It’s always nice to be on vacation for your birthday, but that doesn’t always guarantee a great time. Since we had exhausted most of what we wanted to do in the lower Berkshires–I might have just made that up, I guess we would probably say the southern Berkshires here in the US, but ‘the lower Berkshires’ makes it sound like I’m in rural England–anyhoo, since we had kind of run out of things to do and so many shops are closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, we decided we needed to go further afield for our day’s adventures.

One of the beauties of a road trip is you can be spontaneous. The night before my birthday, I looked at a map and decided we could drive north with Bennington, VT as our main destination with the idea of being in Troy, NY for my birthday meal. In doing so I broke the the cardinal rule of any good trip–Always do your research. But more on that later in this post.

On the drive up to Bennington, which I quickly realized we had started on too early in the morning, we came to Williamstown, MA the home of both Williams College and the Clark Art Institute. We hadn’t intended on going to the Clark because we had been there on our previous trip to the Berkshires and I knew that they had implemented timed entry tickets due to Covid, and we didn’t have a timed ticket. But since we had plenty of time we decided to take a chance on being able to get in. I’m so glad we did. Having expanded since 2008, the Clark is even more amazing than before and it provided a really nice way to spend a couple of hours.

After the Clark we continued our path north by zigging over to North Adams the home of MassMOCA, another art museum we had been to in 2008. I opted out of going there this time because the art tends to be room-size conceptual kind of stuff, or other things that are somewhat lost on me. I mean how long can you stare at a Dan Flavin. (Look it up, not long.) And because we had Bennington to look forward to, we didn’t bother to poke around the former mill town.

Now, when I picked Bennington as our destination, I had visions in my head of another serendipitous stop we had made in Vermont on our previous road trip in 2008 in which we stayed the night in the very charming town of Woodstock where there was one of my favorite used bookstores of all time (and the place where I first discovered the work of May Sarton).

But Bennington is no Woodstock. While the town has some very nice architectural bones, there was a lot of empty retail space that appears to have been vacant prior to Covid. Half of the shops that were closed that day and not very interesting to start with. This town could use about 100 LGBTQ families to fill up the great old buildings with shops you actually want to visit.

There are a couple of museums that we might have enjoyed in town, but as I mentioned, I hadn’t done my research, and I didn’t know they existed.

And I hate to say it, but the indie bookstore that was there had recently moved locations and was not even remotely conducive to browsing. I’m sure my mood had something to do with it, but the store felt very suburban and not at all cozy. I literally spent less than a minute inside and turned around and left without even touching a book. Back out on the street I saw one of those “open” flags that seem to be all over the place in vacationland to draw attention to shops that visitors might be interested in. We crossed the street and walked a bit to go see what we could see only to find a vape shop. Time to leave Bennington.

Although my birthday felt like a bust at times because of Bennington, if we had only planned to go to the Clark, Famous Lunch, and the DQ, I would have considered it a fantastic day. I guess it is all about setting expectations.

The last time I was at an orchestra concert was in Bologna in February 2020 just as Covid-19 was taking hold in Italy. A few weeks later I saw my last opera just days before Washington locked down. We planned to make the Berkshires in western Massachusetts a stop on our trip, but then I discovered that the Tanglewood Festival was actually and the two days I had planned expanded to four.

Tanglewood

Tanglewood wasn’t the only reason we wanted to go to the Berkshires (more on that in the next installment), but once I realized I could hear three orchestra concerts and two chamber concerts in a three-day span, it did become a bit of an organizing framework for everything else. For those who may not know, the Tanglewood Festival has its roots in a series of concerts the Boston Symphony Orchestra gave in the Berkshire in August 1936. Not long after, they built the “Shed” that is still used today. And not long after that, the Tanglewood Music Center was created to offer advanced musical study to young musicians, composers, and conductors. Essentially a summer camp for musicians.

Having played such a central role in the lives and careers of so many musicians in the U.S., I’ve read about Tanglewood since I was 18 and plowing my way through musical biographies. The idea of a bunch of musicians hanging out in the idyllic Berkshire Hills with Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland was always very compelling for me. And having once sung in the chorus of an outdoor performance Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, I knew there was something magical about classical music outdoors on a warm summer evening.

We heard two concerts by the BSO and one by the orchestra of TMC Fellows. The first and last concert consisted of a fantastic mix of repertoire including newer pieces by women and composer of color as well as the dead white guys. And then there was one intensely boring all-Brahms concert which solidified my dislike for single-composer concerts as well as a growing disinterest in the orchestral music of Brahms. I should note that the Brahms concert certainly had the crowd excited. As soon as the applause started we headed out and the crowd went crazy the whole time we walked to our car. (For those who care, I will list out the programs we attended at the end of this post.)

