Performance Today®

Bruce Adolphe and the Piano Puzzler have been on a summer vacation for the last couple of weeks, leading to more than a few cases of Puzzler withdrawal in the PT community. Luckily, they're back in today's show. Play along with Fred and Bruce; see if you can guess the hidden tune and the mystery composer in this week's Piano Puzzler.

Most people have never heard of Canadian composer Andre Mathieu. Mathieu was a rising star in the 1930s and 1940s. But he led a troubled life, dropped out of the music scene, and died in obscurity in 1968. Some call him the Canadian Mozart. His style, though, is closer to Rachmaninoff, who called Mathieu a genius. On today's show, Alain Lefevre performs Mathieu's fourth piano concerto with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.

Violinist Christian Tetzlaff hears every emotion in the Brahms Violin Concerto. He says it starts as a serene, beautiful piece, but then tumbles into incredible depths, with anger and moments of total forlornness. Tetzlaff played the Brahms concerto at the BBC Proms in London earlier this month. Plus, PT listeners weigh in on pianist Yuja Wang and the dust-up over her little orange dress. Details are in today's show.

A full performance of Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde spans about five hours. Pick out the first and last bits, scoop out everything in the middle, and you've got a nice concert excerpt that's a manageable size. In today's show, Jaap van Zweden does just that, leading the Dallas Symphony in the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner's opera. Plus, highlights from PT's week at the 2011 Aspen Music Festival.

A full performance of Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde spans about five hours. Pick out the first and last bits, scoop out everything in the middle, and you've got a nice concert excerpt that's a manageable size. In today's show, Jaap van Zweden does just that, leading the Dallas Symphony in the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner's opera. Plus, Elgar's loving portraits of family and friends: his Enigma Variations from the BBC Proms in London.

When Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela made their BBC Proms debut in 2007, they blew the roof off the Royal Albert Hall in London with a program of Latin music. They came back to the Proms this year, a little more mature (they no longer call themselves a youth orchestra). But the SBSO can still pack a punch. We'll hear their sold-out performance of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony, from a concert three weeks ago in London.

Violinist Midori joined host Fred Child in our PT studios recently for an hour of music and conversation. She talked about the singular power of music by Bach ("so spiritual, so cleansing, so difficult") and about the many ways in which she is reaching out to young musicians and young listeners. Plus, Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, from a concert by the New York Philharmonic.

Times were tough for Mozart in the summer of 1788. His financial life was a shambles, and he was reduced to writing a series of pitiful letters to a friend, pleading for money. But at the same time, he was also writing his final three symphonies, each of them a masterpiece. He churned them out over the course of two months that summer. We'll hear Mozart's Symphony Number 39, from a concert by James Levine and the Boston Symphony.

PT has had a memorable week at the Aspen Music Festival in Aspen, Colorado. Today, host Fred Child wraps up his stay there with two on-stage perfchats, music and conversation with several Aspen artists. Edgar Meyer plays one of his own virtuoso pieces for the double bass. And 14-year-old Simone Porter, an Aspen student violinist, wows the crowd with music by Sarasate.