Brahms' Requiem at Tanglewood Concert Review
The Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood Music Chorus
Jul 29, 2009
What better place to contemplate the heavens than stretched out on a lawn gazing at the stars and listening to the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus deliver a memorable performance of Brahms' Requiem? Audiences at the Tanglewood Festival on July 25, 2009 were treated to just such an experience.
The Tanglewood Experience: Enjoying Live Music With Good Food and Company
The atmosphere at Tanglewood is casual with class. This is not just any picnic concert, but a picnic concert with low tables, candles and the good wine and cheese. The mood music comes with the price of the lawn ticket. Getting to the venue early is a must, as the good spots close to the shed fill up quickly with blankets, hampers and chairs. Groups ranged from romantic youngsters to large families to veteran festival-goers.
Audience members wandering the grounds could explore garden mazes and stumble across the chorus or percussion warming up in outlying buildings. The Tanglewood Festival Chorus' pre-concert run through was greeted with cheerful applause, before the chorus members had even taken the stage.
Once ready, the chorus streamed across the lawn towards the shed, sidestepping blankets and bottles of champagne. Dressed in white, they seemed to be re-enacting some sort of elven migration pattern.
A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms: A Protestant Memorial to the Hereafter
Many composers (Mozart and Verdi among them) can claim a requiem or two in their repertoire, but Brahms' version of the mass for the dead departs from the traditional treatment. Rather than using the texts from the Catholic liturgy, he crafts his own text from Scripture. Choosing verses that emphasis comfort and joy, Brahms wrote the piece after the deaths of his mother and his mentor/friend Robert Schumann (Jan Swafford, Program Notes).
Fittingly, the performance was accompanied by an additional percussion section located in the sky. The conductor James Levine halted the performance for a few moments before launching into "How lovely are thy dwelling places" in order to wait for some rolling thunder to die down. Fortunately, the storm held off for the duration of the concert, and those members of the audience who were seated on the lawn remained dry.
Tanglewood Music Center Fellows Play Perle, Henze and Britten
The Tanglewood Music Festival not only provides a summer venue for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but also showcases resident Tanglewood Music Center Fellows, classical musicians completing advanced studies at the nearby Tanglewood Music Center.
The ticket holders who arrived early were treated to a 6pm concert featuring 2 quartets and one pianist performing in the airy Seiji Ozawa Hall. The program moved chronologically backwards in time. Excepts from George Perle's Chansons cachées were followed by Hans Werner Henze's String Quartet No. 5, with Benjamin Britten's String Quartet No. 2 in C, Op. 36 concluding the concert.
Tanglewood: Keeping It Cool
Classical music fans looking to beat the heat and new fans looking to find a less stuffy venue will be glad they went to Tanglewood. But remember to pack the cooler with chilled wine.
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