Performance Today®

We spent the past week on Performance Today featuring the legendary Marlboro Music Festival in Marlboro, Vermont. Host Fred Child spent some time there recently. It's a rare "republic of equals," as its founder Rudolf Serkin called it, with young professionals and seasoned veterans playing side-by-side. This weekend, we'll hear about the magic of Marlboro from the people who make it their home for seven weeks each summer. Plus, Bruce Adolphe drops by for another Piano Puzzler.

Mitsuko Uchida's phrasing at the piano is lilting and expressive. Her speaking voice can take on similar musical qualities -- swooping melodies, delicate pauses, sudden passionate crescendos, bursts of evocative laughter. Uchida is one of two Artistic Directors at Marlboro Music in Vermont, along with fellow pianist Richard Goode. They'll reflect on the essence of Marlboro, and how their experiences there have changed them. And cellist Peter Wiley takes us inside his rehearsal process this summer at Marlboro, deconstructing and rebuilding the Brahms C-Major Piano Trio. We'll hear the results from a concert three weeks ago, and a pair of chamber pieces for winds by Beethoven and Strauss, all from Marlboro Music in Vermont.

At Marlboro Music in Vermont, every chamber music ensemble brings together top-notch young professional musicians with living legends. Their intense rehearsals continue for weeks at a time, and young players arriving for their first summers at Marlboro can feel intimidated at the prospect. Today, musicians young and old will talk about their wide-eyed awe at arriving at Marlboro for the first time, and how the Marlboro process helped bring out their own creativity and confidence. And we'll hear an all-star septet in concert at Marlboro two weeks ago: harpist Sivan Magen leads a performance of the Introduction and Allegro by Maurice Ravel. Plus, Hilary Hahn plays Beethoven's Violin Concerto at the Proms, and the Cleveland Orchestra plays Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade at Severance Hall.

We're continuing our week-long look at the Marlboro Music Festival in Marlboro, Vermont. Co-artistic director Mitsuko Uchida sums up the magic of the place: "Time passes very slowly in Marlboro, and at the same time very fast. You blink, and seven weeks are gone. But it seems as if you had eternity in your hands." We'll hear a couple of standout Marlboro performances today. Plus, the New York Philharmonic, at home and on the road in Hanoi.

The serious and the silly from Marlboro Music, in Vermont. We'll hear an astonishing 2007 performance that exemplifies the Marlboro practice of teaming young professionals with chamber music veterans: the then 17-year-old violin phenom Benjamin Beilman with an ensemble that includes venerable violist Samuel Rhodes, and pianist Richard Goode, co-Artistic Director of Marlboro Music. We'll hear their performance of the f-minor Piano Quintet, by Brahms. With so much intense rehearsal and performance every summer at Marlboro, there are some long-standing traditions for blowing off steam: elaborate pranks, and throwing wadded-up napkins in the dining hall. Half a dozen musicians from this year's festival weigh in on the joy (and the distraction) of Marlboro's napkin balls and pranks.

All this week on Performance Today, we'll be visiting the legendary Marlboro Music Festival in Marlboro, Vermont. Host Fred Child spent some time there recently. It's a rare "republic of equals," as its founder Rudolf Serkin called it, with young professionals and seasoned veterans playing side-by-side. As the week unfolds, we'll hear about the magic of Marlboro from the people who make it their home for seven weeks each summer.

Ah, the eternal question: to clap, or not to clap between movements? The debate has been rekindled at the BBC Proms in London this summer. Some audience members are applauding between movements without being shushed by their neighbors, and according to some observers, they're eliciting pleasure from musicians on stage. We'll hear two examples from concerts last week. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic played the first two movements from Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony, and got applause after both. Pianist Paul Lewis and the BBC Symphony got applause after the first and last movements of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4. And feel free to clap for composer Bruce Adolphe, who has a brand new Piano Puzzler this week.

Alexander Scriabin would have balked at the word composer. He was so much more than that. A mystic, a metaphysician, one who would bring about the enlightenment and salvation of humankind through art. While his musical contributions were significant, they didn't quite measure up to all that. Pianist Nelson Goerner taps into his inner mystic to bring Scriabin's wild and quirky piano concerto to life, from a concert last week at the BBC Proms in London.

No one ever accused Gustav Mahler of being overly modest. When he finished his Eighth Symphony, he wrote, "Try to imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound. There are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving." It's art on the grandest of scales, Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand. We'll hear Part One, from the opening concert at this year's BBC Proms in London.