Performance Today®

In honor of the 90th anniversary of the birth of composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, we'll have performances of his work from London's BBC Proms. Cellist Han-Na Chang is the soloist with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for three meditations from Bernstein's "Mass." And clarinetist Michael Collins performs Bernstein's "Prelude, Fugue and Riffs" with Charles Hazelwood and the BBC Concert Orchestra.

This weekend on PT, pianist Jon Kimura Parker joins us for a conversation and music of Alexina Louie and Peter Schickele. Then we are off to Portland, OR for a performance by a string quartet from San Francisco, CA. Quartet San Francisco plays an arrangement of Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk".

Richard Strauss took works of literature and translated them into instrumental pieces for orchestra that he called "tone poems." We'll have a pair of them from concerts in Europe. Christoph von Dohnanyi leads the North German Radio Symphony in "Don Juan" in Hamburg, Germany. Then Mark Elder conducts the Halle Orchestra in "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" at London"s BBC Proms.

Pianist Jon Kimura Parker sits down with host Fred Child to talk about Mozart cadenzas. Parker throws in all sorts of musical references in his cadenzas, which is what makes them so special. And a little controversial. We'll hear him perform Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Lang Lang isn't the only young Chinese pianist causing an international stir. Yundi Li is also a flamboyant, exciting player. We'll go to Los Angeles to catch him playing a fantastic showcase for his talents -- Franz Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1--with Leonard Slatkin and the L.A. Philharmonic.

We'll go to London's Royal Albert Hall to hear a BBC Proms performance of Antonin Dvorak's sumptuous Sixth Symphony. Yakov Kreizberg leads the Netherlands Philharmonic. Also from the Proms: Sibelius'"Night Ride and Sunrise" from Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony, and the King's Singers with music of Orlando di Lasso.

If you thought cowboys couldn't dance, you'd be wrong. Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera wrote a ballet called "Estancia" about the cowboys of South America, including a foot-stomping final dance. We'll hear a suite from that ballet. Conductor David Zinman led the Aspen Chamber Symphony in a performance of the Estancia Suite last month at the Aspen Music Festival.

Point/counterpoint: Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg says you don't have to change the notes to improvise -- interpretation is a form of improv. Pianist Robert Levin disagrees. We'll consider the question by comparing VERY different versions of the Bach Goldberg Variations. AND... some composers have written pieces intended to sound like improv, but... you have to play the notes they wrote. Schubert "Impromptus," and Poulenc "Improvisations."

Every time pianist Robert Levin plays a concerto by Mozart or Beethoven, he improvises the cadenzas. And even improvises along with the orchestra during their passages. He says Mozart and Beethoven would have done the same, and argues that you MUST improvise in these works to be in the true spirit of the music. Levin joins host Fred Child for some lively conversation and demonstration (improvising three wildly different versions of the same Beethoven cadenza), and we'll hear him improvise his way through Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in concert in Copenhagen.