William Shakespeare's dramas have provided creative fodder for countless composers. Verdi's dramatic opera "Otello," Mendelssohn's gossamer incidental music to "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and Prokofiev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet," just to name a few. In today's show, two works of cross-pollination based on Shakespeare's plays: Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" Fantasy Overture, and Three Dramatic Scenes, by Jules Massenet.
Vienna's Musikverein is one of those spectacular old European concert halls. The walls and ceilings shimmer with real gold. And the acoustics are every bit as magnificent as the decor. Up until recently, pianist Lang Lang had never played there. He finally got his chance, playing a solo recital that included Beethoven's "Appassionata" Sonata. It's in today's show. Plus, we'll hear a performance from the Musikverein from a special New Year's Day concert. Daniel Barenboim and the Vienna Philharmonic rattled those golden walls and ceilings with Johann Strauss, Jr.'s "Thunder and Lightning Polka."
On this Martin Luther King Day, our entire show is devoted to a celebration of the life of Dr. King. Music was an important force in the civil rights movement, and important in the personal life of Dr. King as well. We'll hear performances from the annual King Celebration concert in his home town of Atlanta. We'll hear classical musicians talk about what King's legacy means to them. And the great American soprano Jessye Norman sings a traditional spiritual.
It took almost three years to build Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, Tennessee. And only a few days to nearly destroy it. Devastating floods hit the region last spring. Schermerhorn took on 24 feet of flood water. But after an intensive rehabilitation effort, the hall is back. PT host Fred Child was there last week to mark the event. We'll hear the Nashville Symphony in Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, from that special concert last week at the Schermerhorn.
When we first aired a performance of Osvaldo Golijov's "Azul," we were flooded with listener calls and emails. They used words like wonderful, exciting, genius, original, electrifying, mesmerizing, and transformational. "Azul" is back on today's show, in a performance featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
It took almost three years to build Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, Tennessee. And only a few days to nearly destroy it. Devastating floods hit the region last spring. Schermerhorn took on 24 feet of flood water. But after an intensive rehabilitation effort, the hall is back. PT host Fred Child was there last week to mark the event. We'll hear the Nashville Symphony in Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, from that special concert last week at the Schermerhorn.
Edward Elgar populated his Enigma Variations with loving portraits of his wife, his friends, even a bulldog named Dan. In one variation, Elgar paints a comical portrait of a bruised doggie ego: Dan tumbles down a hill, falls into a river, waddles out, shakes himself off, and barks furiously. We'll hear a performance by the Swedish Radio Symphony that careens from the comical to the touching, just as Elgar intended.
Times were tough for Mozart in the summer of 1788. His financial life was a shambles, and he was reduced to writing a series of pitiful letters to a friend, pleading for money. But at the same time, he was also writing his final three symphonies, each of them a masterpiece. He churned them out over the course of two months that summer. We'll hear Mozart's Symphony Number 39, from a concert by James Levine and the Boston Symphony.
The sea. It's where life on earth began. And by some measure, Claude Debussy's "La Mer" (the Sea) is where 20th century music began. Completed in 1905, it's an orchestral masterpiece, an amazingly complex piece of music with a disarmingly simple name. We'll hear a terrific performance by the London Symphony Orchestra and Antonio Pappano, from London's Barbican Hall.
