Performance Today®

David Washburn is a *great* trumpet player, a member of three orchestras in Los Angeles. And Americans can sing along with him every evening. He plays the solo trumpet on the theme of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. We'll hear David Washburn play an elegant Trumpet Concerto by Tomaso Albinoni, in concert at the Music@Menlo Festival in California.

Music that began with the word "no." An oboe-playing American GI in 1945 asked Richard Strauss if he'd ever consider writing an oboe concerto. Strauss gave that one word answer...but a few months later, he composed his Oboe Concerto in D Major. We'll hear a concert performance from Stockholm; Daniel Harding conducting the Swedish Radio Symphony, with oboe soloist Francois Leleux.

It was an experiment in words and music, from a concert this summer by the Miro Quartet and American poet Matthea Harvey. She chose poems to go with each movement of Beethoven's Quartet No. 16, and read her work before each movement. The Miro Quartet gave a visceral, energetic performance, framed by Harvey's words. We'll hear it exactly as it happened.

The PT debut of a young and talented (and irreverent) chamber orchestra from Boston that calls itself "A Far Cry." They'll play Benjamin Britten's playful "Simple Symphony." And a rarely-played gem: the Sextet in C by Erno Dohnanyi. Fred explains *why* it's so rarely played (there's a good reason!), and we'll hear an exemplary performance by members of the Nash Ensemble, in concert in Boston.

Celebratory classics inspired by fireworks and sparklers for the holiday weekend! Music by Stravinsky, Handel, and Moritz Moszkowski. And our 21st century piece this Friday is the world premiere of "prairyerth" (pronounced like "Prairie Earth") by Kansas native Robert Johnson. (btw, that's the correct spelling, with no capital letter) Paavo Jarvi conducts the Cincinnati Symphony in this piece evocative of the wide-open spaces of the American prairie.

Celebratory classics inspired by fireworks and sparklers for the holiday weekend! Music by Stravinsky, Handel, and Moritz Moszkowski. And our 21st century piece this Friday is the world premiere of "prairyerth" (pronounced like "Prairie Earth") by Kansas native Robert Johnson. (btw, that's the correct spelling, with no capital letter) Paavo Jarvi conducts the Cincinnati Symphony in this piece evocative of the wide-open spaces of the American prairie.

19th century sugar with a little 20th century spice makes for a tasty serving of orchestral music at one of the world's great concert halls, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Paul Hindemith's "Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber." David Robertson leads the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in a pulsating performance. Domenico Scarlatti wrote 550 sonatas, almost all for harpsichord. We'll hear a set of three played in concert on anything BUT the harpsichord: Christian Zacharias at the piano, Emmanuel Ceysson on the harp, and Lidia Kaminska on the...accordion.

Today's show begins in Amsterdam. Simon Rattle leads the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Schumann's fourth symphony. Then we'll return to our St. Paul studios, where Bruce Adolphe joins host Fred Child for another "Piano Puzzler." In hour two, Ivan Fischer leads the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Arnold Schoenberg's arrangement of Brahms' first piano quartet in Amsterdam.

The world of popular culture is full of classical music references. The famous ad campaign, "beef - it's what's for dinner," featured music from Aaron Copland's ballet, "Rodeo." And the finale of Saint-Saens' (pictured) third symphony found its way into a movie about a talking pig, "Babe." On today's show, we'll hear the symphony in its entirety, played by Charles Dutoit and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with organist Joanne Pearce Martin.