![]() And within what might seem like a narrower band of repertoire, Saturday’s celebratory season-closing affair had a delightful sonic and stylistic variety, from the mellow-toned elegance of a two-viol work by Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, to the caffeinated ebullience of Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto (in which harpsichordist’s Peter Sykes’s account of the first-movement cadenza was a marvel of jangling virtuosity). This venerable period-instrument operation may cater to more of a niche early music audience but it does so with broadly inviting performances imaginatively curated by artistic director Daniel Stepner. On Saturday night, a short drive south of Lenox, the Aston Magna Music Festival wrapped up its 50th anniversary season at Saint James Place in Great Barrington with a particularly festive program. Not all of the weekend’s notable action, however, took place at Tanglewood. The Ellington was given a deft, stylish performance that felt like its own strong case that the “carols” of this particular American composer take up their rightful place somewhere near the center of the American classical canon. Sunday’s program was capably led by Thomas Wilkins, the BSO’s artistic adviser for education and community engagement, who opened the afternoon with the orchestra’s first performance of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s intriguing Ballade in A minor, and closed it with selections of the orchestral suite arrangement of “The River” by Duke Ellington. ![]()
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