Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-08-22
Summer at ! ongIeWood
Berkshire Music Festival Enjoyed
Fruitful, Successful Season
By james 6. Deone

~
recording by the Munich forces
(the Radcliffe and Harvard
Choral Society among them)
which Is due in record shops
this autumn.
The balance of the shed fare
has been more conventional.
It has included music by Pro-.
kofief. Elgar, Richard Strauss,
Brahms and much Beethoven.
One novelty was the second
symphony Of Ernest Toch, q
faculty member at the music
school operated In connection,
with the festival.
OF particular interest, be-
sides the Berlioz performances,
have been the smaller-scale
concerts in the theater-con-
cert hall. which in previous
seasons have been given on
three week ends prior to those
of the main festival. This sum-
mer, one such concert has been
given on each Friday, preced-
ing shed concerts on Satur-
day and Sunday, and the
change appears to have gone
over well with festival-goers.
who thus can enjoy the more
intimate musical events as
well as the big-scale ones.
Overflow Crowds
Even the concert-hall pro-
grams have drawn large over
flow crowds to adjacent lawns,
on the model of the shed con-
certs, where more listeners
sometimes congregate on the
grass than the 5000 seated
under the shed roof.
A generous helping of ex-
cerpts from Mozart's early
but masterful opera "Idome-
neo," sung by a student chorus
and four soloists of the music
center, has been perhaps the
outstanding highlight of these
programs. This music, given
its American premiere entire
here several years ago, was
given a glowing performance
under Lukas Foss, young
faculty member of the center
and one-time protege of the
late Tanglewood guiding spirit,
Serge Koussevitzky. Seymour
Lipkin, another Koussevitzky
protege. played Mozart's B
fiat piano concerto, K. $50.
with considerable flair.
Other features of the Friday
night series have included
Stravinsky's ballet "Pulci-
nella," based on music of Per-
golesi: Ibert's flute concerto
played by the BSO's new lady
f1utist, Doriot Anthony (who
just became the wife of
another BSO player; Rous-
sells charming 1.-The Spiders
Feast" and music by Bach
and Haydn, including the lat
ter's Nelson" mass.
New Chamber Series
There has been another in
novation in the festival this
year, a wednesday night
chamber music series. Per-
formers in these have included
the Knoll and Griller quartets,
Claudio Arrau, the Bel Arte
and Albeneri trios, the zimbler
Sinfonietta and Zinc France
scatti and Artur Balsam, the
latter pair in a program of
Brahms and Bach sonatas.
Mr.. Francescatti also played
the Beethoven concerto in a
shed concert.
operate repertoire has had
q major place in the summers
activities. The most publicized
event has been the presenta-
ton of Aaron Copland's 1.-THE
Tender Land" premiered in
New York last spring. Rewrit-
ten somewhat since then, fol-
lowing critical complaints that
it didn't move dramatically,
Copland's piece, which deals
with a rural Alabama high
school girls graduation, was
given on two nights by largely
different casts. It still doesn't
move very much, but hearers
were impressed favorably by
Copland's music and forecast
possibly better things to come.
The Berkshire Music Center
itself, apart from the festival,
has been q beehive Of activity
which has afforded. as in past
summers, many other oppor-
tunities for stimulating music
listening. Besides opera, a
student orchestra has played
q full-scale concert in the shed
each week. displaying a re-
markable level OF ability
(many of the players actually
are professionally. Friends Of
the center-music lovers who
contribute to its support-have
been invited to numerous
other student performances.
including the elaborate. cul-
minating graduation" pro-
gram called "Tanglewood on
Parade" which Is held each
summer at the six-week ses-