TANGLEWOOD

  July, 2021 — I am thrilled to be back at Tanglewood. It’s been a long while, eight years, since the last time I was here. It is the scene of many wonderful memories and epic concerts. The grounds are sacred (bad word) to me. It’s a magical place in my life. Tonight Fran, Aunt Pat and I are here to see Yo Yo Ma, Leonidas Kavakos and Emanuel Ax. It is an all Beethoven program.  The Serge Koussevitzky Music Shed is only about half full because we are still playing it safe due to Covid-19. The great lawn, however, is packed. The closest thing to a sold out crowd allowable.  After several days of thunderstorms, tonight it has cleared and the air is cool and breezy. It is the first concert for me since pre-pandemic, 19 months ago. The sense of excitement as we enjoy a glass of wine before going to our seats tells me I’m not the only one who has missed live music. People are giddy with anticipation. The crowd is typically eclectic, as is usual for Tanglewood. Families with coolers and picnic baskets, couples with a bottle of champagne snuggled together wrapped in a blanket, music students in their BSO sweatshirts, elegant fans of these musicians dressed in New England summer attire complete with straw hats and bowties. 

 The house lights flash as we get to our seats near the back of the Shed. Five minutes to curtain. 

 The program informs me that Leonidas plays a Willemotte Stradivarius violin of 1734. It must be worth millions.

 Rapturous applause greets the three musicians as they walk on stage. Yo Yo, cello in one hand, raises his other to a fist. He is loved here and has played and taught at Tanglewood since the seventies. They are joined on stage by an assistant to Ax. She is there to turn the pages of his sheet music. When you are one of the greatest living interpreters of Beethoven you are allowed such indulgences.  The crowd hushes and they start with Piano Trio No. 3.  It is an astounding performance. Passionate, intense, lovely. They smile at each other often, especially after intense passages, acknowledging that they felt the spark of perfection. Joy flows from the stage and two hours fly by. For an encore we are treated to the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth as arranged for a trio by the great composer himself. And, as I later read, so was the second part of the program, his Symphony No. 2. (They told Beethoven he would never amount to anything. But did he listen?)

  We disperse into the night and an hour later I’m standing on the shore of Pontoosuc Lake, music still filling my ears and heart, and wondering who left the porch light on at TW’s house.  

 I wake up in my comfortable old room at 16 Ridge Avenue with the window wide open to the morning breeze. It will rain soon and I was looking forward to another good thunderstorm. I am still fascinated by the sound that came off the stage last night. I knew how remarkable the musicians were together from a Brahms CD I have called The Piano Trios. What I didn’t expect was the sound of the violin. Kavakos played with such intensity. I looked up the Willemotte Stradivarius of 1743. The few articles I found said that Kavakos “acquired” the instrument a few years ago with the help of friends. No purchase price or value were given and there were hints of philanthropy. What a joy it would be to anonymously gift such an amazing instrument, putting it into the hands of Kavakos who would do justice to its beauty and appreciate its history. His playing it in public makes it an even a bigger treasure to the music world and to culture in general. 

  Tanglewood was given its name by a tenet who lived in a red country cottage on the grounds owned at the time by the Tappen family. He was a writer and never was particularly fond of the Berkshires. He spent less than two years here. He was a bit of a loner and craved his solitude. He made an exception for his neighbor who lived a few miles to the north. They enjoyed smoking cigars and drinking brandy while they discussed literary matters. He was, of course, Nathaniel Hawthorn and his friend was Herman Melville. It was here that Hawthorn gave his critique about Moby Dick that changed the scope of the novel and garnered him Melville’s deep admiration. Herman dedicated the book to him.  There is something in the Berkshires that kindles a desire to comprehend the grand themes of life and turn them into literature and art and music. 

 The last time I was here was 2013 for the Jerry Garcia tribute. Keith Lockhart conducted the Boston Pops wearing a beautiful loud tie-dye and Warren Haynes was dressed elegantly in a dark jacket. He played one of Jerry’s guitars, The Wolf.  Dark Star opened the evening and we Deadheads had a hoot of time dancing and singing along. The Ship of Fools for an encore was inspired and poignant. It was as close to the real thing as we were ever going to get, or so we thought. But that is another story.    

 I am usually in the Berkshires during Autumn. So the concert season is over for another year. That, however, does not stop me from paying a visit to the grounds. The main gate is usually open so let myself in and wander around the property.  The shed is boarded up for the year, the gift shop closed, a maintenance person or two is usually raking leaves and hauling away the bags in a golf cart. They ignore me as I walk to the overlook and take in the view of Stockbridge Bowl. It appears as an indigo jewel surrounded by the Fall colors, flame-like, of red, yellow and orange. A few more cold nights and a windy day is all that stands between the majesty of the vista and the barrenness of the fast approaching winter. I breathe in the crisp air. 

Summer 1979 — It is a balmy night and a beautiful friend and I have our blanket spread out on the lawn about twenty yards from the sold-out Shed. We are dead center with a good view of the stage and where the sound is said to be the best. We are, I think, in love and are enjoying our lives without a whit of worry about the future. 

  As the sun sets to our backs Renaissance, the band we are here to see, walks on to the stage. They are an art rock, or progressive rock, band from England. Their songs are orchestral and complicated. Two of the songs they did that night were over twenty-five minutes long. Jon Camp’s bass was as powerful and melodic as anything Chris Squire ever played. It was a lead instrument. Annie Haslem’s voice is unique in rock. She studied opera and her range is truly astounding. On the blanket we lie our backs and look at the stars letting the music flow over and around us. 

