Issue #11
July 2002
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Tanglewood: A Sixty-two Year Personal Odyssey Through One of the World's Great Music Institutions by Dave Sear
I was taken to a rehearsal at Tanglewood, for the first time, as a young child, in 1940 by a summer camp. We were warned by our counselors that the conductor, I assume to have been Serge Koussevitzky, was a very stern man who would yell at us if we attracted his attention. Being the son of a concert pianist and orchestral cellist who played with the NBC symphony orchestra under Arturo Toscanini, and who was also averse to being yelled at by conductors, I parked myself on the lawn. I didn't venture closer to the orchestra than the back of the music shed. I was nevertheless totally awed by the Tanglewood experience.
Ten years later, spending my winters at Black Mountain College, collecting folk music along the tracks of the Southern Railroad and working in the civil rights movement, I spent my summers as the folk music counselor at Camp Robinson Crusoe in Sturbridge Massachusetts. Along with other counselors, if the weather was good, we would spend a beautiful Sunday on the Tanglewood lawn, enjoying the grounds and the glorious music of the Boston Symphony.
Shortly thereafter, in my early twenties, my time at Tanglewood significantly increased when I became the "folk singer in residence" at Avaloch, a very lively resort across the road from Tanglewood, now known as The Apple Tree Inn. It was there that I met my wife. We courted at Tanglewood and subsequently camped in the area and then bought a house. It was during these years that I hosted and produced Folk And Baroque for the NPR network and produced a series of folk and chamber concerts in the Tanglewood area for radio broadcast. This brought me into closer contact with members of the Boston Symphony and soloists with the orchestra. The BSO's distinguished percussionist Frank Epstein facilitated this and guest soloists who appeared included Jean-Pierre Rampal.
Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony, is situated on beautiful lawn and wooded grounds, accented by tall oak, pine maple and birch trees. It is nestled on a plateau in the Berkshires with breathtaking views of the mountains and the Stockbridge Bowl. It is a study in how to present music and grandeur worked out to the finest detail. The orchestra in their summer whites is superbly elegant. Parking attendants, upon our arrival at the grounds, during our camping days, noticing our dog in the car, would automatically wave us under a tree where even Baggum, our Welsh Springer Spaniel, who enjoyed music and liked to sing, would enjoy his time at Tanglewood in the shade, with the music in the distance. Approaching the main gate we would be struck by the fuchsia and other hanging plants and the overall beauty of the place; and this is before hearing the music!
The music is of course what hundreds of thousands of people come to Tanglewood for in the summer and there have been many memorable experiences over the years aside from the fact that the Tanglewood Shed is where I get my sense of what the instruments of the orchestra sound like at their best, such as the oboe in the hands of former first oboist Ralph Gomberg.
Events that stand out over the years are the Marlborough Orchestra coming down and playing in the small concert hall on a Friday night with Rudolph Serkin and Alexander Schneider electrifying the audience with a baroque concerto. Hugging each other between movements, the audience was exhilarated watching the musician's obvious pleasure and excitement with the music and close rapport with each other. This is what turns a concert into an experience.
I heard Itzhak Perlman in his first performance at Tanglewood play the Beethoven Violin Concerto, where he took his place at the top of the list of the worlds great violinists. This was confirmed again last week with his warm and moving performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Other greats over the years include Alicia Delarocha playing Mozart's piano concertos and Christopher Eschenbach conducting them from the keyboard. There was Colin Davis conducting Handle's Messiah with the magnificent Tanglewood Festival Chorus that is a powerhouse of choral sound. Of course there was the great Leonard Bernstein who would always be there in the summer conducting the Boston Symphony, the student orchestras and countless rehearsals bringing his inspiration to all that crossed his path.
In the Leinsdorf years there were two notable events. One was his last performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and the second was his conducting of the epic Berg opera Wozzek. This demanding opera called for small ensembles scattered around the music shed, and conducting these small groups were two unknown conducting students of the Tanglewood Music Center. One was Michael Tilson Thomas and the other was Seiji Ozawa. We didn't know at the time that Seiji would go on to become the Music Director and conductor of the Boston Symphony and remain there for twenty-nine years breathing life and energy into the institution and in his graceful, modest, self-effacing style enrich the place with innovative programs and reinvigorate the old war horses and become everyone's Seiji. He is Seiji to Jonathan Snow who "conducts" cars to their parking spaces on the parking lawns at Tanglewood today and to the Board of Trustees of the Boston Symphony who just appointed him Music Director Emeritus. He is Seiji to the thousands of people that came to hear him conduct at Tanglewood and Symphony Hall in Boston and concert halls around the world.
Seiji has brought the Kyoto drummers from Japan and folk musicians from China to the stage of Tanglewood. He has brought countless unusual and traditional musicians and has joined Itzhak Perlman and Klezmer players in a concert that had the audience dancing in the isles. He has also inducted many new and outstanding young musicians into the ranks of the Boston symphony and the orchestra has never sounded better.
This past weekend many of the great musicians that Seiji brought to Tanglewood came back to thank him for his tremendous contributions to music as he embarks on a new career as conductor of the Vienna Opera. The list includes John Williams who hosted the Saturday night tribute and Mstislav Rostropovich who performed and conducted as well. Steven Spielberg spoke and Susan Dangel and Dick Bartlett produced a movie of Seiji's conducting as John Williams conducted The Boston Symphony in Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture, no small feat of timing. This was followed by Seiji conducting The Boston Symphony in George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in a spectacular performance featuring The Marcus Roberts Trio with long cadenzas of jazz improvisation played by Marcus on piano, Roland Guerin on bass and Jason Marsalis on drums. The evening ended with a beautiful medley of spirituals sung by The Boys Choir of Harlem accompanied by the Boston Symphony and conducted by Seiji. The concert itself was an example of the innovative programming that Seiji has brought to the Boston Symphony.
On the following afternoon Seiji conducted his last concert as Music Director of the Boston Symphony. Following the concert a score of Randall Thompson's Alleluia was handed out to the audience and Seiji conducted the audience, soloists and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in this work. On the back of the score was a message from Seiji and I am going to quote that message here:
“July 14, 2002
Dear Friends,
It was forty-two years ago this summer that I first sang Randall Thompson's Alleluia. I was a student at the Tanglewood Music Center, and as some of you know, it is our tradition, started by Koussevitzky, to sing this graceful piece at the TMC's Opening Exercises each summer. When I was struggling with how to end today's concert - it felt so right to choose this. Besides it’s Koussevitzky, who encouraged so many American composers to write for this singular American festival. And it anticipates the future, as it will be sung by new generation of musicians who come here to make their own imprint, and collect their own memories of our beloved Tanglewood.
Thank you for joining us today in singing this lovely prayer.
Seiji Ozawa”
Thank you, Seiji, for all that you have brought to Tanglewood over the past forty-two years and for the way you have enriched us with your person and with your music.
Dave Sear has been a folk musician, concert organizer and radio personality since the 1950’s. His program, “Folk Music Almanac” appeared on WNYC for over 40 years. He has sung and played with such folk music legends as Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Oscar Brand, Odetta and Tom Paxton.
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