LENOX, MA – One of the things that's most satisfying about Tanglewood, the longtime summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, is that as the day-to-day world convulses with the rapid pace of progress, at Tanglewood nothing much changes. Sure, there have been classrooms and concert halls added here and there over the years, but as you wander the grounds, you'll find that most things – the manor houses, the Shed, the wide lawns with their expansive views over the Stockbridge Bowl – look just as they did in the 1930s.
Things also sound the same: much of the music you'll hear today at Tanglewood would have appeared on programs 90 years ago: Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, to name just a few of the composers appearing on this past weekend's concerts. Since its earliest days under former BSO music director Serge Koussevitzky, Tanglewood has also been an important incubator of new music, a place where composers can come and try out new works far from the harsh glare – if not the critical eye – of Boston or New York. From Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland, to Benjamin Britten and Olivier Messiaen (who wrote much of the Turangalîla-symphonie here), Tanglewood has been host to a who's who of 20th and 21st century composers.
But no composer looms larger in Tanglewood lore than John Williams, who's come here nearly every summer since 1980 and where he's written some of his most famous film scores, including Star Wars, Schindler's List, Harry Potter and the Indiana Jones films, to name a few. Until recently, Williams also personally conducted the annual John Williams Film Night: a Woodstock-like love fest which clogs the roads leading to Lenox for miles around. Having attended several film nights myself, including the last one he led in 2023, I can say that as many times as you may have heard his classic scores, the experience of seeing John conduct his own music with a world class orchestra will give you the goosiest of bumps. (Just check out his concerts with the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics.)
Unfortunately, Williams, 93, has experienced health setbacks over the past two years that have curtailed his conducting and confined him to a wheelchair. Fortunately for us, he's still writing music – specifically concert music, which he says affords him more freedom than film scoring, from which he's largely retired. (Williams says he may still write music for his longtime collaborator Steven Spielberg.) Most of these concert works are concertos, written with a particular soloist in mind: a violin concerto (2022) for Anne-Sophie Mutter; a cello concerto (1994) for Yo-Yo Ma, both premiered at Tanglewood. (Williams is currently at work a second cello concerto for Ma.)
Strangely, Williams had never written a proper piano concerto, despite the fact that he trained at Juilliard to be a concert pianist himself while simultaneously moonlighting in various NYC jazz clubs. "I never wanted to write one for my friend (the piano)," he told the NY Times, "because I just thought it was impossible. So much history of piano, keyboard, digital, fingers – that anyone would be daunted."
But, after some prodding from another longtime Tanglewood denizen, Emanuel Ax ("If you write it," he wrote to Williams, "I will play it!"), John finally got to work on his Concerto for Piano two years ago, finishing it a few months later. ("It's the hardest thing I've ever done," Williams told the Times.) After several weeks of rehearsals, Ax finally gave the concerto its world premiere Saturday night in the Shed with the BSO and (a suddenly svelte!) Andris Nelsons, who's wrapping up his 11th season as music director. (A recording of the performance is currently streaming on WCRB's website.)
As has been pointed out, those expecting this concerto to resemble E.T. or Jurassic Park were likely disappointed. This is thorny, often dissonant music – not exactly 12 tone, but not easy listening, either. Careful listeners of Williams' scores to Close Encounters or even Star Wars will realize that much of his music – outside of the famous fanfares and sweeping ballads – has an unsettling quality to it, so its only fair to expect his concert music to be somewhat challenging. It's all of a piece.
For me, the most exciting aspect of Williams' concerto is it's overt connection to jazz, with each of the three movements based on his impressions of a jazz piano titan, harking back to Williams' own jazz moonlighting. In describing the first movement, "Colloquy (Art Tatum)", Williams recalls how he snuck into an L.A. jazz club as a teenager to catch Tatum (who died in 1956) and was blown away by his "massive reach" and "awesome sound…an avalanche of gems that could hardly be imagined." Fortunately for Manny, none of Tatum's superhuman torrents appear here, but in the long solo opening (marked a piacere or "at your pleasure"), other aspects of Tatum's music remain, including liberal dissonances, unusual intervals and substitute chord progressions. Ax dispatched it all with deceptive ease and virtuosity.
