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Tanglewood Music Center History

February 10, 2016 lenoxhistory Leave a comment

Tanglewood History Begins at the Hanna Farm

Tanglewood Beginnings with Concert at Hanna Farm — The First Berkshire Music Festival Performance at Dan Hanna’s Farm in Stockbridge

Despite the dark days of the Depression, conductor-composer Henry Hadley worked with Gertrude Robinson Smith and others to put together the first Berkshire Symphonic Music Festival in August 1934. The three performances – August 23, 25, and 26 attracted about 5,000 including Sara Delano Roosevelt – the President’s mother.

Held in the open, reviews included comments such as “Provision for everything has been made except, possibly, for the distant but luckless chauffeur who fell on his F sharp horn during a passage in D flat major.”* Certainly the atmosphere was more lighthearted than the usual indoor winter symphony performance. Overall reviews were good and Gertrude Robinson incorporated the Berkshire Symphonic Music Festival in the fall of 1934.

In 1935 the three day festival was again held at the Hanna farm. The performance included a larger orchestra and a local chorus of 300. Although it provided scant shelter, the second year included a large tent.

Serge Koussevitzky and Holmwood

Henry Hadley was too ill to continue and the Festival trustees sought a more permanent solution. They had the good fortune to perform a bond with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and their “hot” new conductor, Serge Koussevitzky.

The third summer the performance was held at Holmwood (home of Margaret Emerson ). The famous orchestra and conductor drew an even bigger crowd – the attendance at the three performances was nearly 15,000.

Koussevitzky was lobbying for a longer (six concerts over two weeks) schedule when the group received a remarkable gift.

Music Festival Moves to Tanglewood

In 1936 Mrs. Gorham Brooks and Mary Aspinwall Tappan donated their summer home, Tanglewood to the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The home, outbuildings and 200 acres of lawn, trees and garden overlooking the Stockbridge Bowl provided a permanent home in a beautiful setting for the Berkshire Symphonic Festival.

After The Famous Rain Storm Came the Shed

Rainstorm in 1937 led to construe lion of Shed at Tanglewood — Rain Drenches Concert Goers at Tanglewood August 1937

For the summer of 1937 Koussevitzky had expanded the schedule to six performances over between August 5 and August 15.

One of the performances, on August 12, included a downpour so severe that it interrupted – in a moment of perfect dramatic timing – Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,”

The “Boston Globe” reported that “Gertrude Robinson Smith strode purposefully to the stage when the concert stopped and addressed the record crowd of 5,000, haranguing: “Now do you see why we must have a permanent building for these concerts?’’ In minutes, more than $30,000 was raised.” Later the sum would expand to $80,000*

Koussevitzky declared that he wold never again undertake a festival season at Stockbridge with only a tent between his orchestra and disaster.*

The planning began with Eliel Saarinen, the Finnish architect and friend of Sibelius. He proposed a design that proved both too elaborate and too costly. His second, simplified plans were still too expensive; he finally wrote that if the Trustees insisted on remaining within their budget, they would end up with “just a shed.” The Trustees then turned to Stockbridge engineer Joseph Franz. The building he erected was inaugurated on August 4, 1938,

The six 1938 concerts drew 38,000 from all over the country and abroad. The Festival had come of age in four short years with a Western Union Tanglewood telegraph office on the grounds to handle the copy of the numerous newspaper and magazine writers in attendance and a national broadcasting hookup.

Koussevitzky kicked off the new venue with the Bach cantata built around “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” (another moment of drama!)

Atmosphere

From the beginning the Festival had set out to expand the reach of classical music beyond the confines of wealthy winter city dwellers. Educating and developing musical talent was an early goal. The informality of the shed and the expansive acerage contributed to this desired spirit of accessibility.

*The Tale of Tanglewood (59-61) describes the result: “in the summer of 1939 there would be found tents in which enterprising members of the orchestra were camping out, chopping wood, cooking their meals…..”

