danke schön’ German for ‘thank you;’ the
similiarly inspired “Regret,’ which repeats the sound of
that sad word throughout and which he invited the audience
to devise their own programs for because he didn’t know
what the piece was about; and “Lullaby” from his Christmas
cantata, “La Fiesta de la Posada.”

For the evening’s, and indeed, the Festival’s, grand
finale, we were presented with a scintillating performance
of “Take Five,” composed by Brubeck’s original saxophonist
Paul Desmond. All the solos were outstanding, especially
Randy Jones’, which got Brubeck to his feet the better to
enjoy it before returning to the piano to put the wraps on
one of the best concerts Ozawa Hall will ever hold.

Kenny Barron, Mulgrew Miller, Vanguard Jazz Orchestra at Tanglewood Jazz Festival

Sept. 6, 2009 performance reviewed by Ronald K. Baker

Smack-dab in the middle of a string of sunny days and pleasant temperatures, Sunday afternoon found some concertgoers lingering on the grounds of Tanglewood rather than being in a hurry to be seated in Ozawa Hall for the 2 p.m. presentation. The concert began precisely on time, nonetheless, as the last few trickled in.

Onstage, two elegant Steinways nestled together belly to belly so that the pianists could see each other. And so the summit of the titans began. Mulgrew Miller, with his hulking frame, maintained an upright posture with his gaze fixed on his opposite number, Kenny Barron, nine feet and eighty-eight keys away. For his part, Barron rarely looked up, preferring rather to lean slightly forward with his shoulders closer to the keyboard.

The program notes gave a brief history of previous piano duets, many of which took place with four hands on the same instrument. This occasion, a bit of a rarity, would find each instrumentalist having access to the full range of notes, hence making communication all the more essential. That, ostensibly, was the plan. For whatever reason, perhaps the proximity of the microphone, Miller’s instrument was in the foreground, both literally and figuratively. Barron’s was a bit subdued by comparison.

“Gentlemen, start your engines,” someone might well have proclaimed as the pair began. Barron, the senior member, played a solo introduction. Miller joined in mid-way, first adding a rolling bass line, and then taking the first improvisation, which was followed by spontaneous applause from the Jazz-savvy crowd.

The piece itself, the standard, “Just In Time,” was a fitting entry point that most listeners could relate to. For some, it was one of the more familiar offerings from the duo whose general fare was a clinic in virtuosity, style, and technique that seemed, at times, fiercely competitive.

That said, Kenny Barron played a decidedly lyrical and expressive solo rendition of “Memories of You,” a Eubie Blake composition. Barron’s creativity, subtleties, and dynamic changes to augment the mood, all played well to the crowd – bringing to mind the adage, You can get more flies with honey… . His understated vamp in the left hand came across like a giant on tiptoes. An attentive hush came over the audience.

In succeeding selections, creativity was the watchword. The pair executed runs up and down the ivories with such proficiency that 32nd notes seemed to ripple as effortlessly as the waving of a willow in the breeze.

The high point of the collaboration came when the pair decided to “funk” with each other on the selection “Blue Monk.” It was the only instance of protracted eye contact between the two players. The soulful moment had a feel-good swagger that was optimally engaging. It came to a close with a commanding stride-piano coda, as these two lions of jazz piano reached détente. The Tanglewood audience rose in appreciation.

John Mosca leads the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra

During the brief intermission one of the pianos was wheeled offstage, and the sixteen-piece Vanguard Jazz Orchestra got underway less than fifteen minutes later. John Mosca, veteran trombonist, doubled as moderator. His self-effacing presentation would prove easy to take for the remainder of the afternoon. By way of introduction, he noted that the band has been appearing on Monday nights without interruption at the Village Vanguard for the past forty-three years.

Many of the instrumentalists either lead or are members of other successful jazz groups. The credentials of this lineup are most impressive. Mosca pointed out that the band relies heavily on arrangements by the venerated Bobby Brookmeyer, the trombonist, who was one of the original members of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Vanguard Orchestra.

For this concert, the aggregation began with the rhythm section lulling the listeners into a false sense of security, which was, unfortunately, shattered when the full orchestra entered. There were sixteen separate microphones, one for each player as well as one for the individual players who made their way down front to be featured.

Among those who were called upon for such duty were the stand-outs lead trumpeter Terrell Stafford, tenor saxophonist Billy Drewes, and the alto saxophone virtuoso, Dick Oatts, who performed yeoman’s duty as assistant conductor from his chair in addition to his outstanding solo efforts.

The power of this orchestra, augmented by the amplification, made it hard to imagine how they could fare so well in the relative intimacy of the Village Vanguard. The sound engineer, wrestling with the sound in Ozawa Hall, had the added responsibility to deliver sound to those assembled on the lawn as well.

All in all, the arrangements were stellar and appropriately varied. The crowd, which had tweaked itself after the first concert, seemed appreciative enough, graciously applauding the soloists and the endings as well.

Among the most impressive of the selections were “ABC Blues,” whereon Oatts turned in a monster performance on alto, and, “The Waltz You Swang For Me,” a Thad Jones composition that showcased Drewes on soprano sax. And while many of the pieces waxed esoteric, if not cacophonic, a ballad changeup, called “Kids Are Pretty People,” had an easy feel, evoking images of nightfall in the city.

The soundman got a better handle on things as the concert went along (or the listener became inured to the volume level). Many of the pieces were quite busy by comparison, so that when pianist Michael Weiss presented a pensive chorus or two, accompanied only by the tasteful addition of bass and drums, it provided what seemed like a welcome respite. Gary Smulyan, whose performance was huge on baritone sax, offered up another poignant moment of his own.

Closing out the afternoon, Mosca dedicated the last selection to Edward M. Kennedy, the late senator from Massachusetts. As if to mimic the audience’s response to his dedication, the piece was delivered in subdued tones. Dick Oatts conducted nicely from his center chair in the band’s front row.

The faithful filed out of the hall, richly rewarded for their attendance. Crisp air and the angular sunshine of early September made for a leisurely departure across the green and shadowed lawns of afternoon.