Performance Today®

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." In the opening moments of the piece, low strings and winds rock gently but ominously back and forth. The water lapping against the rocky shores, just as in Bocklin's painting. In today's show, Alan Buribayev leads the Brabant Orchestra in a performance, from a concert at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw.

"This is the mark of a true genius." So says conductor Riccardo Chailly about a quick sketch the 20 year-old Felix Mendelssohn made during a trip to Scotland in 1829. Mendelssohn kept that scrap of paper for 13 years, then finally used that idea as the opening of his Symphony No. 3, his "Scottish" Symphony. Riccardo Chailly talks about the connection between the sketch and the final symphony, and leads Mendelssohn's own orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, in both the sketch and the finished version of the piece.

"True pleasure is a serious business." That phrase, or rather the Latin version of it, is inscribed in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Germany. Otherwise known as the home of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, a group dedicated to the business AND the pleasure of music-making. In today's show, two performances by the Gewandhaus Orchestra, with Riccardo Chailly conducting. Soloist Janine Jansen joins them in Max Bruch's concerto for violin, AND his romance for viola.

Understatement of the week: composer Hector Berlioz had a vividly romantic and dramatic view of the world. When the 23 year-old Berlioz saw a production of Shakespeare's Hamlet, he fell truly-madly-deeply in love with the actress who played Ophelia. He sent her passionate letters, which she ignored as the ravings of a crazed fan. So Berlioz wrote a bizarre symphony that told the story of their torrid (and completely imaginary) relationship. When she heard the piece two years later and realized it was about her...she got in touch. They were married the next year. Highlights from the Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz, Alan Gilbert conducting the New York Philharmonic in concert at Lincoln Center, in New York City.

It's 15 minutes of musical fireworks, so over-the-top it's almost self-parody. At the same time, it takes on the most serious of subjects: what happens when we die? But does it with a hint of a sly wink, which makes it perfect for Halloween weekend. It's Totentanz, the "Dance of Death" by Franz Liszt. Louis Lortie plays the ultra-athletic piano part, Kurt Masur leads the San Francisco Symphony, in concert. And this week's 21st century segment highlights music by a composer who is quickly approaching rock-star status in the choral world, Eric Whitacre.

It began as a piano improvisation "aided by a cigar," in the words of composer Edward Elgar. He came up with a curious little theme. And to amuse his wife Alice, he began improvising around the theme in ways that might represent a few of their friends. It grew into a theme and 14 variations, just over 30 minutes of touching and entertaining music for full orchestra. The Enigma Variations by Elgar. Adrian Leaper conducts the Spanish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, in concert in Madrid.

Understatement of the week: composer Hector Berlioz had a vividly romantic and dramatic view of the world. When the 23 year-old Berlioz saw a production of Shakespeare's Hamlet, he fell truly-madly-deeply in love with the actress who played Ophelia. He sent her passionate letters, which she ignored as the ravings of a crazed fan. So Berlioz wrote a bizarre symphony that told the story of their torrid (and completely imaginary) relationship. When she heard the piece two years later and realized it was about her...she got in touch. They were married the next year. Highlights from the Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz, Alan Gilbert conducting the New York Philharmonic in concert at Lincoln Center, in New York City.

Twenty-eight year-old American violinist William Harvey is halfway through a year-long appointment teaching violin and viola at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul. He spoke with PT host Fred Child before he left, and again recently on the phone from Afghanistan. Harvey says he not only feels "very safe" in Kabul, he's having an incredible time sharing the Western tradition with young Afghan musicians, and learning Afghan music from them.

After one Los Angeles concert, a critic called the performance "irresistibly freewheeling" and said the soloist "hot-rodded through the fast passages as if he was out to set speed records." The performance was a perfect storm of youthful energy: a concerto written by a 20-year-old hot-shot, performed by a soloist and conductor, both still this side of 30. It was a performance of Sergei Prokofiev's First Piano Concerto, written in 1911 while he was still a conservatory student. Simon Trpceski was the soloist, with Gustavo Dudamel leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic. We'll hear that turbo-charged performance from Los Angeles in today's show.