Performance Today®

The only American orchestra to play at the Proms in London this year was the Minnesota Orchestra. They wrapped up the second of their two Proms concerts with a powerful and exciting performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. One critic called it "a Beethoven Ninth for our times." We'll hear the final two movements of the Ninth from that memorable Proms concert, as well as the last half of Anton Bruckner's massive Fourth Symphony. Music director Osmo Vanska led the performance.

There's a word in the Finnish language called "sisu." It means a sort of grim determination in the face of adversity. Those who know the Finnish culture and personality say they're infused through-and-through with sisu. In today's show, Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen leading the New Zealand Symphony in the Third Symphony by fellow Finn Jean Sibelius. And a piece that Sibelius called festive, his Andante Festivo. But it's the kind of festive that only a Finn with a whole lot of sisu could have written.

Tonight is opening night for one of the top orchestras in the country: the New York Philharmonic. Alan Gilbert begins his second season as music director. Host Fred Child will be there, as part of public television's "Live from Lincoln Center" series. To celebrate, we've got an all-New York hour of PT, including a highlight from last season. Alan Gilbert leads the New York Philharmonic in two movements from Mahler's Third Symphony, from a concert last September, on Gilbert's second day as music director. Plus, performances from the 92nd Street Y and New York's Columbia University.

It's not often that Beethoven is characterized as feminine. And yet conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin does just that when he describes the long, beautiful melodic lines in Beethoven's Third Symphony, the "Eroica." Nezet-Seguin brings out both the masculine and the feminine sides of Beethoven in a performance of the Eroica with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, at the Proms in London. And Herbert Blomstedt leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony, from a concert at Walt Disney Hall. Mendelssohn got the inspiration for the music while on holiday in Scotland.

Hector Berlioz' opera "Benvenuto Cellini" was an unqualified disaster. After the premiere, Berlioz wrote that the audience "hissed with admirable energy and unanimity." Undaunted, he decided to salvage what he could from the opera. He reworked a few themes from a carnival scene, added some new material, and called it the Roman Carnival Overture. It was an instant hit. Berlioz' recycled hit, plus pianist Mitsuko Uchida playing a Mozart concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra, coming up on Performance Today.

Recording technology has evolved a long way from the early scratchy mono recordings of a century ago. This weekend, PT listeners with surround sound technology can enjoy Franz Schubert coming at them from every direction. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra plays his Second Symphony, recorded in surround sound. And don't worry. If you don't have surround sound, it will sound just like a regular broadcast. Plus, Joshua Bell plays Mendelssohn at Aspen.

Ralph Vaughan Williams began writing a cello concerto in the 1940s, but never finished. The fragmentary manuscript is in the British Museum in London. Cellist Steven Isserlis was thrilled to get a look at it recently, and asked composer David Matthews to take a peek. This year, Matthews incorporated that 4-minute fragment into a longer original piece that he calls "Dark Pastoral." On Friday's PT, the world premiere performance from a concert two weeks ago at the Proms in London. Steven Isserlis solos with the BBC Concert Orchestra. Also from the 2010 Proms, "Mashup" by Chris Willis, combining tunes from about a dozen and a half classical favorites.

Recording technology has evolved a long way from the early scratchy mono recordings of a century ago. In today's show, PT listeners with surround sound technology can enjoy Franz Schubert coming at them from every direction. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra plays his Second Symphony, recorded in surround sound. And don't worry. If you don't have surround sound, it will sound just like a regular broadcast. Plus, more celebrations of the Mexican bicentennial: music by Silvestre Revueltas and Juventino Rosas.

"My friends and countrymen: the king exists for us no longer...The moment of our freedom has arrived, the hour of our liberty has struck." Those words marked Mexico's declaration of independence from Spain exactly 200 years ago. Today and tomorrow, PT is celebrating Mexico's bicentennial. We're featuring performances of Mexican music, by two Mexican conductors, and a Mexican symphony orchestra.