Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), the inventor of dynamite, was a chemist, engineer, businessman and, most memorably, philanthropist; he was also a scholar, fluent in Russian, French, English and German. Above all, he loved poetry.
I kept expecting the toothless guy from “Deliverance” to jump out from behind a tree. Or that we would soon meet Creepy, the eighth dwarf and no one would ever know our fate.
Perhaps, however, in playing this piece year after year to close the Tanglewood season, the BSO has forgotten what a pregnant masterpiece it really is.
