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Karl Orff's Carmina Burana at Tanglewood

Next: Andre Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas and Kurt Masur

By: - Aug 11, 2009

Orff Orff Orff Orff


In the abundance of riches that comprise the Tanglewood Music Festival, there are highlights, followed by more highlights.

This past weekend, typically, there was a capacity audience for Keith Lockhart and the Pops in a tribute to Benny Goodman, the King of Swing, as well as a set by the guest artist, trumpet sensation Chris Botti. Many exited the Shed discussing what to them was the best program of the summer.

But the next night a different audience would feel the same way when Rafael Fruhbeck De Burgos conducted the orchestra and the Tangelwood Festival Chorus, under John Oliver, in one of the most popular works the 1937 "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff (1895-1982). The following afternoon the Sunday program featured the world's leading cellist, Yo Yo Ma. With Julian Kuerti conductings Ma performed works by Shostakovich and Faure. Tomorrow, August 12, we begin another cycle with the perennial Andre Previn at the piano in Ozawa Hall.

Having enjoyed many performances of "Carmina Burana" with its exotic rhythms and enormous chorus this occasion was notable for the helpful addition of supertitles. For once one could read along with a translation of the medieval Latin and German poetry with was often nicely erotic, bawdy, and humorous. The verses were discovered in a Benedictine monastery near Munich in 1803. Orff selected twenty poems in a suite. It is interesting that the cycle begins and ends with a passage about the Moon.

There were wonderful solos. The poem featuring the tenor Lawrence Brownlee was particularly amusing. It speaks of a fowl which is being roasted and then devoured during a feast. This is told from the perspective of the bird relating its demise with grim horror. There were several parts for the baritone Markus Werba that covered the top and bottom of his range. The soprano Laura Claycomb performed near the end of the score. Her passages were poignant and plaintive. But it was the booming chorus that prevailed with its interesting section of juvenile voices.

When "Carmina Burana" was introduced it was so successful that he ordered his publisher to destroy all of his prior compositions. In a complex history Orff came to be a favorite of the Nazi party and he accepted their commission to rewrite "Midsummer's Night Dream" because the music of the Jewish Mendelssohn was banned. After the war he claimed to have been a part of the Resistance but this was never really accepted. 

Andre Previn

The remarkable versatility of André Previn is showcased in an Ozawa Hall program by the Boston Symphony Chamber Players (Aug. 12). The ensemble reprises a new work by Previn, premiered in Boston at Jordan Hall in March, and Previn plays piano in the Brahms Quintet in F minor for piano and strings. Villa-Lobos' Quintette en forme de chôros, for wind quintet, rounds out the program.

Aug. 14-20

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS, THIBAUDET, PREVIN, MASUR

 Michael Tilson Thomas, whose history with Tanglewood dates back to his days as a protégé of Leonard Bernstein some four decades ago, makes a welcome return to the festival for the first time since 1988. His first program initiates a weekend highlighted by three great Romantic piano concertos, as he conducts Rachmaninoff's tempestuous Piano Concerto No. 3, performed by Yefim Bronfman, on a program with Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. Tilson Thomas's second program is a project especially dear to his heart. The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theatre is a musical homage to his grandparents, who were leading performers in Yiddish theater in the '20s and '30s (Aug. 19 and 20). This lively Ozawa Hall program is scripted and narrated by Tilson Thomas, who also plays piano and conducts. It features the original performers who helped with the show's creation in 2005: Judy Blazer, Neal Benari, Ronit Widmann-Levy, and Eugene Brancoveanu, all making their Tanglewood debuts. Pat Birch directs.

 André Previn collaborates with one of his favorite soloists, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, in Liszt's poetic Piano Concerto No. 2, on a program with Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 and Ravel's La Valse (Aug. 15). Previn goes back to his early jazz piano roots with a special evening of standards in an Ozawa Hall concert with longtime collaborator bassist David Finck (Aug. 16).

 Kurt Masur takes the podium Sunday afternoon to lead the TMCO in an all-Brahms program focusing on music that is at the very heart of his repertoire: the composer's Symphony No. 2 and the Piano Concerto No. 2, with Garrick Ohlsson as soloist (Aug. 16).

Aug. 21-23

BEETHOVEN'S FIRST & LAST SYMPHONIES, MENDELSSOHN

      Kurt Masur opens the BSO's final Tanglewood weekend leading Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 on a program with Haydn's Symphony No. 88 and the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 25 in C, with one of his favorite collaborators, the outstanding young French pianist David Fray, making his BSO debut (Aug. 21). The following night, Masur dedicates a program to one of his most admired composers, Mendelssohn. The program features the composer's Symphony No. 4, Italian, The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) Overture, and the Violin Concerto, with Gil Shaham (Aug. 22).

      Michael Tilson Thomas will lead the BSO's final program of the 2009 Tanglewood season, the annual season-ending performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, soprano Erin Wall and mezzo-soprano Kendall Gladen in their BSO debuts, tenor Stuart Skelton in his Tanglewood debut, and bass-baritone Raymond Aceto (Aug. 23). The program begins with a movement from Ives's Thanksgiving and Forefathers' Day, for chorus and orchestra (from his Holiday Symphony).