2010 FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC, AUGUST 12-16, CELEBRATES THE
70th ANNIVERSARY OF THE TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER
Concerts:
Thursday, August 12, 8 p.m. Ozawa Hall, Oliver Knussen, conductor
Friday, August 13, 2:30 p.m. Ozawa Hall
Friday, August 13, 8:30 p.m. Shed: Caminos del Inka: A Musical Journey; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, conductor
Saturday, August 14, 2:30 p.m. Ozawa Hall
Sunday, August 15, 10 a.m. Ozawa Hall
Sunday, August 15, 2:30 p.m. Shed, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Robert Spano, conductor
Sunday, August 15, 8 p.m. Ozawa Hall Tanglewood Music Center Vocal Fellows and Orchestra, Stefan Asbury, conductor
Monday, August 16, 8 p.m. Ozawa Hall: Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Robert Spano, conductor
This summer’s Festival of Contemporary Music is so different from its predecessors that it really ought to be given a different title. In fact, “contemporary” music, in the sense of brand new works by up-and-coming young composers, will be conspicuously absent. Perhaps “Retrospective of Seventy Years of ‘New’ Music” would offer a more accurate description. In the past, the Fromm Foundation has offered commissions for new works to be premiered during this week with the composers presiding; this summer, the five-day event will look back on the entire seventy years of Tanglewood rather than the fifty-four years of the Festival of Contemporary Music, as supported by Fromm.
This broadening of scope will render the programs somewhat more popular and familiar, and therefore less challenging, than usual. Some of the older composers featured have become canonical figures whose music has been absorbed into the mainstream. Included in this category are Paul Hindemith, Aaron Copland, Olivier Messiaen, Leonard Bernstein, and to a lesser extent, Irving Fine, Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, Lukas Foss, Gunther Schuller, George Perle, and Hans Werner Henze. In most cases, the Festival programmers have sought to present works that have become familiar and well-established repertory items, such as Schuller’s “Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee,” which the Boston Symphony recorded in the 1960’s under Erich Leinsdorf, or Berio’s “Circles,” which was commissioned by Paul Fromm in 1960.
Living composers whose work is also familiar to audiences interested in newer music will be represented more by well-established rather than by newer works. This group includes John Harbison, Oliver Knussen, Charles Wuorinen, Bright Sheng, Yehudi Wyner, Steven Mackey, Jacob Druckman, Alexander Goehr, Osvaldo Golijov, and Colin Matthews. Somewhat less familiar figures who have been significant presences at Tanglewood include Betsy Jolas, Theodore Antoniou, and Michael Gandolfi.
Finally, the group that would normally occupy a central position but which this year is taking an inconspicuous place alongside the bigger names are the young composers who have participated in the FCM in the last few years: Helen Grime, and Andrew McPherson, as well as two less well-known Latin American composers who have not had previous associations with Tanglewood: Daniel Robles and Gabriele Lena Frank.
In its press information, Tanglewood points out that modern and contemporary music is well-represented in the regular schedule beyond the Festival, in concerts by the BSO, eminent visiting artists, and TMC students. This expands the list of composers represented to include: Toru Takemitsu, Samuel Barber, George Benjamin, Bernard Rands, David Del Tredici, Leon Kirchner, Luigi Dallapiccola, Peter Lieberson, Gyogy Ligeti, William Bolcom, Augusta Read Thomas, Ralph Shapey, John Williams, Donald Martino, Galina Gubaidulina, and Mario Davidovsky. This may demonstrate Tanglewood’s devotion to newer music; but it also shows that newer music is getting older and being regularly included in programs offered to mainstream audiences.
Despite the blurring of the distinction between the Contemporary Music Festival and the Tanglewood Music Festival (a festival of festivals?), there will be some notable events that distinguish this five-day period. Most conspicuously, Tanglewood favorite Osvaldo Golijov is offering a group of compositions, one by himself and two by colleagues, collectively entitled: Caminos del Inka: A Musical Journey. Golijov’s Mariel for cello and orchestra, along with Robles’s El cóndor pasa, Frank’s Iliapa, and a selection of Peruvian folk music will all be accompanied by (or accompany) a videography presentation of images by Peruvian photographer Fabiana van Lente, under the direction of Miguel Harth-Bedoya.
For me, there are some less-frequently heard treasures embedded in the Festival. Look out for Lukas Foss’s fascinating and still avant-garde chamber work Echoi, to be performed on Friday August 13 at 2:30 pm. This product of the wild and wooly ‘60’s pioneered in combining improvised and composed elements of structure, and makes most pieces of maximalism and minimalism feel tame and well-behaved. Also look out for Bruno Maderna’s poetic and modern/romantic masterpiece Giardino religioso, (Thursday August 12 at 8 pm), and his colleague Luciano Berio’s classic but rarely-performed exploration of the frontiers between music and language, Circles, setting poetry of e. e. cummings (Sunday, August 15 at 10 am).