Picnics on the Lawn of the Tanglewood Shed

Although it’s been a long time since anyone has seen a tent on the lawn, the effort to be open and democratic continues. Performances are staffed with volunteers and audiences can still get inexpensive lawn tickets and picnic under the stars (or an umbrella if necessary!).

In 1940 the school of music – the Music Center – held its first session with approximately 300 students and the Festival was expanded from six performances over two weeks to nine performances over three weeks. By 1941 attendance had grown to about 95,000.

As the Festival grew to national proportions touched off a rash of renting out rooms and starting up “Tourist Homes” and shops. The peaceful village filled with motor cars and must have touched off all the mixed feelings Lenox experiences today — cheering the business brought in by summer visitors but whining about the traffic.

Tanglewood During the Second World War

By 1941, the Theatre-Concert Hall, the Chamber Music Hall, and several small studios were finished, and the festival was attracting nearly 100,000 visitors annually. “Gala Benefits” were added that year to raise funds for war-related causes. The benefits included music and famous speakers (including Eleanor Roosevelt).

War conditions forced cancellation of the 1942-1945 full Festival schedule. However the Music Center students performed in 1942 with benefits for Treasury War bonds and Russian relief. With the assistance of some members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Koussevitzky led a Mozart series at the Tanglewood Theatre Concert Hall in 1944 and a Mozart-Bach series at in 1945.

The Festival returned in 1946 with the full Boston Symphony Orchestra and a nine concert schedule.

Growth and Upgrades

In 1959 installation of the Edmund Hawes Talbot Orchestra Canopy, along with other improvements, produced the Shed’s present world-famous acoustics. For its fiftieth anniversary in 1988, the Shed was rededicated as “The Serge Koussevitzky Music Shed.”

Continued musical excellence plus the end of rationing, the post war boom and the completion of the Mass Pike all contributed to growing audiences. Audiences and tourism to the Berkshires continued to expand in the 1950’s and 1960’s

Tanglewood Lawn - c. 1960 — Tanglewood Lawn – c. 196

The 1986 addition of the adjacent Highwood estate expanded Tanglewood’s public grounds by 40 percent. The newly acquired property

Highwood (Much Altered Since the 1844-1845 Original)

became the site for a new concert hall to replace the outmoded Theatre-Concert Hall and for improved

Tanglewood Music Center facilities. Inaugurated on July 7, 1994, Seiji Ozawa Hall provides a new venue for Tanglewood Music Center concerts, and for varied recital and chamber music concerts.

Today Tanglewood annually draws over 350,000 visitors and continues to provide education and inspiration for young musicians.

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*The Tale of Tanglewood, Scene of the Berkshire Music Festivals, by M.A. DeWolfe Howe, The Vanguard Press, New York, 1946

Tanglewood/Boston Symphony Orchestra website

Wikipedia

Institutions, People

Tanglewood Music Festival – People Who Made it Happen

February 10, 2016 lenoxhistory

Today the Tanglewood Music Festival attracts 350,000 visitors a year. Although it is on the border with Stockbridge, it is a major contributor to the Lenox tourist industry as well as a great delight to those of us who live here.

In 1934 – a difficult time – the whole county chipped in to launch the predecessor of the Tanglewood Music Festival — the Berkshire Symphonic Festival. They were inspired by a handful of determined people.

Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (1864-1953)

Frederick Coolidge, Albert Coolidge and Elizabeth Coolidge - 1901 — Frederick Coolidge, Albert Coolidge and Elizabeth Coolidge – 1901

In 1918, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge put her considerable funds and determination to work to produce the first Berkshire Chamber Music Festival at South Mountain, just over the town line in Pittsfield. She attracted renowned composers and performers. The Berkshire’s reputation as a beautiful place to perform and listen to music had begun. Clearly she had local cachet as the committee trying to get the Berkshire Symphony Music Festival going named her honorary president.

