My first Tanglewood rehearsal is over. Yes, already. We had a brief piano rehearsal with James Levine, who went over a few potential trouble spots in the Mahler, complimented our tone, and wished us a good evening. Completely unlike what I had anticipated based on my past experiences with famous conductors. Where Robert Shaw always gave an impression (amplified, to be sure, by his various ailments) of desperately contained passion and fury, and Sir David Willcocks was acerbic, dramatic, and understatedly witty, Levine strikes me as brisk, unassuming, and subtle.
I came away from the first rehearsal better understanding what I had started to gather from the first few rehearsals of this piece: nearly everything that I have done for concert preparation before has been work. This is making music.