The final concert, on Monday, August 16, will be offered by the TMC Orchestra under Robert Spano. It primary point of interest is one of the few actual premiers of the Festival, of a new work by the phenomenal 101 year old Elliott Carter, intriguingly titled What Are the Years. (Carter has participated in the FCM nine times, including two years ago when the entire event was turned over to a celebration of his centenary.) Another premier on the same program will be Turning Point, by the British composer Colin Matthews, who is known for his mastery of large-scale neo-romantic orchestral gestures.
Two short operas, both composed decades ago, will constitute the Festival program offered by the Tanglewood Vocal Fellows under Stefan Asbury’s direction on Sunday August 15 at 8 pm: John Harbison’s Full Moon in March, and Oliver Knussen’s early classic Where the Wild Things Are. Both are well worth re-hearing. Also worth re-hearing will be all the works on the BSO program that afternoon, including two in the “war-horse” category by a composer who did not live to see Tanglewood: George Gershwin. Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s performance of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto should demonstrate the full stature of that work, which I consider Gershwin’s greatest achievement outside of Porgy and Bess. Its program companions, American in Paris, Bernstein’s Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs, and Schuller’s aforementioned Seven Studies should appeal to all audiences without the usual pall cast by overly-familiar repertory.
The final concert will also feature a work that does not need the special advocacy of a festival, and which is only indirectly connected to Tanglewood: Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony, which was written for Koussevitsky and the BSO in 1946 and has long since entered the standard repertory. Performances of this splendid work are always welcome; the last time the TMC Orchestra performed it was in August 1990 under the baton of Leonard Bernstein in his second-to-last concert. Robert Spano is, along with Michael Tilson Thomas and Marin Alsop, one of our best Americanists among major conductors, and it will be interesting to hear his approach (he has not [yet] recorded the work).
2010 Festival of Contemporary Music Programs
All programs and artists are subject to change.
˚ Indicates Former TMC Fellow.
*Years following composers’ names indicate the years they were on the TMC composition faculty, unless otherwise noted.
Thursday, August 12, 8 p.m. Ozawa Hall
Oliver Knussen, conductor˚
(Fellow in 1970, 71, & 73)
TMC Conducting Fellows
Edwin Barker, double bass˚ (Fellow in 1975)
ANTONIO, (1974-77, 79-85, Fellow in 69) Concertino for double bass and chamber orchestra
PERLE (1967, 80, 85-88, 90, 92-97) Concertino for piano, winds, and timpani
SCHULLER (1963-65; Head of School 1966-84, 92) Tre invenzioni
MADERNA (1971; Program Director in 1972) Giardino religioso
HINDEMITH (Head of Composition Program 1940- 41) Kammermusik No. 2
Friday, August 13, 2:30 p.m. Ozawa Hall
SESSIONS (Program Director 1955, 66, 67, 77) Five Pieces for Piano
BABBITT (1957, 58, 76, 06, 07) Vision and Prayer
WOURINEN (1970, 71, 01) Fifty Fifty
FOSS˚ (1952, 54, 56, 58, 59, 62-64, 71, 89, 90, 94; Fellow in 40-42) Echoi
HENZE (1983, 88) Being Beauteous
Friday, August 13, 8:30 p.m. Shed
Golijov’s Mariel, for cello and orchestra, is part of the 2010 Festival of Contemporary Music
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Miguel Harth-Bedoya, conductor˚
(Fellow in 1992)
Elizabeth Rowe, flute˚ (Fellow in 1996)
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Caminos del Inka: A Musical Journey
Miguel Harth-Bedoya leads a musical journey through the ancient Inca empire with specially created videography by the renowned Peruvian photographer Gabriela Fit. The breathtaking images of Machu Picchu, floating island villages, and the expanses of the Peruvian plains are matched to stirring and evocative music, from the time of the Conquistadores to the sounds of the first new classical voices of 21st-century Latin America.