Henry Hadley (1871-1937)

Hadley was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, to a musical family and trained in Europe a for what would become a successful career as a conductor and composer. He conducted in Seattle, San Francisco in New York. The symphony he had been conducting in New York ran into fundraising difficulty with the stock market crash, and he moved to other conducting work abroad. It’s not clear when he visited the Berkshires but he had, for a number of years, a dream of putting on a classical summer music festival under the stars. In spire of a cancer diagnosis in 1932, he decided to pursue his dream in the Berkshires. Fortunately he was directed to Stockbridge’s Gertrude Robinson Smith.

Henry not only worked with Gertrude and her committee to select the site but gathered 65 musicians from the New York Philharmonic and conducted the first concert at Hanna’s farm August 23, 1934 and again in 1935. In 1935 he included performers from other orchestras and expanded the orchestra size to 85.

He remained involved in the success of the Festival’s remarkable first three years despite health problems but succumbed to cancer in 1937.

Gertrude Robinson Smith (1881 – 1963)

Gertrude Robinson Smith with Teddy and Joan Kennedy

Gertrude Robinson Smith was born to a wealthy New York family. Her father was a corporate lawyer and director of Allied Chemical. Her mother had been largely raised in Paris and Gertrude split her childhood between New York and Paris. When World War I broke out, the family purchased a property in the Glendale section of Stockbridge (that would be on Rt. 183 as you pass Chesterwood) and started spending summers in the Berkshires. Gertrude would go on to build (literally wearing a tool belt build) with her friend Miriam Oliver and some local help her own house on the property in the 1920’s.

During World War I, she and her friend, writer Edith Wharton, organized medical supplies for France, even traveling to the country in a blacked-out ship and flying over the front lines. Smith was made a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor for her efforts. So the girl had some skills that set her up well to make the Berkshire Music Festival happen.

She had the magical combination of a cultured background, a CEO- like personality, money and connections….and beginning in 1934 she focused her considerable energy and skill on establishing a permanent summer music festival in the Berkshires.

She worked with Mrs. Owen Johnson (Stockbridge) and Mrs. William Fulton of Great Barrington to launch meetings across the Berkshires. Everybody was to be involved. They met with a representative for the festival in each of the 200 towns and planned choral training over the winter that all would be encourage to join.

Despite difficult economic conditions, the ladies convinced local residents that this was worth the risk and should become a community enterprise. Remarkably they pulled it off in three months for the first performance in August 1934.

After a particularly dreadful summer deluge in August 1937, she led the successful campaign to construct a permanent shelter – which would become the Koussevitsky Shed.

This video is great. Gertrude Smith sounds just like Eleanor Roosevelt – Another Female Representative of the Greatest Generation

Serge Koussevitzky (1874 – 1951)

Eleanor Roosevelt and Serge Koussevitsky — Eleanor Roosevelt and Serge Koussevitzky

The Russian born composer and conductor would pick up the baton from Henry Hadley and expand both the program and the stature of the festival to the heights it enjoys today.

By 1936, Hadley’s health forced him to resign as conductor. Encouraged by two successful years, the trustees sought an orchestra and conductor.

Sometimes its good to know people who know people (presumably) and the Berkshire trustees quickly worked out an agreement with the Boston Symphony trustees and George E. Judd, conductor and manager.

Leonard Bernstein, Serge Koussevitzky and Lukas Foss

At the time Serge Koussevitzky, was the “hot” new conductor of the BSO, who had been wowing audiences and critics not just with his conducting, but also with his “aristocratic, European” bearing that simply bowled over the Boston Brahmins — so much so that the BSO advertised itself as “the aristocrat of American orchestras.” (Interestingly, Koussevitzky was actually of humble Jewish origins which would become more a point of pride as Israel rose and anti-semitism declined.)

