Performance Today®

Pianist Lang Lang is a classical music celebrity, a hero to many. But he also has his own heroes. In today's show, Lang Lang talks about his idol, composer Franz Liszt. The two have more in common than you might think. Both showmen with blazing technique on the piano, both utterly fearless on the concert stage. Lang Lang gives a fiery performance of Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1, in concert with the Cincinnati Symphony.

It's climbing season again on Mount Everest, and the tallest peak in the world just claimed another four lives this week. There was no loss of life or limb when Yo-Yo Ma played what some call the Mount Everest of concertos, the Cello Concerto by Antonin Dvorak. We'll hear his spectacular performance, from a concert with the Atlanta Symphony.

Johann Sebastian Bach's music is almost like another element, another building block in the chemistry of the world. Lots of artists have thrown a pinch or two of Bach into the fire and come up with some interesting new alloy. Count Rob Moose among them. Today we'll hear his new arrangement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, including parts for banjo, mandolin, and guitar.

It's beautifully solemn in places. But elsewhere, it's almost beside itself with glee. The Symphony No. 7 by Beethoven is many things, which led one contemporary of Beethoven's to say it was evidence that Beethoven was "ready for the madhouse." In today's show, Michael Tilson Thomas leads the San Francisco Symphony in Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.

Leonard Bernstein's one-act opera, "Trouble in Tahiti," has languished since he wrote it in 1952. Opera companies rarely stage it these days. But the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra just commissioned an orchestral suite based on music from "Trouble in Tahiti." We'll hear the world premiere in this weekend's show, from a concert this spring in New York.

Death stood peering over Mozart's shoulder as he struggled to finish his Requiem Mass in 1791. Mozart was ill, and seemed to know that he was in a race against time. He wrote frenziedly. But in the end, death didn't have the patience to wait for him to finish. Mozart died at age 35, leaving it to others to complete this beautiful and tormented work. In today's show, a performance of Mozart's Requiem from a concert in Amsterdam.

It's an ancient, simple story of boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy loses girl when she is abducted by pirates. Boy gets girl back, thanks to the intervention of a deity who is half-man and half-goat. OK, maybe the story of Daphnis and Chloe isn't so simple after all. But boy and girl live happily ever after in Maurice Ravel's ravishing, shimmering coming-of-age love story. The French National Orchestra plays Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe Suite No. 2, from a concert in Paris.

This week, we've been getting to know the newest PT Young Artist-in-Residence, Alexander Malikov. He's been in the studios every day this week. In today's show, he talks about the advantages and disadvantages of working on the fortepiano, the 18th-century ancestor of the modern piano. And he plays a sonata by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

Vienna's Musikverein is one of those spectacular old European concert halls. The walls and ceilings shimmer with real gold. And the acoustics are every bit as magnificent as the decor. We'll hear pianist Lang Lang in a recital at the Musikverein, playing Beethoven's "Appassionata" Sonata. Plus, we'll hear from a special New Year's Day concert there. Daniel Barenboim and the Vienna Philharmonic rattled those golden walls and ceilings with Johann Strauss, Jr.'s "Thunder and Lightning Polka."