Program to include
ROBLES El cóndor pasa
FRANK Illapa, for flute and orchestra
GOLIJOV˚ (1997-2004, Fellow in 1990) Mariel, for cello and orchestra
Saturday, August 14, 2:30 p.m. Ozawa Hall
MCPHERSON˚ (2007 TMC Fellow) Selections from Secret of Antikythera
MACKEY˚ (92, 98, 02, 04-06; Fellow in 84) Gaggle and Flock
JOLAS (76, 77, 06) Quatuor VI
SHENG˚ (97, 01, 02, 04, 05; Fellow in 85) Three Fantasies for violin and piano
WYNER (1979, 80, 82-85, 95) Passage
Sunday, August 15, 10 a.m. Ozawa Hall
FINE (1948-51, 53, 56, 57) Fantasia for string trio
GOEHR (69, 87, 93) Since Brass, nor Stone…
BERIO (60, 69; Program Director 82; Fellow in 52) circles
GRIME˚ (2008 TMC Fellow) Ten Miniatures
GANDOLFI˚ (90, 97-01; Program Coordinator 02-10; Fellow in 86) Design School
MESSIAEN (49, 75) Pièce pour piano et quatuor à cordes
Sunday, August 15, 2:30 p.m. Shed
Schuller’s Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee is part of the 2010 Festival of Contemporary Music
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Robert Spano, conductor
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
Thomas Martin, clarinet
GERSHWIN An American in Paris
SCHULLER Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee
BERNSTEIN˚ (1940-42 TMC Fellow) Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs, for clarinet and jazz ensemble
GERSHWIN Piano Concerto
Sunday, August 15, 8 p.m. Ozawa Hall
The Fromm Concert at Tanglewood
Tanglewood Music Center Vocal Fellows and Orchestra
Stefan Asbury, conductor˚ (1980 TMC Fellow)
HARBISON˚ Full Moon in March
KNUSSEN˚ (80, 81; Program Director 86-91 and 93, 94-96, 01; Fellow 70, 71, 73) Where the Wild Things Are
Concert performances, presented as part of the 2010 Festival of Contemporary Music
Monday, August 16, 8 p.m. Ozawa Hall
Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
Robert Spano, conductor
Tanglewood Music Center Conducting Fellows
DRUCKMAN˚ (1972, 74, 77, 78, 91, 92; Fellow in 49, 50) Aureole
MATTHEWS (1991, 96, 07, 09) Turning Point (US Premiere)
COPLAND (1940-61, 63-65) Symphony No. 3
2010 FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC THEME EXTENDED THROUGH OUT THE SEASON
Works listed below will be included in the concert programs of the dates listed.
All programs and artists are subject to change.
*Years following composers’ names indicate the years they were on the TMC composition faculty, unless otherwise noted.
Sunday, July 4, 10 a.m., Ozawa Hall
TMC Chamber Concert
TAKEMITSU (1986) Day Signal
TAKEMITSU Night Signal
CARTER (1965, 67, 72, 86, 88, 90, 98, 06, 08) Tintinnabulation
MESSIAEN (1949, 75) Couleurs de la cité céleste
HINDEMITH (1940-41) Sonata for four horns
Thursday, July 8, 8 p.m., Ozawa Hall
TMC Vocal Recital
BARBER (1947) Three Songs, Op. 2
BARBER Three Songs, Op. 10
BARBER Three Songs, Op. 45
BARBER Nuvoletta, Op. 25
RANDS (1989, 96-97, 04) “now again”–fragments from Sappho
Saturday, July 10, 6 p.m., Ozawa Hall
TMC Vocal Prelude
GUBAIDULINA (1997) Ein Engel
Sunday, July 11, 10 a.m., Ozawa Hall
TMC Chamber Concert
COPLAND (19 40-61 and 63-65) Quartet for Piano and Strings
Monday, July 12, 8 p.m., Ozawa Hall
Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra Concert
CARTER What Are Years (American Premiere)
Tuesday, July 13, 8 p.m., Ozawa Hall
TMC Chamber Concert
DALLAPICCOLA (1951-52) Goethe Lieder
Sunday, July 18, 10 a.m., Ozawa Hall
TMC Chamber Concert
KIRCHNER (1959-60, 85-87, 94) String Quartet No. 1
DEL TREDICI (1985, 91) Cello Acrostic
Saturday, July 24, 6 p.m., Ozawa Hall
TMC Prelude Concert
BENJAMIN (1999, 00, 03, 05) Sortilèges
HINDEMITH Kleine Kammermusik
Sunday, July 25, 10 a.m., Ozawa Hall
TMC Chamber Concert
LIEBERSON (1988) String Quartet
LIGETI (1973) wind quintet TBA
Wednesday, July 28, 8 p.m., Ozawa Hall
TMC Vocal Recital
BERIO (1960, 69, 82) Quattro canzoni popolari
Saturday, July 31, 6 p.m. in Ozawa Hall
Prelude Concert
HARBISON (1980, 84, 90, 92, 94, 01, 05, 06-10) Quintet for Winds
BARBER Dover Beach
Sunday, August 1, 10 a.m., Ozawa Hall
TMC Chamber Concert
BARBER Summer Music
THOMAS (1997, 02-10, TMC fellow 89) Traces
Tuesday, August 3, 4 p.m., Ozawa Hall
Tanglewood On Parade:
TMC Chamber Concert
BOLCOM (1989, 90, 96, 07, TMC fellow 66) Fairy Tales
Tuesday, August 3, 8:30 p.m., Shed
Tanglewood on Parade:
Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
WILLIAMS (1997-2010) Selections from Seven for Luck
Saturday, August 7, 6 p.m., Ozawa Hall
TMC Prelude Concert
SHAPEY (1979, 91) Duo Variations
Sunday, August 8, 10 a.m., Ozawa Hall
TMC Chamber Concert
MARTINO (1965-66, 69, 73, 90) Strata
DAVIDOVSKY (1968, 91, 94) Synchronisms No. 1
Great photo, Michael!