Performance Today®

Most composers can't wait for more people to hear their music and to recognize their name. Not Nikolai Kapustin. He doesn't talk to press, but the 74-year-old composer has conveyed one message: he has no desire to be famous. Despite his wishes, he is rapidly becoming well-known as a classically trained composer who also fell in love with jazz. On Thursday's Performance Today we'll hear Kapustin's jazz-tinged Piano Sonata No. 2 performed by Alexei Volodin in concert in Switzerland.

It's probably not an exaggeration to say that Johann Sebastian Bach has inspired more composers than anybody else. Plenty of people over the centuries have claimed him as their muse. In today's show, three composers use Bach as a jumping-off point. And we'll hear from the master himself, his tour de force 6-part fugue from the "Musical Offering."

It's always a touchy situation when the student finally eclipses the teacher. That subtle shift in dynamics that indicates the balance of power is about to flip-flop. That's what Joseph Haydn thought he saw in his rear-view mirror with his student Ignaz Pleyel, who was improving rapidly. So Haydn stepped up his game and wrote a terrific new symphony. In the end, Haydn didn't have that much to worry about with Pleyel. Today we'll hear Haydn's A-game, his Surprise Symphony, from a concert in San Francisco.

Performance Today is on the road, broadcasting from the studios of Classical New England in Boston today. In honor of our host city, we'll sample a few terrific performances by notable Boston musicians. Including composer Osvaldo Golijov and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, both Boston-area residents. They team up with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in Golijov's magical and mesmerizing "Azul." Plus, we'll hear from an innovative new chamber orchestra from Boston called A Far Cry.

A rocky island, surrounded by black water, with a dark sky overhead. A boatman is rowing toward an out-cropping where, presumably, his ghostly white passenger will spend the rest of time. It's a painting by Arnold Bocklin called "The Isle of the Dead." Sergei Rachmaninoff was so taken with the painting that he wrote a tone poem called "The Isle of the Dead." We'll hear it today, from a concert in Cincinnati.

The Oslo Chamber Choir was founded as a classical vocal ensemble 25 years ago. But they've been branching out into new territory in the past few years. Their unique layerings of Norwegian folk music with classical choral works were a big hit with PT listeners when we first aired them. Now they have a new CD, called Strid. Today and Monday, The Oslo Chamber Choir joins host Fred Child for music and conversation in the PT studios.

If Gustavo Dudamel was running on fumes the night he and the Los Angeles Philharmonic played at London's Barbican Hall, no one could tell. He and the members of the L.A. Phil had stayed up late the night before, celebrating his 30th birthday. And they went on to deliver a dynamite concert the next day. One critic called it "electrifying, impossible not to be swept away." We'll hear highlights from that post-birthday concert in today's show.

When art and politics collide, politics usually wins, at least in the short term. It depends on the size of the political hammer being wielded. But art almost always wins out in the end. Gyorgy Ligeti wrote a lively rhapsody on Romanian folk music that had a few too many crunchy, off-color harmonies in it. Officials banned it for 20 years, but couldn't ultimately squash it. We'll hear Ligeti's Concerto Romanesc from a concert in Buffalo. Plus, a rare international tour by a North Korean orchestra, in concert in Paris.

A rocky island, surrounded by black water, with a dark sky overhead. A boatman is rowing toward an out-cropping where, presumably, his ghostly white passenger will spend the rest of time. It's a painting by Arnold Bocklin called "The Isle of the Dead." Sergei Rachmaninoff was so taken with the painting that he wrote a tone poem called "The Isle of the Dead." We'll hear it today, from a concert in Cincinnati.