Koussevitzky at Serenak - The Beautiful Summer Residence Given to Koussevitzky and Named After His Two Wives — Koussevitzky at Serenak – The Beautiful Summer Residence Given to Koussevitzky and Named After His Two Wives

It would, over the long term, become obvious (he was BSO conductor from 1924 to 1949), that Tanglewood was a match made in heaven for both parties. The success of the festival made Lenox/Stockbridge a tourist destination and allowed Koussevitzky to fulfill a dream of establishing a music institute that would foster new composition and train young artists. Leonard Bernstein was among his many proteges.

Mrs. Gorham Brooks ((Hepburn) and Miss Mary Aspinwall Tappan

Now the Tanglewood Visitors Center - the Summer Home of the Tappans — Now the Tanglewood Visitors Center – the Summer Home of the Tappans – c. 1865

tanglewood_liongate_stu_rosner_615x250 — View of Stockbridge Bowl from Hawthorne St. Gate to Tanglewood

In 1936, the final piece of the Tanglewood Festival fell into place through a gift from Mrs. Rosamund Dixey Brooks Hepburn (1887-1948) and Mary Aspinall Tappan (1851-1941). They gave the Boston Symphony Orchestra their summer home, Tanglewood, including 200 magnificent acres overlooking the Stockbridge Bowl.

Mrs. Brooks (later Mrs. Hepburn) was the granddaughter of William Aspinallwall and Caroline Sturgis Tappan and Mary Aspinall Tappan was a daughter (Mrs. Brook Hepburn’s aunt).

The Tappan family spanned the 19th century history of Lenox as a resort and added a certain creative pixie dust to Tanglewood. The grandmother/mother was Caroline Sturgis Aspinwall (1819-1888). She was part of a Boston family that had made its fortune in the China trade. She married William Aspinwall Tappan, son of noted abolitionist, Louis Tappan.

They first came to the Berkshires to visit their Boston friends, the Wards, and would rent High Wood before building their own home. When they came to the Berkshires they were a locus point for intellectual conversation, drawing, and musical performances.

Drawing of Cottage Occupied by the Hawthorne's 1850-1851 — Drawing of Cottage Occupied by the Hawthorne’s 1850-1851 — Now Part of the Tanglewood Grounds

Caroline Tappan was part of the literary renaissance sweeping the country in the early 19th century and was a contributor to the Dial and a friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Ellery Channing, Henry James, Henry David Thoreau. Notably, this circle also included Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom they let the little red cottage on the drive to High Wood 1850-1851. It was Hawthorne who coined the name Tanglewood.

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The Tale of Tanglewood Scene of the Berkshire Music Festivals by M.A. DeWolfe Howe, The Vanguard Press, New York, 1946

Hawthorne’s Lenox, The Tanglewood Circle, by Cornelia Brooke Gilder with Julia Conklin Peters, The History Press 2008

Tanglewood/Boston Symphony Orchestra website

Wikipedia

Places

Lenox as a Resort – Hawthorne Street

January 31, 2016 lenoxhistory

Many of the historic houses of Hawthorne Street are actually in Stockbridge – but they’re often associated with Lenox.

Hawthorne Street as we know it did not exist at the time of some of the early estates discussed, so we’ll have to use some imagination as to location.

Highwood

When the Wards of Boston constructed Highwood, they touched off the era of Lenox as a resort. Intellectually curious and engaging, they attracted others to the lovely setting.

Highwood is now owned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and is used for Tanglewood special events.

Tanglewood

Tanglewood was built by Caroline Sturgis Tappan (1819-1888) overlooking the Stockbridge Bowl. Caroline and her husband, William Aspinall Tappan (1820-1905) had purchased the property in 1849 next door to their friends the Wards. Until they built their own

Recreation of Hawthorne Cottage (Original Burned in 1890)

property, they stayed at the red cottage that would be home to the Hawthornes in 1850 and then rented Highwood from the Wards.

Given the highly cultural bent of this family, it’s not surprising that Caroline’s granddaughter, Rosamond Dixey Brooks, offered Serge Koussevitsky the family house, gardens, lawns and farm as a home for the summer music festival.