The second movement, "Listening (Bill Evans)" started with an ethereal viola cadenza played by longtime BSO principal Steven Ansell, eventually joined by the piano in gentle persuasion. When the rest of the orchestra joins in, it's with a lyrical bent, plaintive and serene, much like Copland's Quiet City. The finale "Presto (Oscar Peterson)" drives fast and hard, much as Oscar tried (in vain) to keep up with the real Tatum. The orchestra – particularly the brass and percussion – lent exciting support straight through to the rousing bass drum-driven finish.
The audience immediately responded with warm applause for Ax and the BSO, which gave way to a feral roar when Williams himself unexpectedly appeared onstage in a wheelchair. Despite looking much more frail than when I last saw him two years ago, John seemed in good spirits, shaking hands with Ax, Nelsons and various members of the BSO. At one point during the second curtain call, Williams leaned into a low microphone which had been placed at the stage apron as if he wanted to say something, but unwilling to quiet the crowd, he directed his assistant to wheel him offstage, triumphantly raising his fist as he exited stage right. I have no idea what it took to get John from his home in L.A. to Lenox, but however it happened, this was one of the most thrilling moments I've ever experienced at a concert, classical or otherwise.
Now the dilemma: what do you program after a late John Williams premiere? Too brilliant, and you risk taking away from the John's triumph. Too weak, and you leave feeling deflated. On this occasion, Nelsons – and whomever else decides these things – chose Mahler 1: a well-known warhorse with brassy fanfares and sylvan themes to go with the pastoral surroundings outside the Shed. Unfortunately, this was merely a pedestrian performance: rushed at times, tentative at others. Maybe I've been spoiled by the Mahlers of Dudamel and MTT – not to mention Seiji – but Andris didn't seem to have a strong vision of what he wanted from the BSO players, who ended up playing mostly on autopilot. A small disappointment on an otherwise celebratory evening.
There were two other BSO concerts on the weekend – not to mention the Festival of Contemporary Music, which this year was directed by the celebrated Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz (more to come on that.) Friday night's concert was mostly chestnuts – nothing wrong with that! – including Bach's Air on the G String, the Adagio from Mahler 10, and a pair of works by Mendelssohn: the 2nd violin concerto, performed with grace and polish by the talented young Spanish violinist María Dueñas, and the youthful overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, written when Mendelssohn was only 19. Both felt right in Nelsons' wheelhouse, which might have something to do with his other gig as Mendelssohn's successor in Leipzig.
On a rainy Sunday afternoon – a mere 16 hours after Saturday's concert – the BSO were back on stage. After a performance of Ortiz' rhythmic, hypnotic La Calaca ("The Skull") for string orchestra, Nelsons and the orchestra were joined by another of their favorite guests, pianist Lang Lang. (It's indicative of Tanglewood's status as one of the world's premier music festivals that a superstar such as Lang Lang only rates second billing over the weekend.) Lang, apparently having exhausted all other options in the piano repertoire, chose as his showpiece Saint-Saëns ultra-romantic Piano Concerto No. 2. It was about what you've come to expect from Lang Lang: perfectly played, but overly showy and ultimately unsatisfying – though not without its moments of levity, such as the galloping 2nd movement (Allegro scherzando). Lang's encore was more successful:, Liszt's tender Liebesträume, No. 3, played with seriousness and pathos.
(Side note: Manny Ax was seated at the end of my row, listening intently to the Saint-Saens. Which says way more about Manny than it does about Lang Lang.)
Before departing the Berkshires for Salzburg to conduct the Vienna Phil, Nelsons offered up Beethoven's evocative 6th symphony ("Pastoral"), which felt somehow appropriate on a day where rain storms gave way to mist, if not quite sunshine. The pace was a bit ponderous for my taste, but otherwise the performance of this well-worn masterpiece shimmered and glowed in the halo of the green expanse just outside the Shed.
Before the final bravos died down, Andris called onstage five retiring BSO players for their final curtain calls: Principal Bass Edwin Barker (48 years), violist Rachel Fagerburg (35 years) violinists Victor Romanul (32 years) and Jennie Shames (44 years) and bassist Joseph Hearne (62 years!) Which simultaneously served as a reminder of Tanglewood's remarkable continuity, but also the inevitability of change, no matter how talented or experienced a musician might be. (Case in point: concertmaster Nathan Cole, who joined the BSO last summer after a long run at the LAPhil and appears to have made his presence known.) The same could be said of composers: for every Beethoven and Mahler, there's an Ortiz (or an upstart named Williams) just waiting in the wings. And you'll hear them all at Tanglewood.
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