Ozawa's final turn was an about-face

July 14, 2002 performance, reviewed by Dave Conlin Read

Seiji Ozawa conducting the Tanglewood
audience. (click image
for more photos of Mr. Ozawa.)
photo © NewBerkshire.com

View: Seiji Ozawa Tanglewood
press conference photos.

Read: Seiji Ozawa Tanglewood
press conference transcript.

Seiji Ozawa's final turn as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra was an about-face; after leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra, pianist Peter Serkin, 6 vocal soloists, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in Beethoven's Fantasia in C minor, Opus 80, he bid farewel to Tanglewood by turning away from the musicians on stage to lead the audience of 14,300 in singing Alleluia, written for the opening exercises of the Berkshire Music Center in 1940 by Randall Thompson at the request of Serge Koussevitsky. On the back cover of the score, copies of which were distributed to the audience, Maestro Ozawa wrote:

"It was forty-two years ago this summer that I fisrt sang Randall Thompson's Alleluia...as some of you know, it is our tradition to sing this graceful piece at the TMC's Opening Exercises each summer. When I was struggling with how to end today's concert - my last as Music Director of this remarkable institution - it felt so right to choose this. Besides its beauty, it reflects Tanglewood's proud past, and also the noble legacy of Koussevitsky, 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 generations 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."

Recalling his own first time singing it in 1960, just after flying from Paris to Boston on Pan American and arriving in Lenox aboard a Greyhound bus, Ozawa exhorted his adoring audience, "...and if you can't sing, try!" And sing the audience did, making a beautiful noise to be infused into the structure of the Koussevitsky Music Shed and held in the branches of the trees on the lawn, to seep into the "the nature" of Tanglewood, a new echo to be heard later by those recalling Ozawa's legacy. (Whenever he means to speak of the bucolic Tanglewood ambience, Ozawa merely says "the nature.")

Thus concluded Maestro Ozawa's weekend-long Tanglewood swan song, begun some 75 hours earlier, with a press conference under a tree just outside the Shed.

View: Seiji Ozawa Tanglewood
press conference photos.

Read: Seiji Ozawa Tanglewood
press conference transcript.