Revisiting il dolce far niente at Tanglewood
A weekend of classical music and nature
Vivian Hir–The Tech
In late August, I went to Tanglewood for the first time with a group of friends who love classical music. Every summer, the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) performs at Tanglewood, its outdoor summer home in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Unlike Symphony Hall, Tanglewood has an open-air concert hall and lawn seating. I always wanted to go to this music festival ever since freshman year, so I was excited to have the opportunity to go before the season ended. Tanglewood was my first outdoor concert in a very long time; the last was Yo-Yo Ma at the Berkeley Greek Theatre in 2017. Although I have been to many BSO concerts by this point, I was curious to find out how different the listening experience would be compared to my prior experiences.
My weekend at Tanglewood was wonderful. Over the course of two days, I attended a total of four performances: two concerts, a prelude concert, and an open rehearsal. Each performance had a distinct repertoire, featuring pieces by composers I knew like Beethoven and Ravel, while introducing me to works I never heard before, such as Chausson’s Poème. Besides the rich music, what made Tanglewood special was that it made me embrace il dolce far niente—the art of doing nothing. Having this mindset was easy for the past two summers, but not for this summer.
Although this year’s summer was less stressful than my average MIT semester, I somehow never got the chance to take a complete break on the weekends, except for the week-long company holiday in July. I spent some time with my friends on the weekends, but this obligation to do some productive work on the weekends existed throughout the summer. If I wasn’t thinking about my future career, I was writing articles for The Tech. My other pockets of time were filled up with errands and chores. In other words, I felt a slight sense of guilt if I didn’t do any work on the weekends.
It wasn’t until I came to Tanglewood that I realized how badly I needed to be immersed in nature, far away from an urban environment. While I had fun in New York City for a week in July, the city was a hectic and busy place, and did not provide me with true mental respite. On the other hand, Tanglewood was the perfect place for me to disconnect from society and simply not do anything but to listen to music.
At first, I was concerned that sitting on the lawn and being far away from the performers on the stage would be a hindrance to the concert going experience, but these assumptions were wrong. In fact, sitting on the lawn enhanced the experience. Listening to classical music on the lawn with lush trees in the backdrop felt novel and refreshing. Unlike typical concert etiquette that expects people to sit in their seats throughout the performance and not doze off, etiquette on the lawn is less strict. Of course, traditional rules like silencing phones and being quiet are expected, but there wasn’t this expectation of having to focus my attention on the stage all the time and sit straight.
As a result, I allowed my mind to unwind instead of feeling the need to focus on every second of the music. Rather than looking at the performance all the time, I gazed at the wispy clouds slowly moving in the sky or the dappled leaves above me, observing things I never seemed to notice before. If I was tired, I closed my eyes and laid on the lawn, hearing live music playing in the background.
What I just described may sound counterintuitive. Despite this, I liked being in this rare state of doing nothing but being in the present moment, hearing the angelic voices of the Tanglewood Festival Choir drift in and out, or the orchestra’s peaceful playing of Brahms’ Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny). Here, I wasn’t expected to respond to my emails, worry about a task I didn’t complete, or check for new messages. The point of being here was to experience il dolce far niente: listen to classical music, eat a nice picnic meal, and drink wine.
The lawn seating was not only conducive for enjoying music in a more relaxing way, but also its natural setting made the music sound more cinematic. I still think of the time when I stared at the vast, pitch black sky while listening to “Nimrod” from Elgar’s Enigma Variations, the stars faintly twinkling in the darkness. Although “Nimrod” is known for its bittersweet nature, I couldn’t help but think of how so much of the world and universe has yet to be explored.
When the dynamics in the piece swelled and reached its moving climax, the music reminded me that there was still hope and beauty in this world. As someone who tends to focus on problems in society, it is easy to overlook the wonders that humanity offers. “Nimrod” was such an affecting piece that I kept playing it in my head after I returned to campus, thinking about classical music’s power to uplift and inspire people without the need for words.
I no longer think about “Nimrod” as much, but I still think about how meaningful Tanglewood was because of its marvelous combination of live music and picturesque scenery. To some extent, I see Tanglewood as a magical place where thousands of people from disparate places converge on a small town in the Berkshires to enjoy performances by one of the finest orchestras in the world. I don’t know what next year’s summer will look like for me, but if I have the chance to go to Tanglewood, I definitely will. The classical music canon is boundless and diverse, and there is so much I need to listen to before I go.