But then other summers, a performance of the kind that took place on Sunday makes you feel like this ritual may be one of the more sensible things that happens at Tanglewood, and maybe the Ninth, in all of its accrued symbolism and actual depths, its teeming surfaces and its wild heart, may be one of those works that can stand up to all of our attempts to tame it through repetition. Certainly, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus on Sunday sang with a directness and commitment that suggested for these singers, there was nothing formulaic about another performance. Beethoven’s ode to universal brotherhood sounded unbowed by the years.
It helps to have a venerable presence on the podium, as was the case on Sunday with Kurt Masur. In physical terms, at 83, Masur looks like a shadow of his burly former self, his hands seemingly affected by a noticeable tremor. But this German-born conductor, who built his career in Leipzig, has a deep organic link to the Central European culture that nourished this music. In an age of Twitter and snark, Masur still proudly believes that Beethoven’s 60-minute work is a moral force in the world, one that projects a profound message of hope.
It takes no balletic leaps or other podium acrobatics for him to get the idea across. Masur’s knowledge and understanding of the music emanates from the core of who he is, so the slightest, smallest gesture on the podium — the jutting of an elbow, the pivot of a shoulder — is enough to guide an orchestra that, as they say, already knows the tune.
Masur, in fact, didn’t seem to have much more than those small-scale gestures left at his command, but they were sufficient to bring out a confidently paced, warm-toned, expressively grounded, and musically potent performance of the Ninth. The vocal soloists — Nicole Cabell, Marietta Simpson, Garrett Sorenson, and John Relyea — were capable and well-matched, with Cabell particularly notable for her smooth-edged, luminous tone.
