Stormy weather: a wild ride with Berlioz and Yuja Wang at Tanglewood

One version of the much debated “pathetic fallacy” involved nature prefiguring or personifying the emotions of a character or situation. What might be debatable in art turned undeniable in reality, as Sunday afternoon’s concert at Tanglewood proved when Mother Nature decided to interject and a Severe Weather Alert flashed on all the screens inside and outside The Shed during the third movement of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. 

Fortunately, the wistful ranz des vaches call and response between the English horn and oboe which opens the movement finished before the oboist, playing just outside the right side of The Shed, would have been compelled to seek shelter herself. Though neither conductor nor orchestra broke concentration, the calm and contemplative reverie they were conjuring for the Scène aux champs was troubled by the comings and goings and persistent low murmur the alert triggered among the audience. By the time dark forebodings disturbed the calm and thunder rumbled in the distance, the approaching storm announced itself with rumbles of its own before unleashing a blinding downpour to accompany the final two movements.

The yearly Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert always features the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, made up of the summer’s Fellows. Like many student orchestras, they bring the unique energy and focus of a group playing together for the first time some of the greatest works in the classical repertory under a seasoned conductor. The way they handled the weather alert was further testimony to a complete immersion in the music which marked both the Berlioz and Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto. 

Bernstein said of the Symphonie fantastique at one of his Young People’s Concerts, “You take a trip, you wind up screaming at your own funeral. Take a tip from Berlioz: that music is all you need for the wildest trip you can take, to hell and back.” Nelsons and the TMC Fellows channeled some of that wild energy, but not as briskly or with as much abandon as Bernstein (or Charles Munch for that matter), lingering over the waltz, broadening the third movement to hypnotic effect – severe weather alerts notwithstanding – and clocking in at roughly 56 minutes.

Mercifully unhindered by the impending storm, Yuja Wang injected a different type of wildness – jarring, tumultuous and incisive – into the Prokofiev. Slicing angular rhythms, an emphatic touch and icy timbres combined with clear articulation, regardless of the tempo, drove a performance much more forceful and aggressive than her recording with Gustavo Dudamel. Her ability to traverse the keyboard at insane speeds and nimbly pedal in stiletto heels still boggle the mind. As always, none of this was for show but part and parcel of her overall conception of the concerto. 

Her verve and panache combined with the orchestra’s fearless, youthful energy forged an incandescent, explosive performance. Wang returned alone after the initial applause to play Sibelius’ Etude, Op.76, no.2, followed by two more encores, an unprecedented act of generosity after such a challenging concerto: Schubert’s Gretchen am Spinnrade as arranged by Liszt and, closing with another dazzling display of rapid finger work, Vladimir Horowitz’s Carmen Variations.

So maybe the pathetic fallacy isn’t much of a fallacy after all and the thunder, lightning and drenching rain were Mother Nature’s way of adding her own bravo to an afternoon of exceptional music-making.