BerkshireLinks.com

Tanglewood concert reviews

Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra closes 2002 season

August 19, 2002 performance, reviewed by Dave Conlin Read

The Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, which made its debut only five weeks earlier with conductor Seiji Ozawa and soloist Mstislav Rostropovich, gave its valedictory performance under the artful guidance of guest conductor James Conlon to a rapt audience that drew a large audience to Ozawa Hall and to the gentle slope outside.

The program began with conducting fellow Scott Parkman leading the orchestra in a ringing and melodious performance of Hindemith’s Concert Music for Strings and Brass, Opus 50, which was commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1931.

After intermission, the youthful but cosmopolitan James Conlon, a native New Yorker, principal conductor of the Paris Opera and general music director of the City of Cologne, ascended the podium to conduct Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 in G major.

Whereas no debut could have been more auspicious than this orchestra’s, their farewell performance couldn’t have been more august, as they wrung every dollop of emotion from the symphony in which Mahler imposes his faith in a glorious afterlife onto the gloom of ineluctable death.

Conlon was a delight to watch on the podium, drawing nuances from sections of the orchestra with balletic precision; making it look like one fluid movement, he would alternately extend and curl his hand, little finger pointing separately, rotate the wrist and elbow, and raise, lower, and sweep his arm side-to-side from the shoulder, all the while indicating tempo with the baton and the other arm.

The synergy between orchestra and conductor was especially evident as the first three movements of the symphony came to quiet closes and when they ended the performance, and the life of this wonderful orchestra, with the most resonant silence imaginable.

Standing still next to the podium, with a child-like expression that seemed to say “Was that okay?,” Soprano Cynthia Haymon had finished singing:

There is just no music on earth that can compare to ours.

The angelic voices Gladden our senses, So that all for very joy awake.


while Conlon, who was turned away from her toward the double bass whence the last note came, slowly bent over from the waist, his left armed extended upward, and held that strange pose until a perfect quiet filled the hall.

The moment over, straightening up and turning to face the audience, Conlon first blew a kiss to Haymon and she finally smiled brightly as the audience burst into applause.

Afterward, the atmosphere in the grand yet intimate Ozawa Hall was ineffably warm. There was no rush to exit as the audience lingered to savor the moment and re-new their applause and shouts of bravo! while Conlon called upon individuals and orchestral sections to take their bows. Godspeed to them as they go out from the Berkshires to populate great orchestras and share their very special gifts with a world that needs them.

Hotels in the Berkshires

Berkshires hotels

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.

2019 Tanglewood schedule

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has released the schedule for the 2019 season at Tanglewood, which will be remembered for the opening of the Tanglewood Learning Institute, the four buildings overlooking Seiji Ozawa Hall on the Leonard Bernstein camopus.

Music director Andris Nelsons will be present for the month of July, conducting 13 programs, including the world premiere of a new work by Kevin Puts, The Brightness of Light, based on letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz on July 20, and a concert performance of Wagner’s complete Die Walküre on july 27 and 28. Details of programs in the Tanglewood Learning Institute will be announced on Feb. 7, 2019.

Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos opens 2002 Tanglewood season

July 5, 2002 concert review by Dave Read

The first of this season’s 22 BSO concerts at Tanglewood concerts was performed Friday July 5, with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus on board and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conducting Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection.”

Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos conducts BSO at Tanglewood
Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos conducting the BSO at Tanglewood

It was a perfect evening to sit still for a long time, the unbearable humidity of the previous 3 days abated, and sit still we did while the orchestra darted about the aural landscape, taking several right turns and maybe a few wrong ones, revving it up, idling down, before finally taking a back seat to John Oliver and his 120 voice chorus which brought down the checkered flag with a thrilling finale.

With the large chorus seated still above and behind the orchestra for nearly an hour it’s hard not to be anticipating their performance, especially when the several orchestral movements fail to coalesce. There was plenty to like in each movement, and some exciting transitions, but only the promise of the vocal payoff kept us trying to concentrate throughout.

The season will close on August 25 with the BSO and Tanglewood Festival Chorus together again in another program with a big vocal finale, Sir Roger Norrington conducting Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Beethoven’s Ninth seems to be becoming the traditional Tanglewood closing program; it makes for a nice symmetry to open with something similar, like the Mahler, providing musician and audience alike opportunity to travel the breadth and depth of the aural spectrum, to whet the appetite for a summer-long feast here where music alights for a while each year.

Tanglewood homecoming celebration features
Housatonic Philharmonic

And speaking of lighting, the Housatonic Philharmonic sparked up a spirited set of Celtic and American music in the tent overlooking Ozawa Hall, to cap off the special Tanglewood homecoming celebration which also featured Hickory Bill’s Barbecue (not a band, real ribs and suchlike) and the David Mullaney Band from Ballina, Co. Mayo, which is Pittsfield’s Irish sister city.

