Bringing the heat
JoAnn Falletta wows a crowd and Thomas Adès heads out of this world at Tanglewood
LENOX — Sweltering temperatures and seething humidity were inescapable this weekend at Tanglewood; the Boston Symphony Orchestra musicians went without their customary white jackets at all three of this weekend’s concerts, and some smart patrons brought folding hand fans to create a semblance of a breeze. Fortunately, the BSO was ready to offer several diversions for anyone who ventured through the gates.
Music director Andris Nelsons has finished up his Berkshires bookings for the summer, and the orchestra hosts a merry-go-round of familiar and new guest conductors for the remainder of the season. The weekend began with the latter, as BSO assistant conductor Earl Lee made his performance debut with the orchestra. Composer Brian Raphael Nabors was on hand to introduce his “Pulse,” a percussive and vibrant piece that fairly demands some choreographer unleash a troupe of dancers on it. Pianist twins Christina and Michelle Naughton then lit up the stage with Poulenc’s Concerto in D minor for two pianos and orchestra, adding sly sensuality to the score’s cartoonish antics and leaving the audience calling for more: The twins obliged with an uproarious romp of Lutos awski’s “Variations on a Theme by Paganini.”
These novelties were balanced by Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3, “Scottish,” an orchestral perennial if there ever was one: The BSO has performed the piece several times with different conductors in the past few seasons, and by this point the musicians could probably play it in their sleep. But the energy never lagged. Lee’s account was nicely noble without being detached, and the third movement march packed a somewhat surprising zing.
Violinist Joshua Bell may have drawn a crowd to the Shed on Saturday night, but the real story was the long-overdue conducting debut of JoAnn Falletta, the trailblazing, longtime music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Her career has included (among other things) scads of recordings for Naxos Records, multiple Grammy Awards, and over 20 years at the helm in Buffalo — compared to the home bases of most guest conductors, that’s practically our backyard. It begs the question: What took so long?
From Roberto Sierra’s infectious “Fandangos” to Respighi’s well-trodden travelogues “Fountains of Rome” and “Pines of Rome,” Falletta conducted with graceful and expressive elan that was reflected tenfold in the music, delivering orchestral entertainment at its best. The final crescendo of “Pines of the Appian Way” was pure rafter-rattling brilliance. Encore, Maestra!
Bell delivered a characteristically flamboyant but noticeably choppy performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D, which has been a staple of his repertoire for decades. The humid weather is no friend to violins, which may have explained a few of the sour notes near the top of the fingerboard, but there was little symbiosis between Bell and the orchestra. And while Tanglewood’s whirlwind schedule doesn’t allow much room to build a working relationship, lack of rehearsal time was clearly no obstacle for other pieces on the program.
Nor was Tanglewood’s time crunch a clear obstacle for the next afternoon’s featured guests, violist Antoine Tamestit and violinist Leonidas Kavakos, with Kavakos substituting for Pamela Frank, who bowed out because of COVID-19 complications. Bell performed in front of the orchestra, but Tamestit and Kavakos truly performed with it. With that dynamic duo of soloists and BSO artistic partner Thomas Adès on the podium, Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante in E-flat was an unalloyed delight and a masterclass in mutual listening. Locking eyes with assistant concertmaster Elita Kang and Tamestit in turn, Kavakos accented the music with piquancy. Tamestit, making his Tanglewood debut with this performance, revealed a velvety and muscular timbre somewhat reminiscent of Yo-Yo Ma’s signature sound, which bodes well for this coming Friday in the Shed when both Kavakos and Tamestit are scheduled to appear alongside Ma, Frank, and Emanuel Ax in a program of Czech chamber music.
Adès began Sunday’s concert leading his own “Shanty — Over the Sea” for string orchestra, which drew me in with its lapping, cyclical melodies and kept me enchanted with its sublime depth and density. As displayed in his 2011 “Polaris” and now this piece, Adès seems to have a particular fascination with the unknowably vast, and aptitude to match for conveying that sense of vastness.
The second half of the concert only proved that further as he led an epic journey through Holst’s “The Planets,” starting with an explosive “Mars, The Bringer of War” during which I could practically see Luke Skywalker’s X-wing spiraling through the sky, and ending with an incandescent “Neptune, The Mystic” (featuring Boston’s Lorelei Ensemble offstage) that seemed to contain entire galaxies in its final decrescendo. Whenever he swung toward the violins and his face flashed into view, his smile was that of a child who has just unwrapped a telescope. I already loved “The Planets,” and thanks to Adès, I love it even more.