Tanglewood, Lenox, MA
August 12, 2018
by Jarice Hanson and Frank Aronson
 |
| Photo by Hilary Scott |
Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) is no stranger to the BSO, the
work of Mahler, or the style of Leonard Bernstein. In the August 12th concert
of the Bernstein Centennial Summer season, MTT conducted a fitting tribute to
the man he met when he was a Tanglewood Fellow. In 1969 MTT was assigned to
conduct the off-stage portion Bernstein’s on-stage conducting of Mahler’s Second
Symphony. Bernstein casually mentioned that he was thinking of conducting the
piece by memory, rather than looking at the score. On Sunday, MTT performed the
same way—conducting Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D “off book” and with some of
the same gestures he had learned from Maestro Bernstein.
The concert began with the whimsical “Agnegram” written by
MTT for San Francisco Symphony board member, Agnes Albert, for her 90th
birthday. MTT wrote the short piece using a musical annotation of the letters
of her name and incorporated some of her favorite tunes—from “The 1812
Overture” to “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” As a prelude to Rachmaninoff and
Mahler, the piece was well received and showcased the author/conductor’s
ability to write accessible, yet clever music that warmed the audience on a
cool rainy day.
Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” Opus 43
for Piano and Orchestra featured the extraordinary Igor Levit, a pianist of
technical wizardry and interpretive sass. A plane flew overhead just as Levit
was immersed in one of the piece’s most famous passages. The sound of the plane
trailed off as the piano’s notes lingered in the air, magically accompanying
the plane’s passage above.
The second part of the program featured Mahler’s Symphony
No. 1 in D, with music so effecting the audience cheered for close to 10
minutes, acknowledging the many soloists who contributed to the piece that has
become known as one of the bridges from the Romantic to the Modern period of
orchestral compositions. Kudos were given to the French horn section, which
masterfully played the passages key to the first of Mahler’s four Das Knaben
Wunderhorn (The Boy with the Horn) symphonies. Mahler identified the piece as a
“symphonic poem,” and MTT and the BSO left no doubt as to the story Mahler told
in this symphony.
It’s understandable that MTT and Bernstein are both known
for their interpretations of Mahler. This concert solidified their reputations.
And at the end of the concert, the sun came out.
