この記事は，New York Times が記者を送って，Tanglewoodから送らせた記事です．
The second weekend of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s residency here at the Tanglewood Festival spoke to past as well as present. And quite possibly to the future. と書き出しています．
past は，土曜日に the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Tanglewood as the orchestra’s summer home. を祝ったことです．
A catchall of classical and pops pieces, it included a film on the history of the festival, which was founded in 1937 by the conductor Serge Koussevitzky, and the presentation of the first Tanglewood Medal, which the orchestra described as a “new tradition.”
The medal went to Seiji Ozawa, the orchestra’s music director from 1973 to 2002,
このメダルのことはNHKも良い口実にしてスタッフを送って,TV 放映していましたから繰り返しません．
問題は，この記念日に前からBSOの次期Music Director の有力候補として追っかけているAndris Nelsons が指揮者として招かれたことです．
彼は，Riga の生まれですが，５歳の時に両親に連れて行って貰った歌劇タンホイザーに深く感動し，それがキッカケで両親（いずれも音楽家）の影響もあって音楽の道に進んだそうです．
最初ピアノを始め，次にトランペットもマスターし，オーケストラ・メンバーになっています．
同郷のマリス・ヤンソンスに認められて，指揮を教わり始め，In 2003, Nelsons became principal conductor of the Latvian National Opera. He concluded his tenure there after five years in 2007. His other work in opera has included his first conducting appearance at the Metropolitan Opera in October 2009, in a production of Turandot． In July 2010, Nelsons made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival, conducting a new production of Wagner's Lohengrin at the opening performance of the festival.
In 2006, Nelsons became chief conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie of Herford, Germany, a post he held until the end of the 2008/2009 season.
In October 2007, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) named Nelsons as its 12th principal conductor and music director, effective with the 2008–2009 season. His initial contract was for 3 years，In July 2009, Nelsons extended his CBSO contract for an additional 3 years, through the 2013–2014 season．
という経歴です．因みに，CBSOはサイモン・ラトルがベルリンに移る前のポストです，
He first conducted the BSO in March 2011, filling in for Mr. Levine on short notice in Mahler’s Ninth Symphony at Carnegie Hall, with little more than a day’s rehearsals.
Mr. Nelsons canceled subscription performances in Boston last season because of the birth of his child but has been re-engaged for next season. Meanwhile, he conducted the Boston Symphony here not only in the anniversary concert but also in a program of his own on Sunday afternoon. And for the most part he shone in disparate works.
この評者は，それほどNelsons を高く評価していないようで，次のように書いています．
His reading of Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms,” with typically superb work from John Oliver’s Tanglewood Festival Chorus, was taut and expressive in its first two movements. But Mr. Nelsons eased into the hypnotic strains of the final hymn of praise with utmost delicacy and refinement.
That was paired on Sunday with Brahms’s Second Symphony, given a shapely reading with due regard for the “non troppo” (“not too much”) markings in the opening Allegro and the following Adagio. The forward surge in the finale (Allegro con spirito) was arguably too much, and you could have wished for breaths between phrases in the all-out rush to conclusion, but to a listener whose favorite recording of the work is one in which Herbert von Karajan’s impetuousness in the finale outstripped even the formidable capabilities of the Berlin Philharmonic, Mr. Nelsons’s interpretation seemed only exhilarating. And more power to the Boston Symphony for having kept up in fine style.
Nelsons は２０１２～２０１３年シーズンに，定期演奏会に出演予定ですが，上手くすれば，BSO はその直後に彼にMusic Director のoffer を出すモノと思われます．
しかし，born 18 November 1978 の若さで，CBSOの監督として，ヨーロッパで既にベルリン，ウイーン，ウイーン・オペラ，コンツェルトヘボウの常連になっているNelsons が，その offer を受けるかどうかが問題です．
欧州では，広く，小澤征爾が，長居して，BSOをアメリカの２流オーケストラに落としてしまったと考えられているからです．
Music Review
Tanglewood Tries Out a New Face
Andris Nelsons Conducts Boston Symphony at Tanglewood
Published: July 16, 2012
LENOX, Mass. — The second weekend of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s residency here at the Tanglewood Festival spoke to past as well as present. And quite possibly to the future.
A concert on Saturday evening celebrated the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Tanglewood as the orchestra’s summer home. A catchall of classical and pops pieces, it included a film on the history of the festival, which was founded in 1937 by the conductor Serge Koussevitzky, and the presentation of the first Tanglewood Medal, which the orchestra described as a “new tradition.”
