Tanglewood tunes up for season
New faces will include Jansen, Hall, Giordani
A few prefatory events notwithstanding, the 2007 Tanglewood season gets underway tonight, as James Levine takes up the baton again to lead the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Mendelssohn's overture and incidental music for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony.
While Levine is now the festival's most visible symbol, it is the mix of new and familiar faces who pass through the Berkshires in July and August that makes for many season highlights. Here are five artists and groups making their Tanglewood or BSO debuts this summer.
Hespèrion XXI , July 12: This superb early-music ensemble gained fame in 1991 with its soundtrack for the movie "Tous les matins du monde." Led by Spanish gamba player Jordi Savall , it's given new meaning to the term "historically informed," crafting programs that are not only musically accurate but throw light on the broader cultural and intellectual currents from which the music emerged. A lot of learned scholarship goes into the musicians' performances and recordings, but it's the last thing you think of when hearing their vibrant, effervescent playing. They bring a typically erudite program entitled "Paradise Lost: Music of Jews, Christians, and Muslims at the time of King Alfonso X of Castile, 1221-1284. "
Jim Hall, July 15: Hall is one of jazz guitar's master craftsmen. During a career that has spanned nearly 50 years, he's played with a laundry list of jazz greats. Some of his most inspired outings are his duets, such as those with pianist Bill Evans and bassist Ron Carter, in which the subtlety and responsiveness of his playing can be most clearly discerned. He stops by to play in a trio with André Previn, who, having conducted the BSO in two programs, sticks around to put his jazz hat on. Bassist David Fincke rounds out the band.
Netherlands Bach Society, July 25-26: Another noteworthy early-music group, the NBS has been performing Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" during Holy Week since 1922, concerts that now attract 12,00 people annually. The ensemble's new recording of Bach's Mass in B Minor uses a small group of singers in the choruses as well as the arias and duets, giving the piece an unusually intimate feel. They'll play two shows at Tanglewood: the Mass, followed by a group of secular cantatas. Music director Jos van Veldhoven conducts.
Janine Jansen , Aug. 5: Another contribution to the "Season of Dutch Arts in the Berkshires." The 29-year-old violinist seems to have overcome the idea that she's being touted for her looks rather than her playing, which teems with energy and exactitude -- so much so that in a 2005 recording she was able to reenergize the warhorse of all warhorses, Vivaldi's "Four Seasons." Here she'll be joined by her compatriot, conductor
Marcello Giordani , Aug. 18: Sure, making your Tanglewood debut is a big deal, but earlier this year the Italian tenor had a gig that surpassed it in prestige: He sang a private concert for the nine members of the Supreme Court. (The invitation was arranged by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg , one of the court's more fervent opera lovers.) Since working through what he called a "vocal crisis" in the mid-1990s, Giordani has won heavy critical acclaim for his gleaming top notes, polished technique, and dramatic intensity. He sings the title role in the BSO's performance of Berlioz's "The Damnation of Faust."
Information: 888-266-1200 , tanglewood.org
