Performance Today®

By any measure, Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland is one of the great American works of art. But in 1944, Copland was paid 500 dollars for writing it. Not much for a future classic. But looking back, Copland said, "they needn't have worried about the amount. Five hundred dollars seemed like a lot to me in those days." On Friday's Performance Today, we'll hear the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra play 500 dollars worth of music by Aaron Copland.

For centuries, composers have written music for plays. For ballet productions. In the last century, for film scores. And now, more and more composers are writing music for video games. Emily Reese is the writer and host of Top Score, a podcast about video game music. Emily joins host Fred Child today to talk about what's new in music for gamers.

Top Score podcast host Emily Reese talks about the latest in music composed for video games.

Carter Pann's Mercury Concerto is a celebration of love and friendship. Friendship between composer Pann and flutist Christina Jennings, who premiered the piece. And love between Jennings and her husband, violist Matthew Dane. In today's show, we'll hear the world premiere of Pann's Mercury Concerto, a showcase for the flute, with a few shining moments for the viola as well.

Music writer and critic remembers the legendary Glenn Gould.

Few of us are straight arrows, maintaining a predictable arc throughout our lives. We veer off course, careening at times, before coming to rest at the end of our days. Pianist Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations was the hallmark of a young man, shot from a tightly-strung bow. Insanely fast tempos, wild energy. You could almost call it reckless. But his trajectory changed over the years. His 1981 re-recording of the piece bears little resemblance to the earlier one. We'll sample both recordings today, on what would have been Gould's 80th birthday.

The very first Van Cliburn International Piano Competition got underway exactly 50 years ago, on September 24, 1962, in Fort Worth, Texas. In today's show, we'll celebrate a half-century of spectacular music-making from deep in the heart of Texas. We'll hear from a number of past competitors, including Jeffrey Kahane, Olga Kern, Jon Nakamatsu, and the very first winner in 1962, Ralph Votapek.

The Emerson String Quartet is one of the top quartets in the world. Part of the reason for their success has been their consistency. They haven't had a personnel change since 1979, the year cellist David Finckel joined the group. But David Finckel recently announced that at the end of this season, he will be leaving the quartet to pursue other projects. The Emersons have a busy season this year, ramping up to the big goodbye in the spring. In today's show, we'll hear from a concert they gave in Athens, Georgia.

All summer long, PT has been dropping in on concerts at the Proms, the big summer music festival in London. On Friday, our final visit of the 2012 season. Murray Perahia solos in the Piano Concerto Number 4 by Beethoven. And composer Eric Whitacre, a rock star in the world of choral music, directs the Eric Whitacre Singers and the BBC Singers in a surprising, surreal transformation of a Bach chorale.