Performance Today®

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.

"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.

Last month, the London-based "Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment" played their first Beethoven symphony cycle in a decade. We're sampling three of their performances this week. Today: the most famous four notes in music, and the rest of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. Ivan Fischer conducting a performance at Queen Elizabeth Hall, in London. And more from 2010 Pulitzer Prize winning composer Jennifer Higdon. She spoke with PT host Fred Child shortly after she got the news. And we'll hear the rousing finish of her prize-winning Violin Concerto. Violinist Hilary Hahn in concert this season with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.

The great harpsichordist and conductor Ton Koopman loves music by Bach. His email address even includes Bach's name, and an important date from Bach's life. So when Koopman finally got the chance to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic this winter, what music did he select to open the concert? Bach, of course. The Orchestral Suite No. 3. That performance highlights hour 1, and in hour 2, Ivan Fischer leads the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in what one critic called an "exuberantly subversive" and "charming" performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 1. From a concert last month in London. Plus, we'll have late-breaking news on this year's Pulitzer Prize winner for music.