Performance Today®

Henry Purcell was born 350 years ago today...maybe. Birthdays were not as big a deal in 17th century England as they are for us, and Purcell's family kept no record of the date of his birth, or even his baptism. Whether it's the exact date or not, Thursday is a fine day to celebrate the 350th birthday of this great English composer. We'll hear highlights from his Ode for Saint Cecilia's Day, and three miniatures by Purcell.

Conductors often encourage timpanists to play quietly, to avoid drowning out the orchestra. But in Mozart's Serenata Notturna, the timpani emphasize the comic folksiness of the music, and in concert performances of this piece, conductors sometimes let timpanists off their leashes. We'll hear Joseph Pereira having a field day on the timpani, in concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Composer John Adams was astonished at the reaction to his sprawling 1982 piece for two pianos, three singers and orchestra, his "Grand Pianola Music." Adams says the "piece genuinely upset people...I meant it neither as a joke...nor as a provocation of any kind. It was rather, in its loudest and most hyperventilated moments, a kind of Whitmanesque yawp, an exhilaration of good humor, certainly a parody and therefore ironic." We'll hear it in all its yawping glory, from a concert last month by the London Sinfonietta at the Proms in London.

American composer Christopher Theofanidis says it was "almost embarrassing" to compose a piece with "three happy movements." But he'd written a series of works with dark undercurrents, and wanted to create what he calls "uplifting, happy-to-be-alive music." The result was "Visions and Miracles," his 1997 piece for string orchestra. We have a concert performance from the 2009 Strings Festival, in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

We remember Cincinnati Pops conductor Erich Kunzel, who died Tuesday at age 74. Plus, Purcell from the Proms in London. Robert Spano guest-conducts the Cleveland Orchestra in a concert performance of the Mathis der Maler Symphony by Paul Hindemith. And Bruce Adolphe joins Fred in the studio for this week's Piano Puzzler.

Two weeks ago, Joshua Bell played the Brahms Violin Concerto for an audience of 5-thousand at the BBC Proms in London. Reviewers in London used words like "memorable,""magic,""stunning," and "triumph." You can come up with your own superlatives after you hear it. Joshua Bell, with conductor Osmo Vanska the BBC Symphony Orchestra, playing Brahms at the Proms.

Poet Rita Dove has a new book about Beethoven, his best friend in 1803, and the piece they premiered together. Beethoven wrote an astonishing sonata inspired by the virtuosity of mulatto violinist George Bridgetower. But over drinks the two friends got into a fight, Beethoven took Bridgetower's name off the music...and they never spoke again. Rita Dove has re-imagined their relationship in her new book, "Sonata Mulattica." She joins Fred to guide us through their story, and through the piece that's become known as Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata.

We remember Cincinnati Pops conductor Erich Kunzel, who died Tuesday at age 74. Plus, Purcell from the Proms in London. Robert Spano guest-conducts the Cleveland Orchestra in a concert performance of the Mathis der Maler Symphony by Paul Hindemith. And Bruce Adolphe joins Fred in the studio for this week's Piano Puzzler.

American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham sang at the funeral of Senator Ted Kennedy this past weekend. She joins Fred to talk about the experience. And we'll hear Graham at the 2009 BBC Proms, the summer music festival in London, sing a heart-breakingingly beautiful love song by Reynaldo Hahn, "A Chloris."