OLD AND NEW

     Last night, we attended the opening concert at Tanglewood by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and it was surely an evening for the old and the new. Most of the patrons were probably in their 70’s and 80’s, but most of them also had an easily noticeable spirit of newness. With canes and stooped shoulders, and sometimes in wheelchairs and sometimes as straight up as pillars, they showed off the strength of seniority in a stately and handsome way. These were people who had surely seen indescribable sorrows and successes in their long lives, and now, as they listened to the exquisite music of Tchaikovsky, they seemed to sit with the poise and power of their years. These were old people, yes, but they seemed somehow new and unblemished. Perhaps they felt, in some way, fulfilled, and therefore full of youthfulness again. Perhaps, to them, this music of transcendent loveliness was a prize presented especially to them for sharing their strength and understanding with the world for so many years. These young-at-heart seniors essentially made the world we live in today, and last night the world, we might say, made music just for them.