3 June 2025 Update:  It did occur to me whilst writing this article — when listing Beethoven’s Ninth in particular — that said performance was at Tanglewood and not in Boston’s Symphony Hall.  Per tradition, the Beethoven always ends the Tanglewood Music Festival.  But also at Tanglewood, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus will be performing:

Puccini’s Tosca.  It always concerns me when an Orchestra Chorus — hopefully singing in perfect intonation like all the Choruses I feature on this page — performs an operatic work where the Chorus, particular the women of the Chorus, are wobbling, fluttering and screaming.  In other words, not singing with perfect intonation, and I’ve never heard an Opera Chorus that does sing with perfect intonation as if they or their Chorus Director has never heard the term!  Someone online was complaining about the Metropolitan Opera Chorus for their lack of perfect intonation.  So in the case of Tanglewood, if they sing as they did under John Oliver, then they will be a perfect for the Tosca, in other words, the women not singing in perfect intonation.  Then, they’re doing Holst The Planets, the Poulenc Gloria.  I think that’s it, but I’ll check again.  I like to be thorough and accurate.  So considering the above repertoire, I’d say that the TFC has the largest amount of repertoire compared to the other Orchestra Choruses I’ve seen.

Now on to the original article:

Well, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Festival Chorus (TFC) has a minimal number — like all the other Orchestra Choruses these days — of symphonic choral works for the season with the BSO.

They are:

Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis (good luck with that TFC; I think they tried that once under John Oliver and didn’t get the best concert review and neither did John Oliver for his conducting of the piece, but this will be with the Chorus prepared by James Burton, originally from the UK.  Hopefully Burton has gotten rid of those dreadful, cackling, wobbling, fluttering, screaming sopranos that one heard under the late John Oliver.  (Tangling with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus).  Because otherwise, the performance won’t be worth listening to quite frankly.  Those sopranos sounded like the worst of “Church Choir” sopranos.

How should the piece sound from a choral perspective?  Like these performances.  Listen to these superb soprano sections trained in perfect intonation and choral excellence:

 

 

I noticed that throughout their description of the Chorus, the BSO used the wrong Chorus word.  A capital C for Chorus denotes respect for the Chorus.  The San Francisco Symphony uses a capital C when writing just Chorus rather than their full name San Francisco Symphony Chorus.  That is correct.  The word the BSO used was the chorus word (lower case c).  Well, that chorus is the part of a hymn or song where there are verses and then the chorus of the piece.  Wherever I look, most people use the wrong word, even people who should know better.  That’s especially the case for music “critics” and music reviewers.  They are notorious for using chorus instead of Chorus when referring to an Orchestra Chorus.

The Tanglewood Festival Chorus is also performing:

Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms

Adams’s Harmonium  (The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus has recorded that as well and I remember one chorister in Atlanta telling me, “It was a bitch to record.”)

And Beethoven’s Ninth, of course.  I don’t think I left anything out.

So four works, that’s all I saw.  It’s interesting that they’re not in the Messiah rut.  Glad to see that.

We performed and recorded the Harmonium when I was in the San Francisco Symphony Chorus with John Adams in the Concert Hall as I recall (he was on stage giving suggestions).

What else?  Well, that half-naked pianist who sort of looks like a “cocktail waitress” pianist will play the Prokofiev PC #2.

Another pianist is playing the Schumann PC, and another pianist is playing the Tchaikovsky PC #1.

Since he’s from New York, it’s interesting that the nut in la casa blanca/the white house (that racist convicted felon and rapist) hasn’t decided that he’s going to take over Boston’s Symphony Hall or New York’s Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall.  Why just the Kennedy Center?  Considering that they’re having a “Pride” programme (Why “Pride?”) in Boston Symphony Hall with the Boston Pop’s and a well-known queer country music singer, Orville Peck.  Doesn’t that piece of nazi trash en la casa blanca have a problem with that “Pride” programme?  (“Pride” is “woke”).  I suppose he would if he knew about it.  But upon reflection, at the moment he’s too busy saying about some federal judges that ruled against him that “he hates America.” In this case, the judge was nominated by him.  (roll eyes).  I think he sees himself and his Nazi agenda as “America.”  The guy is an insane nut.

By the way, Hitler had judges arrested too, just like the convicted felon and rapist did the end of April 2025, if anyone is questioning the comparison I’ve made.  I think it’s time that people come out of their denial and tell it like it is about this piece of trash and the dire and dismal state of things in what’s left of the dismantled US Federal Government.

BTW, does anyone really, honestly believe that unelected president musk is really gone from the US Federal Government?  He doesn’t need to be physically there at la casa blanca when he can just use his phone to continue his unelected presidency.

As for the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, I’ve not heard them in some time to hear if they have improved, in part because the BSO stopped making their performances available On Demand due to musicians’ union rights issues.  I heard James Burton’s superb Choruses in the UK when he was there, so hopefully he has been able to get the TFC up to the level expected of them as the Official Chorus of the BSO.  But I’m also realistic.  James can only do so much with what he has to work with and with the people who audition, and who could pass the new audition standards, including music theory.