REVIEW: Tanglewood, "Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra Concerts"

Tanglewood, Lenox, MA

www.bso.org/tanglewood

July 8 & 15, 2024

by Michael J. Moran

Na'Zir McFadden

Each summer over a hundred young musicians starting their careers, from across and beyond the United States, gather for eight weeks at Tanglewood, where, tutored by Boston Symphony Orchestra members and visiting artists, they soon begin to sound as if they’ve been playing together for years. The first two concerts by 2024’s TMCO strongly affirmed the value of this training model.    

TMC conducting fellows Finnish-British Ross Jamie Collins and American Na’Zir McFadden
shared leadership duties at these concerts with BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons (July 8, in the Koussevitzky Music Shed) and BSO guest conductor Dima Slobodeniouk (July 15, in Ozawa Hall)). Collins opened the first concert with a thrilling account of Antonin Dvorak’s exuberant 1892 “Carnival” Overture. McFadden followed with a dramatic reading of African-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s dynamic 1898 Ballade in A minor.

Nelsons closed the program with a powerful rendition of Dmitri Shostakovich’s 1937 fifth symphony, whose immediate success restored the composer to the good graces of Soviet authorities after harsh official criticism of his popular opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.” A haunting “Moderato” opening was followed by a sarcastically humorous “Allegretto,” a deeply moving “Largo,” and a potent mix of jubilation and doubt in the “Allegro non troppo” finale.   

  

Ross Jamie Collins

Ross began the second concert with a perceptive take on African-American composer Julia Perry’s 1952 “Study for Orchestra,” sharply characterizing the frequent mood shifts in this brief, mercurial piece. McFadden led a sweeping performance of a symphonic suite that Leonard Bernstein extracted from his score for the 1954 film “On the Waterfront,” which displayed a jazzier sensibility than most of his Broadway and classical works.    

Slobodeniouk, a regular BSO guest with Finnish-Russian roots, concluded the program with two rarities by Igor Stravinsky. Twenty-three members of the TMCO’s woodwind and brass sections expressed the austere sonorities of the 10-minute “Symphonies of Wind Instruments,” written in 1920 and revised in 1947, with piercing clarity. The full TMCO found more warmth and drama in Stravinsky’s 1945 “Symphony in Three Movements,” which includes music he had written for several abandoned film projects while living in Los Angeles during that period.  

Upcoming TMCO concerts in Ozawa Hall at 8pm will pair TMC conducting fellows with BSO guest conductors Alan Gilbert (August 5) and Hannu Lintu (August 19).