Tanglewood

By Dave Read, July 29, 2025 performance – Emmylou Harris and Graham Nash delivered a wonderfully entertaining evening of music in the Koussevitsky Music Shed at Tanglewood, a venue they each first played fifty years ago. It was a treat to see and hear such seasoned performers in full command of the musical artistry that carried them to fame in the ’60s and ’70s.

Nash performed seated because of a recent fall in NYC – “but, I didn’t fall on my voice,” he said before leading his band through a set of fourteen songs, with an emphasis on his time with Crosby Stills and Nash + Young. Unlike so many aged performers whose insecurity spoils their stagecraft, Nash interspersed songs with amusing anecdotes. His band included the multi-instrumentalists Adam Minkoff and Zach Djanikian, and keyboardist Todd Caldwell.

If the performance of Mr. Nash and band was primarily a welcome and vigorous visit to earlier decades, Ms. Emmylou Harris’s set showed us that time has a way of standing still, as it appears to have for her. Wrapped in a cloud of white locks, she remains a presence as she did when introduced to the ages in the closing segment of The Last Waltz, singing Evangeline with The Band. Accompanied by her Red Dirt Band, which now includes John Prine’s bassist, Ms. Harris treated the audience to a survey of her diverse repertoire.

And she is an engaging hostess, telling of an early interest in theatre that involved Tanglewood and also referencing the Down East humor of Marshall Dodge, which got no reaction, sadly, because, among other reasons, the Berkshires ain’t quite Down East.

Graham Nash and Emmylou Harris at Tanglewood setlists, July 29, 2025.

Graham Nash
Wasted on the Way
Marrakesh Express
Military Madness
I Used to Be a King
Simple Man
Immigration Man
Love the One You’re With
Better Days
Bus Stop
Just a Song Before I Go
Our House
Encores: Teach Your Children, Woodstock,Suite: Judy Blue Eyes

Emmylou Harris

Birds – with Graham Nash
Easy from Now On
Orphan Girl
Making Believe
Red Dirt Girl
Gulf Coast Highway
One of These Days
Kern River
Right Now
Wheels
Ooh Las Vegas
Prayer in Open D
Michelangelo
Goin’ Back to Harlan
Together Again
Save the Last Dance for Me
Rose of Cimarron
Encore: Boulder to Birmingham

By Dave Read, July 26, 2025 performance – Already in its tenth decade, Tanglewood (est. 1937) has amassed no mean amount of lore and highlights, even if it has yet to erect a hall of fame. Whenever it does, there’ll be ample space in it for John Williams, whose contributions to the success and popularity of Tanglewood are both various and singular.

The highlight of tonight’s program was his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, dedicated to local favorite Emanuel Ax, who performed the world premier tonight, along with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of music director Andris Nelsons. As an indication of the breadth and fluidity of the composer’s imagination, the three movements of the concerto are inspired by the careers of three jazz pianists – Art Tatum, Bill Evans, and Oscar Peterson, each markedly distinct from the other! What looks on paper like a crazy idea, turns out to be a beautiful piece of music.

Maestro Williams was named conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1980 and has been conductor laureate since 1993; the annual John Williams Film Night attracts as large an audience as the top classical soloists do; Mr. Williams’ gift of a bronze bust of Aaron Copland, first faculty leader of the Tanglewood Music Center, stands alone in the “formal garden,” waiting for busts of Koussevitsky, Bernstein, Ozawa, Williams and others to be commissioned and installed.

Yo-yo Ma premiered his Concerto for Cello at the opening of Ozawa Hall in 1994, and for Tanglewood’s 75th anniversary, in 2012, he composed Just Down West Street – on the left.

Sharing the bill tonight was Gustav Mahler, whose Symphony No. 1 in D was given a refulgent reading by the energized orchestra. It is a might work, with room for every sort of musical sound to be plumbed and made responsive to every other one. Maestro Nelsons, already in the second decade of his Tanglewood tenure, seems to be aging in reverse. We heard that he attributes a noticeable recent weight loss to Taekwando training; but together with such a martial bearing, there were stretches of tonight’s performance where it looked like he was leading a tai chi session!

By Dave Read, July 25, 2025 performance – There was a broad breadth of music on offer at Tanglewood tonight, extending from the seventeenth/eightteenth century Johann Sebastian Bach, through nineteenth century Felix Mendelssohn, to the nineteenth/twentieth century Gustav Mahler. It was a beautiful survey, under the leadership of music director Andris Nelsons, performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with violin soloist Maria Duenas.

Brief as it was, one almost feels relief listening to an air by Bach, as if, since still we know how to please ourselves, soon enough we’ll remember how to govern ourselves. For many Shed veterans, listening to Bach reminds of a time when politicians spoke in complete sentences, respected the rule of law, and the separation of powers. The sprightliness of the Bach was followed by the substance of the Mahler. There’s an economy to Bach, with a small range of sounds in repetition; in Mahler, there’s a broad survey of sounds, many of which are full of nuance.

The performance of Mendelssohn’s concerto by Ms. Duenas, besides being of the utmost artistic merit, was also an impressive physical accomplishment, since it required her to play, practically non-stop, for half an hour! Her playing, which seemed somewhat quiet at the opening, was dazzling and the piece was an exciting duet between orchestra and violin. It was delightful to read in the program notes that Mendelssohn sought to knit the concerto’s movements together seamlessly enough to preclude unwanted inter-movement applause. It mentions a protracted oboe note meant to bridge the first two movements.

