Tanglewood

This last weekend, I managed to escape work and the city to head for the hills, or rather the Berkshires. I spent the weekend with my friend Stacy at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

We saw two performances:

Saturday:
Dvorak's Violin Concerto in A minor, Opus 53, with Hilary Hahn playing the violin solo
Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E-flat, Opus 55, Eroica

Sunday:
All-Brahms
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat, Opus 83, Peter Serkin playing the piano solo
Symphony No. 2 in D, Opus 73

Both performances were quite good. Hahn is an incredibly talented violinist. Both her motion and sound were crisp and exact. For her encore, she played a solo violin transcriptions of Schubert's Erlkonig, which was very impressive. We had seats under the Shed on Saturday night, which turned out quite fortunate because it rained fairly hard for most of the performance. Sunday began with rain, but by concert time, the skies cleared and we enjoyed the performance from the lawn.

The grounds at Tanglewood and the surrounding towns are absolutely beautiful as well. We visited downtown Lenox and West Stockbridge. I would have like to go to Stockbridge to see Arlo Guthrie's church (I presume the one of "Alice's Restaurant" fame), but I ran out of time. Maybe next time.

Some photos of the Tanglewood grounds.

View of the Shed from the east side of the lawn.

Footpaths through the woods

View from our spot on the lawn on Sunday, as both a photo...

... and as drawing.

On a side note, I've been wanting to start drawing more. I haven't drawn anything artsy since middle school, nor have I taken any art classes. For now, I'll just keep some sketches from when I have a random momemt and feel like drawing, some of which may make their way to the blog. I'd like to take a drawing class at some point, but that's one of many things of the list of stuff to do that I barely have time for. Maybe when work quiets down a little....