Performance Today®

We think of Beethoven as a giant, a composer who revolutionized music. We'll go back to the beginning of the Beethoven revolution: his Symphony No. 1, by a young and ambitious composer just finding his distinctive musical voice. Jaap van Zweden conducts the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, in concert at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

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.

"The Pines of Rome," by Ottorino Respighi. It's not just about the the sights and sounds of nature. Respighi wanted the ancient pines to tell the history they had seen. He wrote: "The centuries-old trees which so dominate the Roman landscape became witnesses to the events of Roman life." In today's show, ancient history uncovered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos conducts a concert performance of "The Pines of Rome."

If only someone had invented the photocopier a little earlier. In 1914, composer Ralph Vaughan Williams sent the one and only copy of his Second Symphony to a conductor in Germany. Then the First World War broke out, and the symphony was lost forever. Vaughan Williams and a few friends spent a couple of years arduously putting it all back together from sketches and scraps and memories. We'll hear his reconstructed work, from a concert by conductor Mark Elder and the Halle Orchestra. Plus, we'll hear the King's Singers in a recent performance at our PT studios.

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.