Leon Fleisher, Emanuel Ax help open Tanglewood season

July 10 & 11, 2004 performances, by Dave Conlin Read

Saturday's program, with Rafael Fruebeck de Burgos conducting the B.S.O., featured the return of Leon Fleisher, former Music Director of the Tanglewood Music Center from 1986 until his ousting by Seiji Ozawa 1997. Even though Fleisher has resumed performing from the standartd repertoire, tonight he played Ravel's Piano Concerto in D, for left hand.

He played the one-movement concerto with great verve and physicality. About this composition, Ravel said "...it is essential to avoid the impression of insufficient weight in the sound-texture, as compared to a solo part for two hands." Fleisher left no such impression, wringing from the piano a big, rich, ringing sound that was riveting, especially for its one-handedness, and its near overshadowing of the orchestra.

The B.S.O.'s Sunday afternoon concert, with conductor Ingo Metzmacher making his Tanglewood debut, featured Tanglewood favorite Emanuel Ax for a program that included Mozart's Overture to The Magic Flute and Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat.

After two evenings in the Koussevitsky Music Shed, it was a good time to enjoy a concert on the sprawling lawn on a warm sunny aftrernoon, and the particular selections seemed perfect compliments to the activities on the lawn.

Ax, Metzmacher, and the orchestra gave the Mozart such a clear, light and melodious reading that the movements of little children on the lawn, away from the more avid auditors, could be seen to be choreographed.

The concert, and the B.S.O.'s opening weekend, concluded with an exciting rendition of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, which itself includes an exciting timpani solo, that, in this context, signaled to all who would hear: Music is back in residence at its Berkshire home.