The Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Ozawa Hall, August 5, 2024 Maurice Ravel, Tombeau de Couperin, conducted by Na’Zir McFadden Henri Dutilleux, Métaboles, conducted by Alan Gilbert Silvestre Revueltas, Sensamaya, conducted by Ross Jamie Collins Joseph Haydn, Symphony no. 90 in C, conducted by Alan Gilbert Programs of music from various periods often start with Mozart or Haydn as a way of easing the audience into the listening experience. Superficially, their music seems more predictable, requiring less concentration, easier on the ears.
This does an injustice to wonderful works whose formal structures require careful concentration in order to appreciate their elegance and power. It was unusual and refreshing, then, that Alan Gilbert not only chose a relatively unfamiliar Haydn symphony (one I had never heard live before) but gave it a place of honor at the end of a substantial program of works otherwise from the 20th century. The opening work of this program by Ravel was, in fact, also easy on the ears, a lovely way to welcome the audience.
The orchestral version of “Tombeau de Couperin” is a selection of four of six movements originally composed for piano between 1914 and 1917 and orchestrated two years later. Working in the forms and spirit of his 18th-century predecessor, François Couperin, Ravel created a modest masterpiece that is magical, accessible, and yet, in its way, quite profound. The orchestral version offered the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra t.