Lenox — Yo-Yo Ma, Midori and the music of John Williams make for a great weekend at Tanglewood, August 16-18. Continuing the Russian theme of summer on Friday, Midori will tackle Prokofiev’s fiendishly difficult Violin Concerto No. 1 and the Boston Symphony Orchestra will perform Yevgeny Svetlanov’s “Dawn in the Field.” On Saturday, Keith Lockhart will lead the Boston Pops in a harrowing live performance of John Williams’ legendary score to Jurassic Park. And on Sunday, Yo-Yo Ma will enchant Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto.
Tanglewood 2024 focused on Russian-born Sergei Koussevitzky, the BSO’s ninth conductor and commissioner of works such as Stravinsky’s “Psalm Symphony” and Bartók’s “Concerto for Orchestra,” so it was a good summer for people who can’t get enough of Russian composers like Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, and others.
This is Midori’s 23rd return to Tanglewood. Her first concert there was in 1986 under the baton of Leonard Bernstein, who conducted his own “Serenade for Violin and String Orchestra.” Her performance of Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto on Friday, August 16, will be one of the highlights of Russia’s summer program, and it is a piece where Midori can be expected to live up to her 40-plus-year reputation for technical precision, emotional depth, and the ability to bring a unique voice to each piece she plays. Koussevitzky did not commission the work, but he conducted the Paris Opera Orchestra at its world premiere in 1923, as well as at the American premiere two years later at Symphony Hall.
Midori holds the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and is the newly appointed Artistic Director of the Piano and String Program at the Ravinia Steans Music Institute.
Performing a film score live to the picture can be more difficult than recording the orchestra’s original music on a soundstage. That’s because the Pops’ musicians not only have to perfectly reproduce every note of the original music, but they also have to do so without stopping until the intermission or the end of the film. For the musicians, who follow the conductor as they always do, this is all very normal. And for musicians who win Grammy awards for their Shostakovich interpretations, Williams’ scores are relatively straightforward. It’s the conductor who has to endure all the pressure of keeping the orchestra in sync with the picture. Keith Lockhart, conductor of the Boston Pops, calls it “a really big challenge. It’s really one of the hardest things I’ve had to do as a conductor.”
They never break it.
Yo-Yo Ma closes the weekend with the Cello Concerto by Robert Schumann, who deserves to find new words to describe his music. Don’t be fooled by the label “romantic.” Of course, his music is of that period and is very emotional. But his harmonic vocabulary is entirely his own – although you will hear echoes of it in Brahms’ music. No one is better suited to play Schumann with all the intensity, nuance and musicality it deserves than Yo-Yo Ma.
Hear Midori, Yo-Yo Ma and film music by John Williams at Tanglewood the weekend of August 16-18. Tickets are available here.
