Performance Today®

It's almost like musical alchemy: theme and variations. Composers have been doing it for centuries, taking a musical idea and transforming it, creating something new. Friday's Performance Today features a great 21st century example of theme and variations by jazz pianist and composer Fred Hersch. The theme's inspiration? Peter Tchaikovsky.

Alone, at night. Lost in the inky darkness of the sky. Flying over an unknown landscape, filled with unseen enemies. Samuel Barber was in the Army Air Force during World War Two. He was not a pilot, but he rode along on many night flights. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear a piece of music Barber wrote inspired by those journeys called Night Flight.

The music lay untouched and unheard for over a half century, covered with the dust of World War Two and the Holocaust. Composer Hans Gal was a well-known figure in Vienna's classical music world until the 1930s when he fled the Nazis and landed in Edinburgh, Scotland and relative obscurity. More than a half century later, conductor Kenneth Woods and England's Orchestra of the Swan took out Gal's last symphony, dusted off the cobwebs, and shone some sunlight on the music. On Wednesday's Performance Today we'll hear the modern premiere of Gal's final symphony from a concert in Statford-upon-Avon, England.

Pianist Paul Wittgenstein lost his right arm during World War I, but he was determined to continue his career in music. Wittgenstein developed new playing techniques, arranged pieces for left hand alone and eventually began to give public concerts. Then he asked composer Maurice Ravel to write a piano concerto for left hand only. On Tuesday's Performance Today we'll go to a concert in Germany to hear it played by pianist Kirill Gerstein and the North German Radio Symphony.

French composer Maurice Ravel had never been to Asia, but he had ideas of what exotic sights and sounds and aromas he would find there. These ideas came from books and newspaper reports. What inspired him musically, though, was a poem about a beautiful Arab queen, Sheherazade, written by a friend of his. On Monday's Performance Today, we'll go to a concert in Provence, France to hear the poem take flight in music. Valery Gergiev conducts the London Symphony Orchestra and as the voice of the resourceful storyteller Sheherzade: American soprano Renee Fleming.

This weekend on Performance Today, we'll go to a concert in Paris to hear Julian Rachlin play the violin. But he also plays the viola. And now he's becoming a conductor as well. When he's asked what he really does--play the violin or the viola or conduct--Rachlin says it's not about means. It's about the motivation: stretching throughout your entire life to become a better musician, no matter what instrument is in your hand. Rachlin plays Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto on this weekend's Performance Today.

Sure, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra can play without a conductor...they've been doing it for decades, and they're professionals. But a student orchestra? Recently, the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has been coaching the young players at the Juilliard School in the art of playing orchestral music without a conductor. On Friday's Performance Today we'll hear how it went when the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra took the plunge and played the Ancient Airs and Dances by Ottorino Respighi... with no one on the podium!

On Thursday's Performance Today we'll take a trip to Argentina for spring break... or, south of the equator, would it be fall break? Either way, a full hour of warm, energetic and sunny music by Argentine composers is on the way. We'll hear a tango by Astor Piazzolla, dances from the Argentine Suite by Alberto Williams, and a cowboy gaucho romp by Alberto Ginastera.

On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll go to a concert in Paris to hear Julian Rachlin play the violin. But he also plays the viola. And now he's becoming a conductor as well. When he's asked what he really does--play the violin or the viola or conduct--Rachlin says it's not about means. It's about the motivation: stretching throughout your entire life to become a better musician, no matter what instrument is in your hand. Rachlin plays Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto on Wednesday's Performance Today.