Performance Today®

Every artistic movement has a life span, like a living thing. From its boisterous, rebellious youth, to its conservative middle-age, to its waning old age, we'll trace the evolution of Romanticism in music. Pretty much everyone agrees it all started with a guy named Beethoven, great at bending and even breaking musical rules. We'll feature music of Beethoven, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and Englishman Gerald Finzi.

Two giant turbines loom large on the stage. Black iron hooks and chains dangle from the ceiling. No, it's not a medieval torture chamber. It's a concert venue, although an admittedly unusual one. It's the Heimbach Power plant in Germany, site of the Spannungen Chamber Music Festival. We'll hear a Dvorak piano quintet from Heimbach today on PT.

Ever since Dmitri Shostakovich premiered his fifth symphony in 1937, critics and musicians have been arguing over what it means. The work is powerful; no one disputes that. But is it power that defies authority, or celebrates it? That's the sticking point. You can hear the final two movements on today's show and decide for yourself. Yuri Temirkanov leads the St. Petersburg Philharmonic of Russia, in concert in Birmingham, England.

An hour of folk-flavored fare reaches a climax with a fiery performance of the Dvorak Cello Concerto. At a concert at Budapest's Palace of Arts, Pieter Wispelwey performs one of the great works for his instrument, in the company of conductor Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. And Bruce Adolphe has the week off, so no Piano Puzzler today. Bruce will be back with a new Puzzler next week.

It's long been known that music has the ability to help transport us out of our daily lives. It's one of the reasons so many of us listen to it. In today's show, we have a whole hour of music about other realms of being, and higher planes of existence. "Visions of Another World," by Karim Al-Zand, "Music of the Spheres," by Josef Strauss, and a Transcendental Etude by Franz Liszt. Plus an ethereal Norwegian vision of heaven from the women of Trio Mediaeval.

Get ready to be joiked. Joiking is a form of native singing in Lapland, in the far north of Scandinavia. Today's special guests, the YL Male Voice Choir of Helsinki, Finland, join host Fred Child for music and conversation, including a joiking demonstration. They also sing music by Finnish composers Jean Sibelius, Einojuhani Rautavaara, and Toivo Kuula, shaking the rafters of Minneapolis' Orchestra Hall with their powerful sound.

Composer Bruce Adolphe joins host Fred Child with one of his entertaining weekly compositions. Adolphe re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a classical composer. A PT listener calls in, and tries to guess the composer whose style Adolphe is mimicking, and the hidden tune. Play along with this week's celebrity caller, the host of American Public Media's "Pipedreams," Michael Barone.

Every Friday, Performance Today features 21st century music. This week, the "Istanbul Symphony" by Fazil Say, dedicated to the city he calls home. We'll hear three movements, each of which paints a musical picture of a scene in Istanbul: the ferry motoring to nearby islands, the bustle of the train station, and the sound of Turkish music shimmering on the night air. Howard Griffith conducts the world premiere performance by the West German Radio Symphony.

Franz Schubert's music can sound warm and sunny one moment, then suddenly become angst-ridden, and just as quickly, go right back to being bright and cheerful. Pianist Shai Wosner joins host Fred Child to talk about the seductively fickle emotional world of Schubert. And Wosner gives a thrilling performance of Schubert's Sonata in A Major (D. 664). Speaking of emotional quick-change artists -- Johannes Brahms used a similar technique in his Hungarian Dances, turning on a dime from brooding reflection to boisterous celebration. We'll hear five Hungarian Dances from a concert last month in Paris.

Composer Bruce Adolphe joins host Fred Child with one of his entertaining weekly compositions. Adolphe re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a classical composer. A PT listener calls in, and tries to guess the composer whose style Adolphe is mimicking, and the hidden tune. Play along with this week's celebrity caller, the host of American Public Media's "Pipedreams," Michael Barone.