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André Previn conducts Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev

Romeo and Juliet plus Rachmaninoff's First Piano Concerto with Jean-Philippe Collard

By: - Jul 11, 2007

André Previn conducts Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev - Image 1 André Previn conducts Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev - Image 3 André Previn conducts Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev - Image 4 André Previn conducts Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev - Image 5 André Previn conducts Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev - Image 6 André Previn conducts Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev

Romeo and Juliet, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff
Friday, July 8, 2007, 2.30 pm, Koussevitzky Music Shed, Lenox

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Sir André Previn conductor
Jean-Philippe Collard, piano


Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky  (1840-1893), Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy-Overture after Shakespeare
Sergei Rachmaninoff  (1873-1943), Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Opus 1  Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Opus 1
Sergei Prokofiev  (1891-1953) Music from the ballet Romeo and Juliet
  Introduction
  Montagues and Capulets (Suite 2, No. 1)
  Juliet the Young Girl (Suite 2, No. 2)
  Dance (Suite 2, No. 4)
  Masks (Suite 1, No. 5)  
  Romeo and Juliet (Suite 1, No. 6)
  The Death of Tybalt (Suite 1, No. 7)
  Romeo at Juliet's Tomb (Suite 2, No. 7)

I made a point of attending this concert for two reasons. First, it is a typical Tanglewood program with popular works by popular Russian composers. I have been told by old-timers that Rachmaninoff is de rigueur at Tanglewood, and his omission last year caused some annoyance among regulars. Secondly André Previn has been such an important figure in the music world for many years, but I have rather neglected him in the past, and I realize that it is time to correct that. Known for his performances of large scale Romantic and Post-Romantic repertoire and his many prize-winning recordings, he has recently been devoting more time to composition. His opera on Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire has been largely acclaimed. He also plays the piano in chamber music and jazz, which he will perform this Sunday evening.

Sir André had the orchestra sit with the two violin sections together on the left, a convention which, it seems, is essential to his ideas of orchestral texture. The imitative passages and massed violins of the Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet benefit from it in his interpretation, and it would be hard, I suppose, to ask a Tanglewood audience to forgo those soaring violins in the love music. Previn established a broad, almost static tempo at the beginning and returned to it in the middle and at the end. Neither were the more agitated passages rushed in any way, effective more for their massiveness and rhythmic weight. Overall, I thought it a very expressive and musical performance of this old favorite, which I won't even pretend to call a guilty pleasure.

Rachmaninoff's First Piano Concerto, which he finished in 1892 at the age of 19, is hardly among his mainstream works. There has not been a BSO performance since 1978, and along with his great Fourth Piano Concerto, it is the least recorded of all of them. Rachmaninoff himself was quite unhappy with the original version, worried about it for years, and finally rewrote it extensively, trying to retain its yourthful fervor. When it is performed, it is usually in this revised version, as in this concert. Jean-Philippe Collard played it with elegance and fire, while Sir André provided a rich and colorful orchestral background.

The final work was a selection of numbers put together from the two suites extracted from the complete ballet score. This made for an effective digest of the ballet, retaining some of its narrative thrust and variety of mood. Again, Sir André approached the score with an interest in the rich textures and colors of the score more as a vehicle for conveying the varying moods of the story as it progresses to its tragic end. These sonorities came across eloquently in the acoustic of the Music Shed, concluding a most handsome and satisfying concert in the popular Tanglewood tradition.

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