Tanglewood: heavenly music; traffic from Hell

My visiting sister-in-law wanted to go to Tanglewood, and we had not been there in decades, so we planned a weekend trip: drive out early Sunday, check in to our hotel, have a picnic lunch on the grounds, see a 2:30 concert, have a nice dinner in Lenox and then an 8:30 concert. The estimated travel time was 3 hours, so a 9 AM start would offer lots of leeway. WRONG. The unplanned: an accident on 495 that meant the hour up to the Turnpike turned into 2 hours. Very heavy traffic on the Turnpike west for no obvious reason, and then bumper-to-bumper the last 5 miles in Lenox. With no chance to stop at the hotel, we got to the parking ground at 2 PM, 5 hours after leaving. Parking was several hundreds yards from the gate, up a steep hill. That left us time for a hurried lunch and just enough time to find our seats. We were warned that traffic out after the afternoon concert and in for the evening concert would be equally bad, so cancelled our dinner reservations and settled for the mediocre cafeteria on the grounds for supper. Ah, the music, that almost made us forget the logistics. The afternoon sandwiched violinist Joshua Bell between two colorful orchestral pieces: Moussorsky’s Night on Bald Mountain and Ravel’s Symphonie Fantastique. Both had rich orchestration with full tympany and showcased the talented BSO performers admirably. Joshua Bell demonstrated why he is such a sought after soloist with his mastery of the instrument and stage presence. The evening performance was another tour-de-force, this time featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emmanuel Ax performing all five of Beethoven’s sonatas for cello and piano. Talk about three all-stars! Mr. Ma was his usual flamboyant self, and Mr. Ax showed why he is a multi-Grammy winner. Doing the sonatas in sequence allowed us to follow the composer’s growth, with particular change between the 2nd and 3rd, written 11 years apart. The increased complexity was apparent. Should you go, and the music is sublime, I would advise getting there the day ahead to allow for much more relaxed experience, and staying as close to the grounds as possible.