Performance Today®

Alexander Scriabin would have balked at the word composer. He was so much more than that. A mystic, a metaphysician, one who would bring about the enlightenment and salvation of humankind through art. While his musical contributions were significant, they didn't quite measure up to all that. Pianist Nelson Goerner taps into his inner mystic to bring Scriabin's wild and quirky piano concerto to life, from a concert last week at the BBC Proms in London.

No one ever accused Gustav Mahler of being overly modest. When he finished his Eighth Symphony, he wrote, "Try to imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound. There are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving." It's art on the grandest of scales, Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand. We'll hear Part One, from the opening concert at this year's BBC Proms in London.

Ah, the eternal question: to clap, or not to clap between movements? The debate has been rekindled at the BBC Proms in London this summer. Some audience members are applauding between movements without being shushed by their neighbors, and according to some observers, they're eliciting pleasure from musicians on stage. We'll hear two examples from concerts last week. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic played the first two movements from Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony, and got applause after both. Pianist Paul Lewis and the BBC Symphony got applause after the first and last movements of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4. And feel free to clap for composer Bruce Adolphe, who has a brand new Piano Puzzler this week.

"You get a sense of Beethoven the virtuoso enjoying the fact that he can play piano -- it's a wonderfully exhilarating and free kind of piece." So says English pianist Paul Lewis about Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. Lewis is playing all five Beethoven Piano Concertos at the BBC Proms in London this summer. On Wednesday last week, he played No. 1 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Lewis gave a wonderfully exhilarating performance himself, prompting hearty ovations after the first and last movements, as you can hear on Tuesday's PT.

In 1985, composer John Adams had a daughter named Emily, but he and his wife nicknamed her "Quackie." One night, Adams dreamed that Quackie was riding on the shoulder of mediaeval mystic Meister Eckhardt, and as they floated through the night sky, she whispered in the master's ear, sharing the secret of grace. That dream inspired an ethereal movement called "Meister Eckhardt and Quackie" in Adams' 1985 piece, Harmonielehre. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra plays it, in concert at the Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam. In a similar vein, Samuel Barber was inspired by a made-up phrase in James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake." Barber's "Fadograph of a Yestern Scene" is a nostalgic look back, a wonderfully reflective and rarely played gem of American music. Our concert performance is by the Polish National Radio Symphony.

The BBC Proms is a massive summer music festival in London, with concerts every night for eight weeks at the Royal Albert Hall. We'll hear highlights from a concert this past week: 34 year-old Vasily Petrenko conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in a performance of Schumann's Manfred Overture, and the final movement from Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony. (Both works inspired by the tragic hero of Lord Byron's romantic poem, Manfred.)

"Don't laugh at me! I am ashamed, and cannot get beyond my fumbling." The words of a struggling young musician, just leaning to play an instrument? Not exactly. Those fretful sentiments were written by composer Felix Mendelssohn. In a way, he was learning to master something new: writing for the violin. He wrote that while working on his violin concerto. He managed to progress way beyond fumbling. The work is a masterpiece for violin. We'll hear a performance by Viviane Hagner, from a concert three nights ago at London's BBC Proms.

"Who cares if you miss a note or two? If you're true to the music, THAT's what matters!" So says pianist Simon Trpceski about the pressure of playing a frighteningly difficult piece in front of a concert audience of 6,000, and a broadcast audience of millions. On Monday night, Trpceski joined the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic at the BBC Proms in London, playing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. We'll hear how it went (he didn't miss many notes), along with a Schumann Overture and the finale of a Tchaikovsky Symphony, both inspired by Lord Byron's tragic hero, Manfred.

Felix Mendelssohn got the inspiration for his Scottish Symphony when he was 20 years old, travelling in Scotland. But, since he waited more than a dozen years to actually write the piece...is there any real connection between his inspiration and the symphony? Conductor Riccardo Chailly has been looking into it, and joins us today. Chailly talks about the fragmentary sketch Mendelssohn jotted down in Scotland. And we'll hear Chailly conduct the very orchestra Mendelssohn was leading when he wrote his symphony, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. We'll hear them play the sketch, and the full symphony, in concert in Leipzig.