"...calling all nations to brotherhood!"

August 24, 2003 performance, reviewed by Dave Conlin Read

"Ladies and Gentlemen! On this significant day in the musical life, I have selected to give the Ninth Symphony not only because it is the greatest masterpiece in the musical literature, but also to hear the voice of Tanglewood repeating Schiller's great words, calling all nations to brotherhood!"

So spoke Dr. Serge Koussevitzky on opening day of the Music Shed at Tanglewood, August 4, 1938 (re-dedicated 50 years later as the Koussevitzky Music Shed).

"Today is the last day of the 2003 season, always a special ocasion. We are also marking today six and a half decades of great music making in the Shed."

So spoke guest conductor James Conlon today a few minutes before leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood Festival Chorus, directed by John Oliver, in a brilliant rendition of Beethoven's masterpiece (the season's finale since 1997), for an audience of 13,000 on as beautiful a Sunday afternoon as the Berkshires have ever seen.

After welcoming the family of the Stockbridge builder who constructed the Shed, Conlon introduced a recording of the remarks made that day: first, Miss Gertrude Robinson Smith, who in 1938 was president of the Berkshire Symphonic Festival, followed by then-BSO president, Bentley Warren, and finally, we heard the commanding voice of Koussevitzky himself.

One couldn't help but contemplate for a moment the zeitgeist whence Koussevitzky spoke, which made the current state of political affairs seem even more tragically bungled in Washington.

To steel our spirits, though, and to encourage us, we have the arts. And today Maestro Conlon conducted a performance fit not only for this little occasion of the 65th anniversary of a building, but for any time.

A mere 68 minutes and 19 seconds (see sidebar re: time) after the familiar whispering opening notes of Beethoven's Ninth were sounded, a thundering storm of applause washed throughout the Shed and accross the lawn; a fitting celebration of that most propitious 1937 thunderstorm, which was the catalyst for the erection of the Shed.

Conducting without a score, Conlon was a compact dynamo, baton extending from his right arm, which moved mostly on a vertical plane, while his left reached in toward the musicians, his hand stretching and clenching, his arm sweeping across and drawing in. Conlon was both athletic and balletic as he elicited from the players sounds evoking the whole array of emotions put into the composition by Beethoven.

Deaf by the time it debuted in 1824, Beethoven broke new ground by including the human voice in a symphonic work, and immortalized the radical song from his youth, Friedrich Schiller's Ode to Joy, which is prefaced by his own little verse, sung today by bass James Morris:

O friends, not these tones;
Rather, let us tune our voices
In more pleasant and more joyful song.

The concluding quarter-hour was exultation, pure and simple, featuring soloists soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, and tenor Vinson Cole, plus the incomparable one hundred amateurs of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.

We think those responsible for the schedule at Tanglewood are on to something here, as if taking the nod from Beethoven himself, in book-ending the season with programs that are vocal showcases, now that the last four have had Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion at the start and now seven years closing with the Ninth.

The Ninth Symphony and the Diameter of an Audio CD

Re: the aim of getting the Ninth Symphony by Beethoven, one of the longest compositions with a playing time of 74 minutes, completely onto one audio CD.

According to one story, Herbert von Karajan demanded that Philips introduce a CD with a sufficient playing time for his favorite piece.

Another version says that the wife of Sony's Akio Morita urged him to exercise his influence so that Beethoven could be appropriately honored. Whichever story is true, a diameter of 12 centimeters was agreed upon, which made it possible to achieve a playing time of 74 minutes. (summarized from Bayer News)

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