Yesterday at Tanglewood (with photos!)
Yesterday I went to Tanglewood with Tom and Jean and Terry from church. The drive was gorgeous, filled with mountains and trees and farms as it was. Tanglewood, you see, is in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. It's the home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, hosts guest artists on special weekends, and give space to the Boston University Institute of Tanglewood--an opportunity for high school age musicians to learn all summer, and also have access to all BSO concerts.
The place itself is very picturesque. And in fact, I took lots of photos, though fewer than I might have if left to my own devices for the whole day.
The crowd when we arrived was not too large, and people clustered under trees for relief from the hot sun. We had lawn tickets. I approve of this. I think sunning and listening to music from the grass is more comfy than doing so on hard chairs.
Part of the smallish crowd when we arrived:
We set up near the center of the building the stage was in. We knew it was the center because of the bell:
After we set up camp under a large tree, determined which way the sun was going to travel in and therefore where we would be in shade all afternoon, and had a delicious picnic lunch, we set off to explore the grounds. I'm the only person who has never been there before, so they showed me around.
There were trees everywhere, of course. One of them seemed to have a root grown into the side of another tree:
Fun fact: "Tanglewood" was named after Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Tanglewood Tales," not for any tree on the property. I'm not actually sure there's a real tree by the name, although there's a song called "Tanglewood Tree," which I just happened to have stuck in my head yesterday.
There were a number of fantastic views of the distance from various parts of the grounds. We were, after all, in the Berkshires. For example:
We also explored the formal gardens. What was one of the first things we saw? I do believe it was a cute, furry little rodent:
That's right! A bunny! I managed to get quite a bit closer, but it ran away when I tried to move from a crouch to my stomach to get a better angle. This next is the last shot I took of him.
There were other parts of the gardens, of course. A covered walkway (in progress; the grape vines and other plants were still being grown to cover it) led to a circular area with a bust of Aaron Copland (I took photos of that but didn't upload, sorry!). Find more detail photos of this area at the flickr set (linked at the end of the post).
There was another part with a big marble (?) bench, where a lady kindly offered to take a photo of all of us, since we were debating who should sit for the photo.
The marble is cracked, as you can see in any photo:
And this is what you saw from where we were sitting:
Once we finished touring Tanglewood, we went back to our chairs and umbrellas and whatnot. At about ten minutes before the concert started, the crowd on the lawn was quite a bit larger, but still mostly clustered under the trees:
I have other photos of the people I was with, but I'm not posting them here, sorry. I took some pretty good candids, considering I don't have much practice. I may put those on facebook, or I may not. (If you were there and you're reading this, I can also send them to you via email.)
I stopped taking photos during the concert, for a most part, in favor of sunning. I have a bit of a tan now, but no sunburn! I moved the pallet I was lying on during intermission because the sun moved and so did the shade. I went into the full sun for the second half of the concert and discovered what I should already have known: it is a LOT hotter than being only half in the sun. Still, it was nice to let the heat soak into aching joints. If I had been wearing more revealing clothing, I would have had an easier time getting the sun on my hip. As it was, I just let it go through my clothing to the hip that was hurting. It helped, but my hand was better off in the direct sunlight. (Jean shorts don't pull down very subtlely, particularly knee-length ones.)
The music itself was awesome. Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya. The first piece was called "Loco" by composer Jennifer Higdon. It was a fast-paced, kind of crazy song with spectacular instrumentation, meant to bring to mind a locomotive in crazy movement. It certainly had something of the sound of a train in it! The second piece was a much longer Max Bruch one called Fantasia on Scottish folk melodies for violin, with orchestra and harp, Opus 46 with guest musicians Joshua Bell (violin) and Jessica Zhou (harp). It played on Scottish folk songs, but took many liberties and added formality and fantastic instrumentation. It was very pretty, with one of the movements having a part of a melody that sounded familiar, except that the violin kept taking the melody up in wildly different directions than the melody I thought I recognized. Speaking of the violinist, all I can say is, wow! Amazing. After intermission, the BSO moved into a Tchaikovsky piece: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Opus 74, "Pathetique". That, too, was very pretty, although I prefer the Scottish piece.