Wheatleigh

Wheatleigh was initially built for railroad financier H.H. Cook, who may have intended the property for one of his daughters from the start. He gave Wheatleigh to his daughter Georgie who had married Signor Carlos Manuel d Heredia. The groom was originally from Cuba and was sometimes called the Count de Heredia. Wheatleigh

Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger at the Lenox Jazz Festival

and been designed by Peabody and Stearns with plans for the ground by Frederick Law Olmsted.

Mrs. De Herdia’s husband died in 1918 but she continued to spend part of her year at Wheatleigh, until her death in 1946.

The main house survives as a luxury hotel, but the rest of the estate was broken up and took different directions. Some of the outbuildings were used in the 1950’s and 1970’s for the Lenox Jazz festival which brought a lot of new rhythm and folk music to the

Berkshires. The next step in the evolution of music in the area was Music Inn which drew crowds with acts ranging from Joan Baez to the Kinks.

The outbuildings have now been repurposed as White Pines Condominiums.

Brookhurst

The couple that built (the second) Brookhurst exemplified how closely associated the cottagers were – in Lenox and elsewhere. The husband in the couple, Newbold Morris (1868-1928) was Edith Wharton’s cousin and used many of the same designers that Mrs. Wharton had used on The Mount: Ogden Codman and Beatrix Jones (Farrand).

Caretaker Cottage - May be Left From Original Brookhurst Estate — Caretaker Cottage – May be Left From Original Brookhurst Estate

The original Eastlake style Brookhurst (except for the stable and gatehouse) had burned. That gave the couple a free hand in building a new house and they hired Francis Hoppin to design a very different looking Georgian revival house.

The Morris Family

Brookhurst II - 1908 — Brookhurst II – 1908

Newbold’s family had roots back to colonial New York and New Jersey. His wife, Helen Schermerhorn Kingsland Morris (1876-1956) was a second cousin with equally deep New York connections.

George and Suzy's Modernist Home on Brookhurst Grounds — George and Suzy’s Modernist Home on Brookhurst Grounds

Of the three sons, one, George Morris, built his now famous modernist home and studio on the property with his wife, the former Suzy Frelinghuysen. It is now a museum open to the public.

Some of the land on the estate was donated to the Town of Lenox for the Morris Elementary School on West. St. As an added gift, George

Morris painted an abstract mural which stands at the school entrance today.

Another brother, Stephen, took over the main house, but had it reduced in size. That house has now been sold out of the family but remains in private hands.

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For much more on the architecture of these houses and the people who lived in them, see

Houses of the Berkshires, 1870-1930, by Richard S. Jackson Jr. and Cornelia Brooke Gilder, Acanthus Press, 2006

The Tanglewood Circle, Hawthorne’s Lenox, by Cornelia Brooke Gilder with Julia Conklin Peters

The Berkshire Cottages, A Vanishing Era, by Carole Owens, Cottage Press, Inc. 1980

People

Serge Koussevitzky

September 14, 2014 lenoxhistory 1 Comment

Serge Alexandrovich Koussevitzky was born July 26, 1874 to a poor Jewish family in what is now Tver Oblast Russia – about 155 miles northwest of Moscow. His parents were professional musicians who taught him violin, cello and piano. He was baptized at the age of 14 since Jews were not allowed to live in Moscow, and he had been awarded a scholarship to the Musico-Dramatic Institute of the Moscow Philharmonic Society. He became a successful bassist and married dancer Nadezhda Galat in 1902.

In 1909 he became a music publisher and gathered works of the greats of his time including: Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, and Rachmaninoff. He continued to conduct and perform as well.

In 1920 he left the then Soviet Union for posts in Paris and Berlin and in 1924 he left for the United States replacing Pierre Monteux as conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He was renowned for his recordings and concerts. He was a champion of new music and promising young musicians. Leonard Bernstein was a protégé.

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