Berkshires arts reviews

August 19, 2007 performance reviewed by Dave Conlin Read.

This performance of Beethoven’s Ninth at Tanglewood was especially memorable because it was given as the valediction of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, which then disbanded, their formal schooling having come to an end. Maestro Rafael Frubeck de Burgos, fifty years older and looking fit as any of his charges, hied them on their way, conducting a brisk, exhilarating rendition that lasted about seventy minutes.

The always brilliant Tanglewood Festival Chorus was at the top of their game, too, producing a shimmering roar of song that left no patron unmoved. Then they were off on a 10 concert tour of European festivals with the Boston Symphony.

We came early today to watch the T.F.C. go through their pre-concert rehearsal and warm-up routine and got to eavesdrop as they were given a final briefing. Besides being encouraged to be patient and to never ask their briefer for directions to the bathroom, they were told that flip-flops were a total no-no!

The program noted that this concert was supported by a “generous gift” in memory of Beverly Sills, who passed away last month. Her final performance with the B.S.O. was Beethoven’s Ninth at Tanglewood in August, 1969.

Maestro de Burgos manifests a stoic, laconic character on the podium, while also evincing deep emotion with simple gestures to the orchestra, as when he leans over toward the first violins, left hand and arm extended, slowly closing his hand and drawing it back to his torso, as if to wring the sound from them.

And there’s no more dramatic a conductor’s gesture than his to close this performance, when he plunges down with the baton so forcefully that you may think he’s dealing a death blow to the devil.

We heard nuances in the symphony today that we hadn’t noticed the half-dozen or so times we’ve heard it before. Little passages during the third movement, amounting to just a few notes, infinitessimal within the context of the whole work, but that worked a kind of magic on the mind, conveying feelings as good poems do. But not to be mused upon too long lest the next gem is missed.

The overall attraction to us of this composition is the great noise, the overwhelming sonic boom of orchestra and chorus in glorius peroration; the triumph of the Tanglewood Music Center Class of 2007, was their ability to articulate the quiet, too, with eloquence.

(Photos by Jamie Goldenberg; more photos from this performance coming soon.)