After two hours of relaxation, music, and vitamin D via the sun, the concert ended and the four of us packed up and headed off to the car. As we were driving out, they had both lanes open in the same direction to accommodate traffic. It is somewhat unnerving to be driving on the left side of a double yellow line, I must say. Until we went over the hill and saw other cars in the lane also, I was slightly worried that we weren't supposed to be in it. We ended up driving through a little traffic before Tom, who was driving, picked a random side street and drove down it to go around traffic, and we came out on a road he knew (which we had driven down earlier), and then found parking downtown so that we could walk around and admire the artistic sculptures that were pretty much everywhere. First, we stopped for drinks at a coffee shop. I got an iced chai, which I ended up drinking less than a quarter of (I suspect if I drank it more, I'd be able to drink a greater volume of it at once, but the taste is very strong).
On the way, I spotted a number of cool shop names: "Shooz" (sound it out; it took me a minute), "Twigs" and others. I photographed a few:
You can see the top of a doorway in the above photo. Contrary to popular belief, that door doesn't belong to the ice cream shop, which was around the corner of the building...
If you can't see it well, the sign says, "No, this is not the ice cream store. This is a doctors' office. Please DO NOT enter without an appointment." I laughed when I saw it. Poor receptionist.
This next place had knitting all up and down the columns and railings, and even on the nearest trees:
And then, some of the sculptures!
These were my favorites (lots more photos, including more artistic ones, on flickr) (sorry about the shadow; I forgot to edit this photo):
Their titles were, from left to right, "Merry Cello Player" "Electric Conductor" and "Tri-Cornet Player", artist Stanley Marcus.
Right behind these guys, we spotted our second bunny of the day. This one ran away much faster, though he started out closer.
Alright, the last photo I'm posting, though by no means the only art remaining:
I found this lady outside of a place called "De Vries Fine Art International," along with several other dancing statues. I was a little hurried on those, though, AND had a drink in my hand, (did I mention I took most of these, aside from the ones of the music trio, one-handed?) so the photos aren't very good.
Still, you can find those and more at the Flickr set. I also put a couple of flowers up on my DeviantART, and may add more as I decide which to put up. Enjoy!
The place itself is very picturesque. And in fact, I took lots of photos, though fewer than I might have if left to my own devices for the whole day.
The crowd when we arrived was not too large, and people clustered under trees for relief from the hot sun. We had lawn tickets. I approve of this. I think sunning and listening to music from the grass is more comfy than doing so on hard chairs.
Part of the smallish crowd when we arrived:
We set up near the center of the building the stage was in. We knew it was the center because of the bell:
After we set up camp under a large tree, determined which way the sun was going to travel in and therefore where we would be in shade all afternoon, and had a delicious picnic lunch, we set off to explore the grounds. I'm the only person who has never been there before, so they showed me around.
There were trees everywhere, of course. One of them seemed to have a root grown into the side of another tree:
Fun fact: "Tanglewood" was named after Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Tanglewood Tales," not for any tree on the property. I'm not actually sure there's a real tree by the name, although there's a song called "Tanglewood Tree," which I just happened to have stuck in my head yesterday.
There were a number of fantastic views of the distance from various parts of the grounds. We were, after all, in the Berkshires. For example:
We also explored the formal gardens. What was one of the first things we saw? I do believe it was a cute, furry little rodent:
That's right! A bunny! I managed to get quite a bit closer, but it ran away when I tried to move from a crouch to my stomach to get a better angle. This next is the last shot I took of him.
There were other parts of the gardens, of course. A covered walkway (in progress; the grape vines and other plants were still being grown to cover it) led to a circular area with a bust of Aaron Copland (I took photos of that but didn't upload, sorry!). Find more detail photos of this area at the flickr set (linked at the end of the post).
There was another part with a big marble (?) bench, where a lady kindly offered to take a photo of all of us, since we were debating who should sit for the photo.