The medal went to Seiji Ozawa, the orchestra’s music director from 1973 to 2002, for “his myriad contributions to the B.S.O.’s performance, touring and recording activities.” Mr. Ozawa, who is recuperating from surgery for esophageal cancer in 2010 and continuing back problems, could not attend but sent a statement of gratitude, read by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
As for the present, the concert prominently featured James Taylor, who has essentially become the house songster. He is a consistent audience draw at the festival, and his presence undoubtedly contributed heavily to the attendance of almost 17,000 on a lovely Saturday evening, even though he had given concerts of his own on July 2, 3 and 4.
Here he performed three standards with the Boston Pops Orchestra (made up of Boston Symphony players), conducted by John Williams. Mr. Taylor sounded less than comfortable in soupy arrangements of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “Shall We Dance?,” but, guitar in hands, he made “Ol’ Man River” something of his own.
Yet the main interest of the weekend had to do with a potential future, in performances conducted by Andris Nelsons, a 33-year-old Latvian who is widely thought to be a prime candidate for the music directorship of the Boston Symphony, left vacant by James Levine’s resignation in 2011. This, though Mr. Nelsons has yet to conduct a subscription week with the orchestra.
He first conducted the orchestra in March 2011, filling in for Mr. Levine on short notice in Mahler’s Ninth Symphony at Carnegie Hall, with little more than a day’s rehearsals. Though sympathetic to the circumstances, I was not particularly impressed with his muscular performance of a work better served by expansiveness and resignation. But seemingly a minority of one in this assessment, I remained curious to hear him again.
Mr. Nelsons canceled subscription performances in Boston last season because of the birth of his child but has been re-engaged for next season. Meanwhile, he conducted the Boston Symphony here not only in the anniversary concert but also in a program of his own on Sunday afternoon. And for the most part he shone in disparate works.
His reading of Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms,” with typically superb work from John Oliver’s Tanglewood Festival Chorus, was taut and expressive in its first two movements. But Mr. Nelsons eased into the hypnotic strains of the final hymn of praise with utmost delicacy and refinement.
That was paired on Sunday with Brahms’s Second Symphony, given a shapely reading with due regard for the “non troppo” (“not too much”) markings in the opening Allegro and the following Adagio. The forward surge in the finale (Allegro con spirito) was arguably too much, and you could have wished for breaths between phrases in the all-out rush to conclusion, but to a listener whose favorite recording of the work is one in which Herbert von Karajan’s impetuousness in the finale outstripped even the formidable capabilities of the Berlin Philharmonic, Mr. Nelsons’s interpretation seemed only exhilarating. And more power to the Boston Symphony for having kept up in fine style.
It was illuminating to see Mr. Nelsons not only in performance but also in rehearsal, on Saturday morning. He is a somewhat hulking presence on the podium, insistently active. Though not particularly balletic, his gestures speak music eloquently and draw ready and wholehearted response from the players.
Mr. Nelsons put his hands-on, detailed approach to good use in the anniversary concert with a kaleidoscopic account of “La Valse,” Ravel’s sardonic deconstruction of the Viennese waltz, with the Boston Symphony. He also conducted the students of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in Sarasate’s “Carmen Fantasy,” in which the heroine is a violin. Anne-Sophie Mutter, as soloist, gave proof, if such were needed, that she has little Gypsy in her soul, but she has plenty of electricity in her fingertips and bow, which served to good effect.
In other rewarding solo stints with the Tanglewood fellows, Emanuel Ax, always deft of touch, made the piano sound uncannily like a fortepiano in two movements from Haydn’s Piano Concerto in D (Hob. XVIII:11), and Mr. Ma drew the young string players and the audience into his orbit in an unconducted, understated performance of Tchaikovsky’s Andante Cantabile for cello and strings.
The pianist Peter Serkin, with the Boston Symphony and Tanglewood Festival Chorus conducted by David Zinman, seemed intent on single-handedly redeeming Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, a way station toward the Ninth Symphony, from the potboiler status to which some would consign it. Mr. Serkin’s father, Rudolf Serkin, a deeply serious performer, made something of a specialty of this work but performed it relatively straight. Here Peter Serkin offered a deliberate, deeply probing reading of the opening and carried it through the subsequent incursions of orchestra, vocal soloists and chorus. This made for an apt culmination (and finally some work for the chorus, which had sat through some two and a half hours as mere stage dressing for the PBS broadcast of the concert next month).
Presumably to compensate for the logistical nightmare that was the Saturday gala, the Boston Symphony opened its weekend on Friday in low-key fashion, with a concert of Mozart violin concertos (Nos. 2, 3 and 5), with two dozen or so players led (more or less) by the soloist, Ms. Mutter. No one needs to be told that Ms. Mutter can play these works beautifully, as she has been doing for most of her life. But that she could do so in the drooping humidity on Friday (at one point, changing the tension in her bow in midcadenza) was truly remarkable.
