Performance Today®

By one count, at least 80 different composers have made arrangements and orchestrations of Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," a work for solo piano. That number is now up to 81, thanks to a new orchestration by Clarice Assad. We'll hear this terrific new arrangement for small orchestra, piano, and percussion, in a performance by the New Century Chamber Orchestra in Berkeley, California.

In 1924, American composer George Antheil was experimenting with jazz styles. He liked Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," but thought it was too pretty. So he began writing his own answer to Gershwin and the new world of jazz. The grittier, not-as-pretty result, Antheil's "Jazz Symphony," is in today's show. We'll hear a performance by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

"There where you are not, there happiness lies." Those are the closing lines from Franz Schubert's song, "The Wanderer." What started as a simple song of longing and loss turned into an orchestral barn-burner. Schubert liked the tune so much, he turned it into a piano piece. And then Franz Liszt got hold of it and made it into a showcase for piano and orchestra. Today, we'll hear a performance of "The Wanderer Fantasy" by pianist Antti Siirala and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, in concert in Stuttgart, Germany.

Baroque flutist Barthold Kuijken doesn't like the term "early music." He says, "It doesn't exist. Good music is born now." Kuijken is the world's foremost player of the traverso, the Baroque wooden flute, and a philosopher of music. He joins host Fred Child in the studio today for music and conversation about the Baroque flute, and performs works by Couperin and Telemann.

In 1924, American composer George Antheil was experimenting with jazz styles. He liked Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," but thought it was too pretty. So he began writing his own answer to Gershwin and the new world of jazz. The grittier, not-as-pretty result, Antheil's "Jazz Symphony," is in today's show. We'll hear a performance by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

It sounds scandalous: Antonin Dvorak wrote a set of sweet love songs for his wife's sister. But the story is innocent enough. The young Dvorak was head-over-heels for Josefina, and wrote her 18 love songs. She snubbed Dvorak, who eventually found love and life-long happiness with Josefina's younger sister, Anna. Dvorak later arranged his songs for string quartet -- we'll hear the Emerson Quartet in concert at the 2010 Savannah Music Festival, in Georgia, play half a dozen "Cypresses" by Dvorak.

In 1923, composer Gabriel Faure was an old man who had seen much of his familiar world crumble away. The Romantic music of his youth had given way to a more angular, jarring, atonal style. He had just come through the devastation of World War I. And he was losing his hearing. But even so, he mustered his energy and wrote a gorgeous, heartbreaking trio for clarinet, cello, and piano. In today's show, we'll visit a New York performance by members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Plus, CMSLC musicians in a Mozart masterpiece for winds.

"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.

Choral composer Eric Whitacre says "I thought I was going to be a pop star...I never in my wildest dreams imagined I'd be a classical composer." Now at age 40, Whitacre has it all -- he's a kind of rock star of contemporary composers. He has a dedicated following among singers around the world. (Some young fans have even gotten Eric Whitacre tattoos.) Whitacre joins host Fred Child for a revealing interview about his creative process, and the stories behind his best-loved works.