Tanglewood Marathon Report .....plus

It's been busy here. Last weekend was our marathon of volunteering at Tanglewood: 4 concerts and one rehearsal, and yesterday we attended a picnic aimed at raising funds for students at Tanglewood. We followed the picnic with a play performed at the Mount, Edith Wharton's estate in Lenox.

All this was combined with some bike riding, some kayaking by Jean, and for the last three days, taking our youngest grandchild, Henry, to a kitchen chemistry "camp" at the Berkshire Museum.

One of the highlights of the past several days was  spending time with cousins, Tami and Aaron, and Susan and Edward. Hope to see more of them soon.

We stayed three nights at the very nice Howden Farm in Sheffield MA, a place famous for their pumpkins.

A not so quick summary of the music:
Friday we heard great performances of minor masterpieces. Mozart Piano Concerto Number 12 was beautifully performed by Paul Lewis, my favorite living classical pianist. Manfred Honeck did a superb job conducting this piece and Mendelsohn's 4th Symphony ( the Italian).

Saturday Honeck did a great job with the massive Mahler's Seond Symphony. Honeck is the music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony, and organization known for under appreciated great conductors. I hope Honeck becomes a regular at Tanglewood. He served as a replacement for Von Dohnanyi who was ill.

Jacque Lacombe of the New Jersey Symphony  replaced the recently deceased Raphael Frubeck du Burgos ( who will be greatly missed) with a good, not great, performance of the Rachmaninoff  2nd Piano Concerto with Gabriela Montero, and very good job with the second act of Verdi's Aida.

This brings us [if you are still with me] to Monday's concert by the Tanglewood Music Center orchestra. The orchestra players are among the best "rising" musicians, and their performances are comparable to great orchestras despite their only playing together for a  few weeks. David Cohen did a magnificent job with the Beethoven's overture to Fidelio and another , more experienced conductor [ yes, I forgot his name] did a bout as  well with Beethoven's Sixth, the pastoral.

By the way, the play we saw last night was about Beethoven's unsuccessful search for a wife and included several of his works from the first few years of the nineteenth century.

A lost cause

Since Friday morning, I have ridden 130 miles, mostly hilly, I have installed shutters, I have built three bookcases, I have done some car repairs and bike repairs, I have perspired freely and eaten moderately AND GAINED 2 POUNDS. Phooey!

More of Summer Stuff

Got several small projects done in the past few days, and a few bike rides in, including a sixty ( well 59) miler. Trying to get tasks out of the way and body in shape for another birthday ride to Mount Greylock.

Reading Einstein on General Relativity ( a few pages at a time) and PG Wodehouse, whose way with words has produced some of the funniest literature in the English language.

With the help of my neighbor I picked up some steel I beams for the barn today. The steel only cost 85 cents a pound, cutting it into three pieces was only $12, but forty holes drilled cost $50. Now, to tear out the old bent beam, jack up the sagging joists, get the steel into place , reinstall  the sliding door and trim.... why do I ever start these things?

Nice Souvenir from Sarah V

Usually the place provides a souvenir to the visitor, but Sarah turned the tables; we got a great souvenir of Sarah Valente's visit: A small watercolor of our pond and what one of it's more vocal inhabitants might look like. Jean framed it immediately and it now graces our dining room. The photo is a bit dark, I tried to avoid too much flash reflection.

More Tanglewood and a little Cycling

Some more great music at Tanglewood. Last night heard an okay performance of Dvorak's Violin Concerto. I was somewhat disappointed in both Mutter's playing and Andris Nelsons' conducting. However Nelsons' then led a superb performance of Dvorak's very beautiful Symphony No. 8 .

This afternoon we hear the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, a program for high school musicians, students perform Dvorak's Carnival Overture, some pretty annoying noise by an Englsihman named Ades, and Beethoven's Seventh. The performances of the first and last pieces were great, just a notch below the Boston Symphony. The conductor, Tito Munoz, did an amazing job with high schoolers who had just started playing together two weeks earlier. The Ades piece sounded about right but with stuff like his who can tell.

I've done some group rides with a club based in The Berkshires. I might be getting a little faster... and then again maybe not. I seem to ride faster with the group but the rides are too short (20 to 28 miles).I need to do some long rides, in the 60 to 100 mile range, to get into real shape. Wish me luck.

Company and some local sights

We have had a lot a of company lately including a student a couple of weeks ago,  some friends from New Jersey who stayed the weekend to attend a Prairie Home Companion performance at Tanglewood,  some cousins from Florida who joined us for lunch on their way to Williamstown and Williams Colllege, friends from a nearby  town, and more friends, formerly from New Jersey, who joined us for a James Taylor concert at Tanglewood.

One of the place we visited around here was Tregelly's Fiber Farm which is replete with many breeds of sheep, a camel, some alpacas, peacocks, turkeys, a few yaks, some horses and seven dogs. It also offers the best views in our area. Here are some photos of some of this company and some of the places we went.
On the lawn at Tanglewood.

Our town has a small farmer's market every Saturday, it does get a bit larger as the season progresses and more produce comes in. Here are my wife Jean, and our friend, Diane contemplating a purchase.

On this particular Saturday our town band was playing.

On the following day we went to local lavender fair where we saw a young woman playing the bagpipes in an old cemetery...

....and a local church group had a raffle for a beautiful quilt.

Here are some pictures from Tregelly's.

The James Taylor concert was the usual sellout despite rain up until 7 o'clock. He is a very gracious performer, providing lots of music and staying on to sing encores and sign autographs until the staff just about had to drag him away. I later found out that over two hundred cars had to be towed out of the mud filled parking lots.

Two days later, when we attended an afternoon concert including a great performance of Brahm's second piano concerto,  the grounds were in pretty good shape.