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Boston Globe
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Yo-Yo Ma and friends anchor a Tanglewood weekend of music forged in unprecedented times
Advertisement The topic of the discussion was the year 1803, and the geopolitical tempest amid which Beethoven composed his Symphony No. 3, 'Eroica,' which was (in a piano quartet transcription) the centerpiece of Sunday afternoon's program at the Koussevitzky Music Shed: Ma and Ax with violinist Leonidas Kavakos and violist Antoine Tamestit. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The symphony's origin story includes one of classical music's more memorable bits of trivia: Beethoven, who admired Napoleon Bonaparte, supposedly had planned to name the symphony after him. But upon learning that Bonaparte had declared himself Emperor of France in 1804, he furiously retracted that dedication. 'He will think himself superior to all men [and] become a tyrant!,' the composer raged, according to his student Ferdinand Ries. He then scratched out Bonaparte's name with such force that he tore a hole in the manuscript. Advertisement On its own, that story neatly slots into the narrative of Beethoven as a cantankerous but high-minded son of the Enlightenment. But Ax offered another possibility that could cast that outburst in a different light — that the symphony may have remained 'Bonaparte' if the Little Corporal had been willing to pay him for it. The discussion circled an unspoken and unanswered question: Because Beethoven lived and worked during a period of intense political upheaval in Europe, might there be any wisdom for our time hidden in the 'Eroica,' akin to the guidance Richardson excels at distilling from the annals of American history? The three danced around the topic without touching it. Ma at one point said that 'the young people will go further than the alte kakers (Yiddish for 'old farts') like me.' Perhaps, if there is any wisdom for our current moment in the 'Eroica,' it comes from the inspiration individuals might take from it, not anything encoded in the score. If the 'Eroica' took shape in turbulent and violent times, so too did the two completely unrelated pieces the BSO performed on Saturday evening with conductor Elim Chan, Korngold's Violin Concerto and Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2. The Austria-born Korngold had been hailed as a wunderkind, the 20th century's answer to Mozart. Then, the Nazi takeover of his home country spurred him to relocate his family to Los Angeles, where he was already working on movie scores. Rachmaninoff penned the Symphony No. 2 in Dresden, Germany, where he'd relocated – resigning his post at the Bolshoi Theatre – to escape both the pressure of celebrity and the rumblings of the coming Russian Revolution. Advertisement It was the first time the BSO had ever performed the Korngold concerto, perhaps an oversight from the time when 'sounds like film music' was a much greater insult. The concerto doesn't just sound like film music; it incorporates themes from several films Korngold worked on, all of them keen and exquisite. Kavakos seemed to be a few hairs out of tune with the orchestra; passages that might otherwise have resounded with celestial consonance instead bristled with friction. But one can rely on Kavakos for two things, and the first of those is symbiosis with the orchestra. He's a true master at playing with an ensemble, not just in front of one. He took cues from the orchestra and Chan's agile and lush treatment of the music, and the ensemble in turn responded to what he played, adding extra zing or crunch to certain phrases to echo him. The tuning issues had mellowed out to an interesting pungence of tone by the third movement as well, and the final movement was a thrilling, high-energy caper. The other thing one can usually rely on him for is a sublime Bach encore, and he delivered that too. After intermission, Chan led the orchestra in a tremendous and sweeping performance of Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2, which featured (among other things) a heartstopping clarinet solo in the slow third movement from William Hudgins Never could anything with words convey pure love so clearly. Elim Chan, in her Tanglewood debut, gave the music agile and lush treatment. Hilary Scott/BSO Traffic was backed up on all roads leading to Tanglewood for the following afternoon's all-Beethoven program with Ma, Ax, Kavakos and Tamestit. The first three have been playing as a piano trio with some regularity for a handful of years, but have not formed an official ensemble; they're recognizable enough on their own that they surely don't need to. Tamestit collaborated with them at Tanglewood in 2022 during a series Ax curated, and at the time I noticed the similarities between the violist's warm sound and Ma's. In the two pieces Sunday afternoon that featured him, which were both orchestral transcriptions, he seemed to be the special sauce