It is hard to put in to words why Tanglewood was so special. Certainly, some of it had to do with getting to hear live music for the first time in 16 months. But there is something about having crickets accompany the music and the summer air, and the sense of something out of the ordinary that also makes it magical.

For my own satisfaction, I doubt I will ever be a lawn person. Too far removed from the music surrounded by folks that might be more interested in a picnic than the music. (I know that is an overgeneralization, but true enough that it would annoy me.) Even within the Shed, I now know to keep my seat choice in the first two sections. The back section of the Shed was too far removed–the music just sounds too far away.

Concert One

Saturday 8:00 p.m.
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Anna Rakitina, conductor
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano

Elena LANGER – Figaro Gets a Divorce, Orchestral Suite
Maurice RAVEL – Piano Concerto in G
Edward ELGAR – Variations on an Original Theme, Enigma

Everything about this concert was a delight. The weather was breezy and cool, it was great to see a female conductor, and the program was great. The Langer piece was fantastic, kind of Bernsteinesque and with a great part for accordion. It’s so nice to hear ‘new’ music that is consonant. I wasn’t a fan of the Ravel previously, but I am now. I’ve heard the Elgar a million times on CD and three times now in concert. I think it gets better every time I hear it.

Concert Two

Sunday 10 a.m.
Tanglewood Music Center Fellows

Benjamin BRITTEN – Russian Funeral Music
Paul TERRACINI – Gegensätze
Max BRUCH – Octet for Strings in B-flat
Johannes BRAHMS – Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor

As I mentioned earlier, this was a really special experience. I would love to hear more of these chamber concerts. The first two pieces were for brass ensemble. There aren’t that many opportunities to hear this kind of rep, so it was quite nice. I loved the Britten, but I loved the Terracini even more. So much so that I found the need to listen to it a few more times later that day and wrote the Australian composer a fan email. He wrote me back with a link to really great performance of the piece by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. I was surprised how much I liked the Bruch. Normally I find his stuff a bit too virtuosic just for the sake of it. This however, was lovely.

Concert Three

Sunday 2:30 p.m.
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Herbert Blomstedt, conductor
Leonidas Kvakos, violin

Johannes BRAHMS – Violin Concerto in D
Johannes BRAHMS – Symphony No. 4 in E minor

This just wasn’t for me. Too much of one thing, not the biggest fan of Brahms orchestral output, and we were just one click too far back in the Shed. Oh, we also fought sleep like crazy at this time of day. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it more if I had been wider awake, but I sure wanted a hammock during this one. The audience gave a rapturous ovation. Probably because it was Blomstedt and because it was Brahms. Meh.

Concert Four

Monday 8:00 p.m.
Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
Stefan Asbury, conductor (Dvořák)
TMC Fellow Kevin Fitzgerald (Nabors, Smetana)
TMC Fellow Adam Hickox (Vaughn Williams)

Brian Raphael NABORS – lubilo
Bedřich SMETANA – The High Castle from Má vlast 
Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS – Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Antonín DVOŘÁK – Symphony No. 7 in D minor

After the Brahms bust the day before, it was nice to get back to a program with more variety. And what a delight it was. Except for three BSO musicians and three “guest” musicians, the TMC orchestra is made up of TMC fellows studying for the summer. The quality of their playing was fantastic. Everything on this program was interesting, it’s hard to pick a favorite. I had a really hard time walking away from this concert. Not only was it our final concert at Tanglewood this season, but it was also the final festival concert at Tanglewood this season. And seeing classical music concerts three days in a row, I had some serious withdrawal in the days that followed. Now that I have finally been to Tanglewood, I will definitely be going back in the future.

I can’t remember why we opted for a domestic trip for our summer vacation…oh that’s right, Covid. And because we spent 16 months in splendid isolation with the cutest dog on the planet, we decided that maybe we didn’t need two weeks in splendid isolation with Lucy in Maine this summer. Instead we opted for a Northeast road trip like one we took back in 2008 before we were dog parents. After all that time at home shopping online and not really interacting with humans, we thought that something that gave us the chance to be out and about and go antiquing and used bookstore hopping, and restaurant eating, and museum gazing, seemed like just the ticket.

I had meticulously planned and replanned our itinerary until I had something that ticked a lot of boxes.

Washington, DC to Ithaca, NY

When we go on a road trip I can never wait until Saturday morning to pack the car and get going. Originally we were going to head out on Friday after work and spend the night in Harrisburg, PA just so we could be that much closer to our vacation when we woke up on Saturday morning. But then the Boston Symphony Orchestra announced they were going to actually have a Tanglewood season this summer, and I realized we needed to get out butts up to the Berkshires sooner than I had planned. So instead of leaving DC after work on Friday we left at 9:39 AM so we could comfortably drive up to Ithaca to see friends for dinner and stay the night.

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Next Stop: The Berkshires and Tanglewood