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MUSIC REVIEW

Something for everyone as Tanglewood wraps up

By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff  |  August 30, 2006

LENOX -- Conductor Herbert Blomstedt's approach to Bruckner is very different from Tennstedt's now-legendary one, but on Saturday it proved equally persuasive. This Bruckner was as transparent as Mozart, the rich counterpoint always clear and balanced. The dynamic range was extraordinary; you couldn't tell when the first movement actually began to emerge from the surrounding silence. The climaxes were huge, but solid and majestic, not forced and shrill; Mike Roylance's tuba provided a pillowy foundation for the choir of Wagner tubas. And the nobly played performance both unfolded within time and somehow moved beyond it, as the best performances of Bruckner's symphonies do. If you resist Bruckner's spaciousness of scale, the symphonies will mow you down and drive you crazy; if you submit to them, they will lead you into a new psychological space, calming and uplifting.