that bridged Kavakos's tart, papery sound and Ma's genial richness. Together, the three instruments alchemized into something larger than the sum of twelve strings, while Ax's muscular command of the piano (and transcriber Shai Wosner's keen ear for arrangements) laid an unshakable foundation. Advertisement The 'Leonore' Overture No. 3, usually a forgettable orchestral chestnut, fairly exploded with vitality. Tanglewood Music Center fellow Raul Orellana delivered a clean offstage trumpet solo, and the piano quartet beckoned him on stage to congratulate and introduce him afterwards. The Trio No. 4 in B flat allowed Ax more delicacy, with the responsibility of representing entire orchestral sections no longer on his shoulders. Here also, Ma and Kavakos were attuned to one another, responding and building on the other's input. Does the 'Eroica' pack the same punch without a full symphony orchestra behind it? No, but they're not playing in the same weight class. Wosner's transcription was written for Ma, Ax, Kavakos, and whichever guest violist they have (if you're reading this, guys: just make your nameless trio a quartet with Tamestit) and though the sonic power might not have been as overwhelming, it was playful in a way that full orchestras rarely explore. Beethoven's dynamic contrasts are often extreme – in Ax and Ma's conversation Saturday, they compared it to a film cutting away from a car crash to a completely unrelated scene – and without the large ensemble's sonic palette to work with, the musicians brought the drama of 'Eroica' by way of accents and variations, never playing anything the same way twice. Take the second repetition of the second movement's funereal melody, which usually belongs to the oboe; Ax transferred that to the piano, and each note was as smooth and discrete as pebbles in a cairn. Rather than try to mimic the oboe, he played it as only a pianist could. Advertisement BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA / YO-YO MA, EMANUEL AX, LEONIDAS KAVAKOS, AND ANTOINE TAMESTIT Tanglewood, Lenox. Aug. 2 & 3. A.Z. Madonna can be reached at
Boston Globe
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
How did pianist Emanuel Ax convince 'Star Wars' composer John Williams to write him a concerto? He hand-wrote a letter.
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up It was the closest collaboration with Williams to date for Ax, who frequently shares the stage with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, a player who may as well be Williams's muse. Their association stretches as far back as the 1980s when Williams conducted the Pops; the two released an album together in 2022, 'A Gathering of Friends,' featuring the numerous concert works Williams has written for the cellist. This coming Sunday afternoon, Ma and Ax – as well as violinist Leonidas Kavakos and violist Antoine Tamestit – take over the Koussevitzky Music Shed for an all-Beethoven chamber program. Advertisement Ax's outreach wasn't a cold call, either. Because both Ax and Williams have such longstanding Tanglewood ties, the two have crossed paths a handful of times. For 1994's Tanglewood On Parade with then-BSO music director Seiji Ozawa, Ax and Williams joined Italian pianist Maria Tipo for Mozart's Concerto in F for Three Pianos. 'I don't know if [Williams] remembers it, but I certainly remember it very vividly,' Ax said. 'And, of course, I've been to dozens of movie nights.' Advertisement In his program notes for the piece, Williams praised Ax's 'technical brilliance, refined elegance and great artistic sensibilities,' and recounted a time when he'd asked Ax if he'd 'ever encountered a bad piano,' to which Ax replied, 'all pianos are my friends.' The piece itself is inspired by the composer's memories of witnessing performances by three 20th century greats of the jazz piano: Art Tatum, Bill Evans, and Oscar Peterson. He did not intend to mimic their styles, but 'suggest and remember the unique artistic personalities of three men who greatly inspired me,' Williams wrote. Ax is an avid jazz listener – he's especially fond of Peterson as well as the young American pianist Aaron Diehl – but he's 'not a jazz player in the least,' he said. 'I'm hopeless with it!' However, the concerto isn't what anyone would call a jazz piece, Ax clarified. 'You wouldn't know that it's based on these people. It's more an inspiration for [Williams] than anything overt, if that makes sense.' As for Saturday, the composer was present for the preparation as well as the premiere. 'I think he'll tell Andris and me exactly what he wants from the orchestral performance,' Ax said. Advertisement Ax will also perform the new concerto at Symphony Hall in January with Nelsons and the BSO, on an all-John Williams program scheduled to include a mix of the composer's music for silver screen and concert hall. BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Tanglewood, Lenox. July 26 8 p.m. 617-266-1200, A.Z. Madonna can be reached at