We arrived in time only to hear the swell-named local lads: Paul Rice: fiddle and guitar, Andy Gordon: banjo and spoons, and Tim Gray: piano, penny whistle and hammer dulcimer. Their set was a perfect sampler of their branch of roots music, ranging all the way back to the blind harpist and composer Turlough O’Carolan, revered as the last of the itinerant Irish bards (b. 1670) and up to the present, including Jay Ungar’s Woodstock-area composition Ashokan Farewell, and Paul Rice’s composition, Housatonic Hornpipe.

Hotels in the Berkshires

Berkshires hotels

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.

2019 Tanglewood schedule

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has released the schedule for the 2019 season at Tanglewood, which will be remembered for the opening of the Tanglewood Learning Institute, the four buildings overlooking Seiji Ozawa Hall on the Leonard Bernstein camopus.

Music director Andris Nelsons will be present for the month of July, conducting 13 programs, including the world premiere of a new work by Kevin Puts, The Brightness of Light, based on letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz on July 20, and a concert performance of Wagner’s complete Die Walküre on july 27 and 28. Details of programs in the Tanglewood Learning Institute will be announced on Feb. 7, 2019.

2001 Tanglewood on Parade with Seiji Ozawa

July 31, 2001 performance reviewed by by

Seiji Ozawa conducts 2001 Tanglewood on ParadeNearly 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 most of 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.

2001 A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood

July 1, 2001 Tanglewood concert review by

When we arrived at the Koussevitsky Music Shed at Tanglewood around 1:30 pm Saturday, the Julliard String Quartet was fiddling around with its Debussy segment while nearly a dozen stagehands, engineers, and foctotems bustled about, doing what needs to be done to put a live radio show together.
Garrison Keillor and Julliard String Quartet rehearse Guy Noir episode for A Prairie Home Companion at TanglewoodOnce producer Christine Tschida logged the time of the Debussy segment, she informed the quartet that their Guy Noir scripts were in their dressing room, adding “your initials are next to your lines.” One of them reminded her that they’d need to allow for a moment of applause when she was telling them what to expect by way of introduction from Garrison Keillor.

“Oh no, we want to squelch the applause – this is radio and we need to keep the show rolling.” – producer Christine Tschida

Regardless, the audience showered the Julliard String Quartet with ample applause, both for the brilliance of their musicianship and for the color they brought to the Guy Noir episode. The auditory sundae that millions treat themselves to every Saturday goes down so smoothly because Tschida is so good at her job, an aspect of which is to cajole musicians into cutting out music.

Special guest (and former music director) Rob Fisher and The Guy’s All Star Shoe Band leader Richard Dworsky did a piano duet – a medley of patriotic music. After a run-through, Tschida approached, “It’s 4:40 now; I think a nice juicy 4 minutes would be fine – if you could cut it by 10%.” Being all stars, of course the boys made the cut, and the segment delighted the audience.

Sound effects wizard Tom Keith had the opportunity for advanced research on the sound of thunder, especially during rehearsal. It stood him in good stead during the show’s Melville/Hawthorne + Dickinson skit. The skit expanded upon the locally well-known (even among non-English majors) meeting of Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, during a rain-interrupted hike up Monument Mountain in Gt. Barrington.

Since nobody said Emily Dickinson wasn’t there, Keillor and the cast showed us how much fun the outing could’ve been if the belle of nearby Amherst had made the trip. Erica Rhodes’ portrayal of a 19 year old Dickinson, eager for the affirmation of her literary elders, made the skit a winner.

The audience roared when she reached the closing lines of a re-working of “Time and Eternity,”

(which begins, “Because I could not stop for death/He kindly stopped for me…)

“The woods are lovely, dark with dew,/Do-wacka-do-wacka-do-wacka-do.”

Conveying the local flavor when the show is on the road (and skewing it for laughs), is endearing to the locals and educational for the vast radio audience. A Prairie Home Companion’s local-history maven is Russ Ringsak, who has been with the show since its beginning in 1974. He drives the show’s equipment truck, and getting to the venue a day or two in advance affords him the opportunity to visit local libraries and other establishments in search of information for Keillor to use on the show.

Mary Chapin Carpenter rehearshing for A Prairie Home Companion at TanglewoodIt was interesting to eavesdrop on the conversation between guest Mary Chapin Carpenter and band onstage and Sam Hudson, the show’s sound man, situated near the back of the shed.

Jon Carroll (MCC’s pianist): Can we get a little bit of the mandolin spread around?

Mary Chapin Carpenter: I don’t need too much mandolin.

Duke Levine (electric guitar): Neither do I.

Eventually, Ms. Carpenter says, “I don’t know how specific I can get with you, but on the quieter songs, less bass, and on the up-tempo songs, more.”

The audience was more than satisfied with the mix finally settled upon. Toward the end of the show, she dedicated her new song, “Late for your life,” to Chet Atkins, who died earlier that day. (Four days after this show, Garrison Keillor delivered a eulogy for his longtime friend Chet Atkins at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.)

James Taylor and Band at Tanglewood, July 4, 2001, with special guest Yo Yo Ma

July 4, 2001 performance reviewed by

James Taylor’s Fourth of July concert at Tanglewood was one of those events that remind us why the Berkshires is such a great place to live.

