Made our second outing to Tanglewood today, the summer home of the Boston Symphony. It features none of the chaos and filth of the outdoor concerts I grew up on (Altamont, anyone?) but better food and, arguably, better music.

This afternoon’s program consisted of Beethoven’s Ninth and nothing else — but really, what else do you need?  Beethoven was swinging for the fences when he wrote his last symphony and, according to the program notes, appeared on stage at its debut performance in Vienna in 1824, deaf as a post, beating time to the music. 

Most people of my generation recognize the symphony’s closing movement, set to Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” as the song Ringo had to sing to keep from being eaten by a tiger in Help! (The second most recognized movement is the second, the opening strains of which were used by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on the NBC evening news.) It was an old poem, a literal ode to joyousness and rapture, when the composer began to set it to music but as the program notes (by composer Jan Swafford) observed, “In old age we often return to our youth and its dreams.”

There was plenty of old age and youth on display on the lawn at Tanglewood, the former enjoying their picnics and wine, the latter trying to eat their ice cream bars before they melted in the August sun. At one point I lay in the shade and watched a cumulus cloud do a sort of deconstructed vortex thing above my eyes in the middle of the second movement. It kind of reminded me of watching the light shows at the Fillmore when I was in high school, though when the concert was over, I was okay to drive.