“The Era of Manifestations” was a period from 1837 to the mid-1850s when Shakers came under a spiritual revival marked by visions and ecstatic experiences among the followers.
Bartók's music is at all times as honest and uninhibited as a shrieking toddler and so genuinely human that a listener feels bound to inquire and to really understand what all the noise and fuss is about.
Beethoven is the Shakespeare of music. His music is entertaining, but it is also very often a challenge, and it stays with us. We feel its depth and its power. And nowhere is this more true than in the late string quartets.
Here was a different kind of Tanglewood orchestral concert. Notwithstanding the size of the ensemble, it had the intimacy of a string quartet. The players appeared deeply to engage as individuals.
One questions what the use is of “doing our due” to the obscure repertoire of the avant-garde when it often seems we have only tangentially begun to probe the works of the eternal genius Haydn.
If the BSO really wants to appear more open and accessible to its audience, it should try a heavily reduced-price Shed ticket program for young people and students.
