Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.
concerts

Paul Lewis brings Mozart’s final piano concerto to life at Tanglewood

Saturday, July 25, in the Shed at Tanglewood, the BSO took the stage with pianist Paul Lewis for Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major” (K. 595). This was Mozart’s final piano concerto, completed in January 1791. Mozart died on Dec. 5, 1791.

Premiered by Mozart himself on March 4, 1791, it was his final public appearance as a soloist.

Unlike Mozart’s fiery or dramatic minor-key concertos, this concerto features a transparent, sparse texture, quiet lyricism and a calm, resigned, autumnal mood. It has three movements: Allegro, Larghetto and Allegro.

In the first movement, Allegro, Mozart is in no hurry to introduce the piano; his introduction is as long and lavish as can be. This gentle, graceful orchestral introduction presents four main themes, beautifully played by the BSO musicians.

Lewis waited, and then his time arrived with a quiet (sotto voce) entrance by the solo piano, followed by a rich, chromatic development section with frequent key changes.

The second movement, a Larghetto in E-flat major, provided a serene, calm and deeply lyrical contrast to the opening movement. In his element, Lewis carried on with fine playing while the orchestra supports this gentle movement. We all need soothing, gentle music from time to time, and this section is a tonic.

The third movement, an Allegro, takes the form of a cheerful, playful and dancing rondo. Lewis delivered the principal theme, famously derived from Mozart’s own song “Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling” (“Longing for Spring”), K. 596, with elegance.

There was no encore by Lewis, which one must consider in good taste and a sign of respect for Mozart. It was truly quite enough to satisfy all.

Thomas Jensen
concerts

Latest News

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

On Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Cornwall Historical Society, author and genealogist John Mills will breathe new life into the stories of some of Connecticut’s more underappreciated patriots. The reason these heroes were forgotten? They were Black.

At a time when white colonists were fighting for their own liberty and political independence, many Black men who fought alongside them remained enslaved. Some risked their lives only to return to bondage. Though enslaved people were promised freedom from both sides of the Revolutionary War in exchange for their service, Great Britain, too, was still deeply dependent on slavery. For Black people in America, the war presented both extraordinary risks and uncertain paths to the freedom that white colonists were demanding for themselves.

Keep ReadingShow less
education

A sanctuary for second chances

A sanctuary for second chances

Stephanie Saetta runs Charlie Chicken Bones, a sanctuary in Salisbury.

Madi Long
You only get one or two of these soul connection dogs, so I do this in his honor.
— Stephanie Saetta

Stephanie Saetta has spent much of her life caring for others. A physician at White Plains Hospital, she has another calling at home in Salisbury — one that has four legs and a wagging tail. She runs Charlie Chicken Bone Sanctuary, a nonprofit dog rescue that brings dogs from overcrowded pounds and the streets of Texas to foster homes in northwestern Connecticut, where they can begin again.

The sanctuary is named for Charlie, the dog who taught her how special a bond between a person and rescue animal can be.

Keep ReadingShow less
our community

Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Hunter Runnette, founder and board chair of field, has spent years fostering arts and cultural programming in the Berkshires.

Provided

What do joy, gardening, artificial intelligence, the American experiment and the creative process have in common? Quite a lot, as it turns out, at least when some of the world’s most compelling thinkers get together to talk about them.

From Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25, Lenox, Massachusetts, will host the inaugural field festival, a three-day gathering of writers, artists, scholars and cultural figures at Shakespeare & Company. Billed as a festival of ideas, entertainment, learning and discovery, field brings together an impressive roster of voices to explore everything from the deeply personal to the profoundly political.

Keep ReadingShow less
community
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

The Pink House AM is serving up community

The Pink House AM is serving up community

Mare Rubin and Maggie Levine of the Pink House AM.

Madi Long

It all started with a yoga class. Mare Rubin was working on her second act after leaving the Upper West Side, where she’d raised a family and worked in corporate marketing. Newly empty nesters, she and her husband decided to move to the wilds of northwestern Connecticut, where they had spent 15 years as weekenders, to see what life in the woods had in store for them.

Rubin started teaching yoga classes at the Union in West Cornwall, a space designated by the town of Cornwall as a community hub with couches, Wi-Fi, occasional events and a growing yoga class schedule. She was adjusting well but missed one important thing about city life: a casual coffee shop.

Keep ReadingShow less
business

One more weekend to get inside the art at ArtEast

One more weekend to get inside the art at ArtEast

The participating artists in this year’s ArtEast open studios.

Provided

ArtEast’s annual October Open Studio Tour is already underway, but there’s still one more weekend to step inside the creative worlds of artists working throughout eastern Dutchess County. On Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 24 and 25, artists will once again open their studio doors, inviting visitors to see where the work happens, meet the people who make it and perhaps discover something worth taking home.

Now in its 21st year, the ArtEast October Open Studio Tour offers a self-guided journey with participating studios in Holmes, LaGrangeville, Hopewell Junction, Pawling, Patterson, Poughquag and Wingdale. Visitors can explore painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media and other artistic practices, and get some leaf-peeping in at the same time.

Keep ReadingShow less
open-studio

An appetite for life: Tarajia Morrell’s “Desire Feeds the Feast”

An appetite for life: Tarajia Morrell’s “Desire Feeds the Feast”
Author Tarajia Morrell in her kitchen.
Jessica Antola

In her new memoir, “Desire Feeds the Feast,” writer Tarajia Morrell traces a life shaped by an appetite for beauty, pleasure and belonging. On Saturday, Oct. 24, Morrell will discuss the book with fellow author Dani Shapiro, whose works include the memoir “Inheritance” and the novel “Signal Fires,” at a prerelease event at Troutbeck in Amenia. Published by Zibby Books, a women-led startup, “Desire Feeds the Feast” will be released Nov. 3.

Described by author Chris Pavone as “a deeply gratifying emotional feast of a memoir: poetic, dramatic, romantic, atmospheric, sensual, evocative, poignant, heartbreaking, heartwarming,” this tale brings readers on a restless journey. Morrell writes of the “electric excess” of the New York City club scene in the late 1990s and the Hollywood tables where she waited on celebrities while pursuing her acting career. Her wanderlust took her to the beaches in Uruguay, where she discovered the “brine and brightness” of ceviche, the splendor of Barcelona’s food markets and, back home, the simple pleasure of a ripe plum eaten by her “graceful mother.”

Keep ReadingShow less
book talk
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.