Performance Today®

On May 1st, 1968, a group of six choral scholars from King's College in Cambridge, England, performed their first concert. On May 1st of this year, the King's Singers performed a 40th anniversary concert at King's College, Cambridge, inviting their alumni and the King's College Choir to join them. We'll go there to hear them sing works by Jan Sweelinck, Max Reger and Bob Chilcott.

This outstanding pianist joined conductor Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra on their recent U.S. tour, offering critically acclaimed performances of Beethoven's First Piano Concerto. We'll join them at Cleveland's Severance Hall, where they delivered a powerful interpretation.

The disparate moods of Memorial Day - celebrating the unofficial start of summer and honoring those who have died for our country - are reflected in two pieces by Samuel Barber. The Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet plays his "Summer Music" in Athens, Georgia. And the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra offers his Adagio for Strings in Denver.

This weekend on PT, we'll have an hour on poetry, featuring a conversation with mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and a tribute to Federico Garcia Lorca. Then we'll have pianist and poet Stephen Hough talking about what words can do that music can't, and vice versa. He also plays pieces by Emmanuel Chabrier and Mendelssohn in Denver.

Our week on music and literature concludes with a conversation with composer Ned Rorem and librettist J.D. McClatchy. They created an opera version of Thornton Wilder's classic play, "Our Town," and they have some interesting ideas - and some strong disagreements -- about the intersection of words and music. And we'll listen to excerpts from a Juilliard production in New York.

Our week on the confluence of music and literature continues with pianist and poet Stephen Hough talking about what words can do that music can't, and vice versa. He also plays pieces by Emmanuel Chabrier and Mendelssohn in Denver. Then poet Bill Holm reads a poem inspired by Liszt's "Romance Oubliee" before we hear it played by violinist Rachel Barton Pine.

Our week of exploring the intersections between literature and music continues with music inspired by novels... and music that inspired novels. Telemann channels Jonathan Swift, Charles Ives pays homage to the Alcotts, and a Beethoven work gives birth to a Tolstoy novella. Then there are Richard Strauss' take on "Don Quixote," Reynaldo Hahn's Proustian piano pieces, and the poetry that launched Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons."

We're devoting the week to the confluence of music and literature. And we'll hear interesting insights on the subject from composer Dominick Argento and bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff before hearing some Argento from Minneapolis and Quasthoff singing Schubert in Berlin.

We're devoting this week to the places where music meets great writing. Today, we'll have an hour on poetry, featuring a conversation with mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and a tribute to Federico Garcia Lorca. Then we'll explore how myths and legends are retold in instrumental music by Schubert, Cesar Franck, Richard Strauss, Debussy and Bill McGlaughlin.