  They closed the show with an epic rendition of their masterpiece, Ashes Are Burning. The song moves through many changes with a wonderful jam before Annie, in her long gown, beautiful smile, and alluring stage presence, starts the last verse. She is very slow and serious, her voice luring us in and giving a sense of peace until she holds the last note of the word “way”. And holds it. And holds it. White lights fill the stage and like a million fireflies flashed out to the lawn and trees behind us.  It felt like an enchantment. To this day, all these years later, her voice makes me shiver with emotion. 

  Neil Young made Tanglewood a routine stop in the early 80s. I saw him several times from both out on the lawn and in the shed. For Neil’s concerts the lawn was a pretty wild scene. He draws an enthusiastic crowd. This was after he signed with Geffen records and released some uneven albums. Not that we ever thought so. In those days Neil usually opened his shows with an acoustic set. I remember a blistering Powderfinger played passionately on a twelve string.  And a haunting After The Gold Rush, Neil hunched over the organ, swaying like Count Orlock in Nosferatu.  

 Then he’d bring out what ever band he was touring with. 

    The Shocking Pinks were memorable, an evening of rockabilly in the Berkshires. There was a lot of dancing that night out there on the grass under the stars. 

   He toured supporting the Trans album too. People thought it was a bit too techno. The reason that you follow an artist that inspires you is to be surprised by trajectories in style. Neil never disappoint us. He did, although, disappoint David Geffen who sued Neil for not making more commercial records and not sounding like himself.  I believe that Geffen later apologized and dropped the un-winnable suit. Neil’s contract gave him complete control of his art. As it should always be. 

  I remember that night while he performed the songs from Trans that the lawn was especially raucous. I also remember that Hauge somehow ended up with a pile of tee shirts. For the rest of the summer I would run into people wearing them and they would say, “Yeah! Hauge gave it to me!”  I’m sure there’s more to this story. 

  The last Neil concert I saw from the lawn was the summer right before Harvest Moon came out. Hearing those songs before I knew them gave me a jolt. They are gems and I bought the CD a few months later, the day it came out.  

     

  In the summer of 1978 I had just turned seventeen. The world was coming at me so very fast. It would take me years to digest everything that happened before I started my senior year of high school. Life was rather substantial, not to mention great fun. 

  The first big concert I ever saw was that August, at Tanglewood. Peter, Paul and Mary. The ever resourceful McGee gave me sixth row center tickets. In what has become a tradition I walked around the grounds until the lights flashed signaling five minutes to showtime. The lawn was packed and it was my first experience of Tanglewood’s jovial and laidback atmosphere. Blankets were spread out, picnic baskets were overflowing, candles were burning, wine bottles were opened and people were laughing and telling stories. 

  There was a sense of history that night. The crowd, slightly older than me, knew the story well. The sixties hadn’t really been that long ago and the feeling that music could still change the world and the memory of the big protest concerts was still fresh. I sat next to actual hippies, a hint of marijuana smoke floated on the humid summer night air. I was reminded that the group sang at the Washington Mall the day of Martin Luther King’s famous Peace March and his I Have A Dream Speech, in 1963. This was indeed serious stuff.  

  The trio took the stage to tremendous applause, it was a reunion tour, they hadn’t performed together in over eight years. 

  And all of a sudden there she was, almost close enough for her to see my eyes, the beautiful Mary Travers. Her iconic long blonde hair and straight bangs even more resplendent in person than any photo could ever capture. Her smile sent a shiver of ecstasy through the Shed. And when she started to sing we collectively listened with reverence. The acoustics from the Tanglewood stage are famously pristine, and I had a lump in my chest as her voice sliced right into my heart. I was mesmerized. I could barely catch my breath. 

  Her voice; unique and instantly recognizable, as strong and distinctive as Joan’s and Judy’s.  

  The songs, of course, I knew by heart. I had been singing them for years around the fire at Camp Goodell Hollow. Some of them were the first Dylan songs that I ever heard; Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, I Shall Be Released, and Blowin’ in the Wind. Which started my young admiration for his poetic phrases. 

  Puff The Magic Dragon at first listen appears to be a simple children’s song. Good old Puff! To me, however, it was slightly darker. Dragons live forever, well sure, every kid knows that. What got me was “But not so little boys.” I interpreted that as little boys, like me, could die! Why else would Puff be so sad? And why on earth would Jackie Paper come no more? It was preposterous to me that he, on one day, would just forget about his best friend. Growing up couldn’t be so bad as to make a great dragon cry, could it? Perhaps, I pondered, my days were really numbered. It was an early, maybe one of my first, lessons in impermanence. 

  That night in the Shed we sang along with Peter, Paul and Mary with great passion. I saw tears in peoples’s eyes and I realized exactly how powerful live music can be. 

  Years later, on an uneventful night as I stood behind the bar at the Tee Off, my friend the gourmand Steve Acronico came in towards the end of my shift and handed me the front page of the New York Times. There was a black and white photo from the sixties of Mary singing. She was wearing a black dress that made her hair and skin stand out with with striking beauty. I stood there reading the obituary and cried. She had a long hard decline struggling with leukemia. The most recent pictures of her I had seen were heart wrenching. Her hair was gone from the effects of chemotherapy and she had an oxygen tank attached to her wheelchair. But her smile was the same, radiant, huge, full of life. She still projected a sense of beauty, and for that matter, strength.  Steve and I raised our whiskies in honor of Mary’s life, one that was dedicated to music and activism and the belief that love made a difference. She was 72 years old. 

  On my last morning in the Berkshires I listen the new Yo Yo Ma Emanuel Ax album as I pack my suitcase. It is wonderful music and the feeling of joy from the other night’s epic performance lingers with me. Great art has the ability to alter our dispositions long after we are removed from its intimacy. Whether it be the tone of Garcia’s guitar or Annie Haslem’s haunting voice or Mary’s commanding stage presence, I still carry in me the emotions I first felt on those summer nights. The feelings they stirred still ripple. They still carry me away.