Performance Today®

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.

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein is one of the rising stars in classical music right now. She's only 28, but has been getting rave reviews for quite a while now. In fact, one reviewer called her recent performance of Elgar's Cello Concerto "life-changing." We'll hear that performance of the Elgar, with Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Philharmonic, from a concert in Oxford, England. We'll also hear a performance by Alisa Weilerstein's parents, violinist Donald and pianist Vivian.

Today's show is all about home, the places that ground us and give us a sense of belonging. Bedrich Smetana wrote a set of pieces called "My Homeland." We'll hear the most famous, "The Moldau," a depiction of the Moldau River as it winds through the Bohemian countryside. And Latvian composer Peteris Vasks wrote this about his "Plainscapes:""The beauty of the Latvian landscape has given me moments of exceptional happiness. The plains are a dominant feature where one can see the horizon and look at the stars." Plus, we'll have the results of the 2010 Chopin International Piano Competition that just wrapped up in Warsaw.

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. Up until recently, pianist Lang Lang had never played there. He finally got his chance, playing a solo recital that included Beethoven's "Appassionata" Sonata. It's in today's show. Plus, we'll hear a performance from the Musikverein from a special New Year's Day concert. Daniel Barenboim and the Vienna Philharmonic rattled those golden walls and ceilings with Johann Strauss, Jr.'s "Thunder and Lightning Polka."

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein is one of the rising stars in classical music right now. She's only 28, but has been getting rave reviews for quite a while now. In fact, one reviewer called her recent performance of Elgar's Cello Concerto "life-changing." We'll hear that performance of the Elgar, with Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Philharmonic, from a concert in Oxford, England. We'll also hear a performance by Alisa Weilerstein's parents, violinist Donald and pianist Vivian.

When Ralph Vaughan Williams' Sixth Symphony premiered in 1948, everyone rushed to find a deeper meaning in it. Vaughan Williams was amused at first, but when one critic tried to call it the "War Symphony," he got miffed, saying, "It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to write a piece of music." Years later, though, Vaughan Williams did allow as how maybe, just maybe, the last movement could be summed up by these words from Shakespeare's Tempest: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep." The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic performs it, in concert in Amsterdam.

The most romantic birthday present in the long history of birthday presents: the Siegfried Idyll, by Richard Wagner. An achingly beautiful 20-minute piece he wrote for his new wife, rehearsed in secret, and unveiled with a small orchestra playing in front of her bedroom on the morning of her 33rd birthday. Our concert is from a slightly larger space -- Avery Fisher Hall, at Lincoln Center in New York City. Alan Gilbert conducting the New York Philharmonic. Plus a set of music and musicians from San Francisco, including a slapstick orchestral march written by Michael Tilson Thomas, played by the San Francisco Symphony.

Composer Bruce Adolphe returns to the PT studios with our weekly classical music game, the Piano Puzzler. Every week he re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a classical composer. One of our listeners calls in and tries to name the tune and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating. Also -- the Orion Quartet plays the opening section from the Art of Fugue, by Bach, in concert at the 92nd Street Y in New York. And Valery Gergiev leads the London Symphony Orchestra in a thrilling performance of...a piece we can't name, because it would give away the answer to the puzzler!

Great music, like great cooking, is interesting when just the right flavors come together. And some dishes are most surprising not for what's in them, but for what's left out (think flourless chocolate cake). Johannes Brahms left out the flour when he wrote his second orchestral serenade. In this case, that translates to a large-scale symphonic work with no violins. We'll hear the San Francisco Symphony and music director Michael Tilson Thomas, in a performance where the violins were relaxing backstage. Who knows - maybe they were noshing on flourless chocolate cake.