From the moment he loped – almost boogied – onstage, until the final note of the fourth encore dissolved, it was clear that JT was really charged up.

“It’s great to be home for Independence Day – there’s no place like Tanglewood. This is great.” In fact, Tanglewood is home for the current tour, which was rehearsed during May at Ozawa Hall.

That alone would be enough to make this gig stand out from the rest, but there was an additional dash of Berkshire spice; as Taylor himself put it, “our own” Yo Yo Ma.

The stellar cellist sat in on Another Day in the second set and then returned to accompany Taylor to close the show with a memorable rendition of Sweet Baby James. Now that’s a treat, pure and simple. (Cellist Owen Young played the previous night and earlier on this tour)

As delighted as the audience was, Mr. Ma looked even more so; seated on Taylor’s left, he peered up at him, with an ear-to-ear grin, slowly shaking his head as if to say, “I can’t believe how lucky I am.”

There was a visual aspect to the show that was a delightful complement to the aural fix: rough-hewn logs and latticework made it look like the band were playing in a great big mountain lodge, and there was a stunning assortment of images projected on a huge screen behind the set.

This concert was crafted deftly; covering Taylor’s 3 decade career and introducing a trio of songs from his upcoming album, the splendid ensemble of eleven musicians moved through a variety of styles, including bossa nova, rhythm ‘n blues and mariachi.

The timbre of Taylor’s voice has never been so clear and sonorous. He un-slung his guitar for a couple numbers, including Sun on the Moon, wherein he got into some funky aerobics while trading lyric licks with his quartet of vocalists.

It was a wonderful event, a pop/folk/rock ‘n roll gig served up in some kind of special sauce; the ingredients may be familiar, but the flavor of this show was unforgettable.

The band: Clifford Carter (keyboards), Jimmy Johnson (bass), Russ Kunkel (percussion), Luis Conte (percussion), Bob Mann (guitar), Walt Fowler (trumpet, flugel horn), and Lou Marini (saxophone, flute). Singers: Arnold McCuller, David Lasley, Valerie Carter, and Kate Markowitz.

A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood, July 2, 2000

July 2, 2000 Tanglewood concert review by

The 2000 Tanglewood season got underway Saturday with the live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor and special guests Emanuel Ax, Norumbega Harmony, and the Berkshire Highlanders. It was a pretty good show, mostly – except for the parts that were brilliant.

It seems silly to use superlatives to describe a show that had as casual and relaxed a feel to it as this one did, but Keillor used some himself when he introduced Tanglewood and the Berkshires to his vast radio audience, so it’s OK for us to wax laudatory.

The selection of special guests was perfect and they all gave great performances. The show’s regulars, The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band, piano player Richard Dworsky, Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and sound effects master Tom Keith, all turned in their usual excellent performances.

A few highlights:

  • Russell’s uncanny impersonation of President Clinton reciting Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” in response to Keillor’s query, “How does it feel to be leaving the White House?”
  • Keith’s oral fireworks display to the accompaniment of “Stars and Stripes Forever” played by Ax and Dworsky;
  • Keillor’s monologue, about one of the last of the dying breed of Norwegian bachelor farmers and his struggle to maintain his independence and dignity in the midst of a town full of Pumpkin Heads.

Berkshire Highlanders at Tanglewood

Berkshire Highlanders perform on the first broadcast of A Prairie Home Compabion at Tanglewood, July 2, 2000. photo: Dave Read.
Berkshire Highlanders perform on the first broadcast of A Prairie Home Compabion at Tanglewood, July 2, 2000. photo: Dave Read.
It was wonderful to see and hear The Berkshire Highlanders in the Shed. Their Greylock Tartan kilts are perfect representations of the subtly beautiful Berkshire hills, and their repertoire is unusually engaging, as indicated by the Shaker hymn, Simple Gifts they played on stage.

In addition to providing the show’s classical music interlude with “Estampes” by Claude Debussy, Emanuel Ax also made his acting debut, starring in an episode of the very funny radio drama, “Guy Noir: Radio Private Eye.” Ax was sharp in both roles.

Norumbega Harmony, one of New England’s largest and most active groups of Sacred Harp and shape-note singers, gave beautiful performances of the Shaker hymn “The Good Samaritan,” and a 19th centruy anthem, “Millennial Praise.”

Garrison Keillor’s Tanglewood connection

Garrison Keillor’s wife was a student at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute when she was sixteen, and their second date was at Tanglewood eight years ago, which he memorialized in a song that displayed his poetic acuity (e.g.: “I couldn’t see how a redneck’s gonna judge Seiji Qzawa.” Another bon mot was his rhyming admonition, “Music is a gift from God – please shut up, and at the end, applaud.”

Somehow it seems especially fitting that this Tanglewood season, which celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Aaron Copland, the quintessential American composer, was opened with A Prairie Home Companion, which celebrates everything that’s pretty good about America.