Premature applause by the Tanglewood audience has always been a source of amusement – it seems to lessen as the season progresses, which re-enforces my faith in my fellow music consumer; it’s usually less evident the more obscure and soloist-free the program. Since composers were bothered enough by unwanted mid-performance applause to seek its mitigation in the composition, perhaps the BSO would append an applause admonition to their pre-concert spiel about “the unlikely event of inclement weather…?”

By Dave Read, July 20, 2025 performance – Energy can be released in an explosive, spectacular fashion, and it can be released in a stalwart, rhythmic manner. Tonight, the Tanglewood audience saw both as pianist Yuja Wang performed the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 in D minor, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of music director Andris Nelsons.

Ms. Wang bounded onto the stage in a sparkling, skimpy, silver costume while Maestro Nelsons strode to the podium in black slacks and black short sleeve shirt, looking like a priest without the roman collar. In appearance, the two principles for tonight’s program in the Koussevitsky Music Shed, were opposites.

In performance, they united to produce a spectacular and thrilling performance of the piece that the composer himself premiered in Paris in 1924, under the direction of Serge Koussevitsky. The first quarter of the 20th century was every bit as culturally tumultuous as today is; with artists in all disciplines being pulled into and kicked out of real and imagined “schools.” Fauvism, Dada, cubism, surrealism…

And a fake ethos of “social realism” was being imposed on Prokofiev’s Russia, which resembles the sort of state-mandated mannerism that burdens arts and entertainment in America today. Politicians wield purse strings to make grant-dependent artists and arts organizations dance to tunes of their own tin-eared design and composition.

But artists of the stature of Prokofiev, Koussevitsk, Nelsons, the BSO, and Wang operate at a level secure from the prying paws of politicians. Early 20th century music is made brand new again one hundred years later and 3,500 miles to the west, even as our safety net is being dismantled systematically by artless actors enabled by an art-starved electorate.

After intermission, the orchestra performed the Berlioz Symphonie fantastique. Some two-thirds of the was through a beautiful, engrossing performance, we noticed Tanglewood personnel talking into their palms, the way Secret Service agents do. Their mission was to hurry lawn patrons to the safety of the Shed, because big rain was on the way. An unfortunate finale for an afternoon of brilliant performance in the Berkshires, where mother nature has been good to us all summer.

By Dave Read, July 19, 2025 performance – Tonight’s performance of an opera in three acts, Tosca, by Giacomo Puccini, was as riveting and satisfying an experience as I’ve ever had at a concert. It was performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and leading vocalists from the world of opera, under the direction of music director Andris Nelsons, with James Burton conducting the Tanglewood Festival Chorus (TFC) and students from Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute (BUTI).

Whether it’s a genetic flaw or environmental damage, I don’t know, but the “drama” at the core of opera, movies, and TV shows never has been of more than secondary interest to me. When I do attend (or view on screen), I’m in for the spectacle, for the sights and sounds. Whatever literal sense the story means to convey is OK with me, so long as it delights the eyes and ears. That tonight’s was a rare treat for the audience is underscored by the fact that tonight was only the second performance in the orchestra’s 144 year history!

The principle operatic roles were played by soprano Kristine Opolais as Tosca, baritone Bryn Terfel as Scarpia, and tenor SoekJong Baek as Cavaradossi. Even though I couldn’t help but follow along with the supertitles, for all intents and purposes, I had no idea what these artists were so exercised about, but I believed every perfectly sounded syllable they produced. Even though I knew Scarpia was the bad guy, he sounded exactly like the kind of guy you want running the country.

As electrifying as was the finale of the opera, I was nearly overwhelmed by the final several minutes of Act 1, which included the TFC and BUTI, who had seemingly infiltrated the orchestra. Whether or not joy is an apt description for the action on stage as Act 1 draws to a close, the combination of the vocal soloists, the chorus, and the orchestra produced as joyful a noise as can be imagined. Or at least a sufficient amount to tide us over until we have our annual season finale of Beethoven’s Ninth next month!

By Dave Read, July 13, 2025 performance – The Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted today by Thomas Ades, substituting for Esa Pekka-Salonen, performed a program highlighted by the Sibelius Violin concerto in D minor, Opus 47, with soloist Pekka Kuusisto. Tumblebird Contrails composed by Gabriella Smith opened the program, which concluded with the Sibelius Symphony no. 5 in E-flat cl;osed it.

The concert hall, during a performance by a symphony orchestra, becomes a place where the dividing distinctions of verbal language will vaporize and disappear, if we are able to stem the flow of words between our ears. Then, the universal language of music can flood in, and have its way with us.

Despite many such visits to concert halls, the composer’s art baffles me – I’m as mystified by the vocabulary, grammar, and diction of musical composition as I am by telekinesis. But I know what I like, and there’s not much, in musical or verbal language, that I like more than the Sibelius Violin concerto in D minor, Opus 47.

There’s an equality in excellence, or, at least a disinclination to impose a dividing hierarchy on favorite compositions. But what’s the harm in speculation? If told my ears would fall off in twenty minutes, I’d cue up the final movement of this piece. There’s something brutally honest about it; it’s music at its most basic, melody imposed on rhythm – and though it holds together as a bar of bullion does, every second brings more new sounds.

So passes another summer Sunday at Tanglewood, the magical place named by one of America’s first verbal artists, Nathaniel Hawthorne. What was an unhappy term of exile for him has grown into the veritable haven of harmony for multitudes seeking temporary refuge from the cacophony of our upheaved political reality.