Performance Today®

The Bergen Philharmonic is one of the world's oldest orchestras. But the ensemble is gaining fresh acclaim since American conductor Andrew Litton became its music director. During its first U.S. tour in 41 years, the orchestra offered a smashing performance of Tchaikovsky's Fourth in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Conductor Franz Welser-Most says that his interpretation of Robert Schumann's Fourth Symphony is informed by the art and poetry that Germany produced in the Romantic era. Listen to the lush and lovely performance that he and the Cleveland Orchestra deliver at Severance Hall in Cleveland.

The Bergen Philharmonic is one of the world's oldest orchestras. But the ensemble is gaining fresh acclaim since American conductor Andrew Litton became its music director. During its first U.S. tour in 41 years, the orchestra offered a smashing performance of Tchaikovsky's Fourth in West Palm Beach, Florida.

For a concert at this spring's Lucerne Festival, conductor Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony devoted the evening to music from the operas of Richard Wagner. We'll drop in to hear a pair of great orchestral showcases: "Siegfried's Funeral March" from "Gotterdammerung," and the Overture to "Tannhauser."

Some young pianists may be fleet of fingers, but there's something special about a veteran player who can reach into the depths of a piece and come up with fresh insights from a familiar work. Maurizio Pollini does that when he performs Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24, conducting the Vienna Philharmonic from the keyboard at the Musikverein in Vienna.

The lush sound of the Philadelphia Orchestra is an ideal fit for Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. We'll go to the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia to hear Christoph Eschenbach conduct the final three movements of this emotionally turbulent masterpiece.

This weekend on PT violinist Corey Cerovsek and pianist Wendy Chen perform a Saint-Saens sonata in Athens, Georgia. And Jeffrey Kahane leads the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in Haydn's 98th Symphony in Westwood, California.

After we hear William Walton's musical evocation of this etching by Thomas Rowlandson, Fred Child sits down in our Maud Moon Weyerhaeuser Music Studio for a chat with pianist Rudolf Buchbinder. He's a lover of the live experience: Almost all of his recordings are from concerts. But he'll break with form by playing Schubert and Johann Strauss in the studio. Then we'll go to Amsterdam to hear him perform music from Brahms' Second Piano Concerto.

There's a new PBS documentary about conductor Valery Gergiev called "Maestro." We'll meet up with the maestro in Amsterdam, where he'll lead the Rotterdam Philharmonic in Mozart's final (and arguably greatest) symphony, the "Jupiter." We'll also go to a recital in London, where the all-star team of violinist Joshua Bell and cellist Steven Isserlis performs some duets by Reinhold Gliere.