The marble is cracked, as you can see in any photo:
And this is what you saw from where we were sitting:
Once we finished touring Tanglewood, we went back to our chairs and umbrellas and whatnot. At about ten minutes before the concert started, the crowd on the lawn was quite a bit larger, but still mostly clustered under the trees:
I have other photos of the people I was with, but I'm not posting them here, sorry. I took some pretty good candids, considering I don't have much practice. I may put those on facebook, or I may not. (If you were there and you're reading this, I can also send them to you via email.)
I stopped taking photos during the concert, for a most part, in favor of sunning. I have a bit of a tan now, but no sunburn! I moved the pallet I was lying on during intermission because the sun moved and so did the shade. I went into the full sun for the second half of the concert and discovered what I should already have known: it is a LOT hotter than being only half in the sun. Still, it was nice to let the heat soak into aching joints. If I had been wearing more revealing clothing, I would have had an easier time getting the sun on my hip. As it was, I just let it go through my clothing to the hip that was hurting. It helped, but my hand was better off in the direct sunlight. (Jean shorts don't pull down very subtlely, particularly knee-length ones.)
The music itself was awesome. Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya. The first piece was called "Loco" by composer Jennifer Higdon. It was a fast-paced, kind of crazy song with spectacular instrumentation, meant to bring to mind a locomotive in crazy movement. It certainly had something of the sound of a train in it! The second piece was a much longer Max Bruch one called Fantasia on Scottish folk melodies for violin, with orchestra and harp, Opus 46 with guest musicians Joshua Bell (violin) and Jessica Zhou (harp). It played on Scottish folk songs, but took many liberties and added formality and fantastic instrumentation. It was very pretty, with one of the movements having a part of a melody that sounded familiar, except that the violin kept taking the melody up in wildly different directions than the melody I thought I recognized. Speaking of the violinist, all I can say is, wow! Amazing. After intermission, the BSO moved into a Tchaikovsky piece: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Opus 74, "Pathetique". That, too, was very pretty, although I prefer the Scottish piece.
After two hours of relaxation, music, and vitamin D via the sun, the concert ended and the four of us packed up and headed off to the car. As we were driving out, they had both lanes open in the same direction to accommodate traffic. It is somewhat unnerving to be driving on the left side of a double yellow line, I must say. Until we went over the hill and saw other cars in the lane also, I was slightly worried that we weren't supposed to be in it. We ended up driving through a little traffic before Tom, who was driving, picked a random side street and drove down it to go around traffic, and we came out on a road he knew (which we had driven down earlier), and then found parking downtown so that we could walk around and admire the artistic sculptures that were pretty much everywhere. First, we stopped for drinks at a coffee shop. I got an iced chai, which I ended up drinking less than a quarter of (I suspect if I drank it more, I'd be able to drink a greater volume of it at once, but the taste is very strong).
On the way, I spotted a number of cool shop names: "Shooz" (sound it out; it took me a minute), "Twigs" and others. I photographed a few:
You can see the top of a doorway in the above photo. Contrary to popular belief, that door doesn't belong to the ice cream shop, which was around the corner of the building...
If you can't see it well, the sign says, "No, this is not the ice cream store. This is a doctors' office. Please DO NOT enter without an appointment." I laughed when I saw it. Poor receptionist.
This next place had knitting all up and down the columns and railings, and even on the nearest trees:
And then, some of the sculptures!
These were my favorites (lots more photos, including more artistic ones, on flickr) (sorry about the shadow; I forgot to edit this photo):
Their titles were, from left to right, "Merry Cello Player" "Electric Conductor" and "Tri-Cornet Player", artist Stanley Marcus.
Right behind these guys, we spotted our second bunny of the day. This one ran away much faster, though he started out closer.
Alright, the last photo I'm posting, though by no means the only art remaining:
I found this lady outside of a place called "De Vries Fine Art International," along with several other dancing statues. I was a little hurried on those, though, AND had a drink in my hand, (did I mention I took most of these, aside from the ones of the music trio, one-handed?) so the photos aren't very good.
Still, you can find those and more at the Flickr set. I also put a couple of flowers up on my DeviantART, and may add more as I decide which to put up. Enjoy!