Lenox — Remember when families used to gather around the radio and listen to music together? There’s a special radio presentation from Boston this Saturday, and if you like great choral music, it’s something you ought to know about.
The Tanglewood Festival Chorus was scheduled to perform the Rachmaninoff Vespers at Tanglewood’s Linde Center on Saturday, April 11. The pandemic, of course, means the show will not go on, which is more of a shame than you might think. Not only were we in for a great evening of world-class choral music, but the chorus, along with director James Burton, had intended to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its debut on the Symphony Hall stage under the baton of Leonard Bernstein in a performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” on April 11, 1970.
Fortunately, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and the Boston Symphony Orchestra are still planning something special for this occasion. Radio station WCRB, in partnership with the BSO, will present two choral masterworks on Friday, April 10, and Saturday, April 11: Dvorak’s Stabat Mater, recorded in 2019 under the baton of Andris Nelsons; and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” recorded in 2018, Andris Nelsons conducting. That’s the same Mahler symphony the chorus performed in 1970 when they made their debut at Symphony Hall.
