Tanglewood: A Group Memoir

By Peggy Daniel

Book Overview

The story of Tanglewood - the summer home of the Boston Symphony since 1935 - as told in first-person accounts by such Tanglewood luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Serge Koussevitzky, Aaron Copland, Erich Leinsdorf, Phyllis Curtin, Seiji Ozawa, Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, John Harbison, James Levine, and many of the leading musicians, critics, and music professionals who consider Tanglewood a second home.

A "documentary" coffee-table book including letters, speeches, interviews, vintage newspaper articles, and a treasure trove of photographs from the BSO's archvies, woven together by a narrative thread and commented on by the author.

Among the dozens of stories included:

- Student Lenny Bernstein writes the folks back home about "Koussie" and the "Boiks"; ten years later, conductor Leonard Bernstein inspires the students with his own brand of oratory

- Boris Goldovsky reminisces about the glory days of the Tanglewood Opera Department where he discovered Leontyne Price, Sherrill Milnes, and an amazing number of soon-to-become-famous young American singers

- Gunther Schuller's 1979 Tanglewood manifesto is the talk of the music world

- Oliver Knussen relates how Rostopovich told the Shed audience of the death of Shostakovich after conducting the composer's Fifth Symphony

- Seiji Ozawa remembers his student trip to Tanglewood on a Bonanza bus with only a few phrases of English at his command and very few dollars in his pocket

- The transformation of Tanglewood under the orchestra's new Music Director, James Levine

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1574671677
• ISBN13: 9781574671674
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: Amadeus
• Length: 258 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 8.1" x 10.2"

Customer Reviews

Tanglewood textbook

The authoritative Tanglewood book. A lot of reading and I wish there were more pictures. If you have ever been to Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony, and wanted to learn more, this is the book.

Delicious Memoir

"Tanglewood: A Group Memoir" is like a fine wine. You may finish the bottle over a leisurely meal or sip a glass from time to time. Approaching a "group" memoir of music's finest was slightly daunting, until I began to read it, and then read on. It is compiled with a charming, light touch, and the reader slips easily into this intimate world of Tanglewood. The individual letter writers are warm and articulate. Ms. Daniel's narrative gives the book its seamless flow. It is a lovely read.

the Joy of Music

Anyone who cares about music and musicians and who relishes good, gossipy stories, will surely appreciate this delightful and insightful book. Far more than just a coffee-table book, it provides a detailed and always intriguing history of the music festival. Best of all, it offers fascinating anecdotes about the people who brought Tanglewood to life and kept it going through often difficult times. The relationship between what was happening in the Berkshires and the rest of the country - especially during war time - is very pertinent. The selection of material and the organization of the book must have been an awesome task. The result just kept me turning the pages to see what happened next. The photos are terrific, too.

Tanglewood: a group Memoir

Tanglewood: A group Memoir, is a beautiful book, marvelously produced, collected, written and illustrated by fascinating historical photographs. It begins in the Berkshires with a philanthropic and musically niclined heiress wondering if her large meadow would be a nice place for concert, and continues through decades of musical anecdotes, archive, elucidation and delightful gossip. Everyone who has ever picniced on the lawn at Tanglewood, or wanted to do so, or who has any interest at all in the history of serious music in the United States will delight in this book.