At Tanglewood, a tradition expanded with more Beethoven

This kind of programming comes with its own risks too, less for the box office (in the short term) than for the artists tasked with breathing fresh life into overly familiar masterpieces. Fortunately, the BSO had on hand the eminent German maestro Christoph von Dohnanyi who at 78 years old still has a way of conducting these works with a brilliant clarity and penetration of vision that, at its best, can convey an ongoing sense of discovery, apparently no matter how many times he's led them before.

One particularly appreciated this in yesterday's performance of the Ninth Symphony, a piece that had been given the kind of rough-hewn and uninspired reading last summer (with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra under Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos) that made one wonder if it were not time for a break from this season-closing tradition altogether. Under Dohnanyi's baton however, the work came alive in a tightly focused, richly textured performance that was expressively powerful yet shorn of all sentimentality.

In many ways, the interpretation built up from the plethora of tiny details. From the first movement on, you could hear Dohnanyi tweaking familiar balances, bringing forward certain chords in the woodwinds that typically sound recessed, or drawing out strongly defined inner voices from the strings. At other moments he seemed intent on pulling back the curtain of classical refinement to provide a glimpse of the wildness that still lurks deep inside this music, despite our best attempts at domestication.