Performance Today®

Sergei Rachmaninoff once said he had neither the ability nor the desire to write a symphony. Not long after saying that, he wrote an epic: his Symphony No. 2, full of grand romance. We'll go to a concert in Gothenburg, Sweden to hear Mark Wigglesworth conducting the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Plus: the most famous tango ever written: "La Cumparsita." Even if you don't know it by name, you'll recognize the tune, and you might have a hard time NOT singing along. The Cuarteto Latinoamericano played La Cumparsita in concert at the Strings Music Festival, in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Whatever the enigma is behind Sir Edward Elgar's "Enigma Variations" - and we've had theories posited on "Performance Today" - it's still magnificent music, a grand showcase for an outstanding orchestra. Peter Oundjian will lead one, the Toronto Symphony, at a concert in Toronto.

Our weekly Piano Puzzler is on the way, as composer Bruce Adolphe takes up residence at the PT Piano. Bruce re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a classical composer. A Performance Today listener calls in, tries to name the hidden tune, and the composer whose style Bruce is mimicking.

Most people have never heard of Canadian composer Andre Mathieu. Mathieu was a rising star in the 1930s and 1940s. But he led a troubled life, dropped out of the music scene, and died in obscurity in 1968. Some call him the Canadian Mozart, although his style is closer to Rachmaninoff, who called Mathieu a genius. On today's show, Alain Lefevre performs Mathieu's fourth piano concerto with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.

Today just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without some turkey. We'll serve up some "Turkey in the Straw" and other great American fiddle tunes, courtesy of Time for Three, in concert in Athens, Georgia. Plus, an all-American favorite, Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring," performed by the Cleveland Orchestra. And we wrap up our week of cello concertos with the Schumann, performed by Maria Kliegel and the RTE National Symphony in Dublin.

Our festival of cello concertos continues with the PT debut of 32 year-old English cellist Natalie Clein. Clein was the BBC's "Young Musician of the Year" as a 16 year old, and had lucrative contract offers from managers and record companies. She could have cashed in as the next young classical darling, but chose to pursue 10 years of rigorous schooling in London and Vienna. She's now re-emerging as a soloist. We'll hear Natalie Clein in concert in Dublin, playing Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra.

Cellist Alban Gerhardt was having one of those days. Right before a live radio broadcast, he broke a string on his cello. He made a quick exit from the stage to get another string, only to find the door locked. Then he ran back across the stage to a different door. He later observed in his blog that his mad dashing about must have looked cartoonish, like the roadrunner. We'll hear Gerhardt on a calmer day, performing the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Johann Sebastian Bach was a terrible composer. Or...so said a young rival of Bach's in the 1730s. Johann Scheibe wrote that Bach's compositions had a "bombastic and confused style" that "darkened their beauty." We'll compare, with a Bach Prelude and Fugue from the Aspen Festival, and a small symphony by Mr. Scheibe from the Schwetzingen Festival in Germany.

This year, for the first time in his career, the young Chinese pianist Lang Lang is playing chamber music. He joined violinist David Chan (concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra) and cellist Hai-Ye Ni (principal cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra) to play the Piano Trio by Tchaikovsky at Carnegie Hall in New York. Right before that concert, the trio joined Fred Child at the studios of WQXR in New York, to talk about the Tchaikovsky Trio, and to play the dramatic opening movement.