Spano opened the night with the US premiere of a new work inspired by an asteroid. The British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage wrote "Ceres: Asteroid for Orchestra" as part of a set of companion works that Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic commissioned in part to fill out its recent recording of "The Planets" for EMI Classics. Composers Kaija Saariaho , Matthias Pintscher , and Brett Dean also wrote short works for the project, though only the Turnage made it onto this program.
Still, it made for a fascinating and decidedly dark curtain-raiser, as Turnage chose to focus on the asteroid's massive destructive potential in the event of a possible collision with Earth. His music wisely refrains from scene-painting the apocalypse, but this six-minute work still succeeds in conjuring a mounting sense of anarchy by pitting large swaths of music against each other. Themes appear to stack up in one moment, and slice across each other the next. In the final coda, Turnage has the cellos playing beneath their bridges, creating a ghastly spectral sound, like an icy wind heard from outer space.
After intermission, Spano and the orchestra made a fine traversal of "The Planets," with the conductor bringing some of his trademark wiry intensity to the martial strains of "Mars." In "Jupiter," Spano largely managed to convey the orchestral merriment without descending into film-score-esque clichés. In "Saturn," he drew disciplined crescendos from the orchestra, building in long phrases rather than short bursts. Overall the orchestra was in good form, and the women of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus joined effectively from offstage.
Between the Turnage and the Holst, Joshua Bell gave an alert and admirably sensitive reading of Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1. More than most other soloists his age, Bell has absorbed the styles of earlier generations of fiddle players and he seems to channel them at different moments, a nod to Fritz Kreisler here, a gesture toward Jacques Thibaud there. In this case, Bell's expressive phrasing and elegant use of portamento made the slow movement of the Bruch a particular pleasure.
Jeremy Eichler can be reached at jeichler@globe.com.
