Performance Today®

A lot of outstanding orchestras perform at London's BBC Proms. So what does the top hometown band, the London Symphony, do to re-assert its status as one of the best? At a concert two weeks ago, Valery Gergiev led them in Tchaikovsky's complete music for the ballet, "Sleeping Beauty," all three-plus hours of it. We'll have excerpts from that concert both today and tomorrow.

We'll spend most of our second hour with music inspired by summer. The Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet plays Samuel Barber's "Summer Music" in Cleveland. And violinist Joshua Bell plays "Spring" and "Summer" from Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" with the UBS Festival Chamber Orchestra at California's Festival del Sole.

Sergei Rachmaninoff's first symphony had a disastrous premiere. The critics hated it. Even Rachmaninoff decided he didn't like it. It was never played again during his life. But the piece has been resurrected, and it received a sizzling performance last month at the Proms in London. We'll take you there today on PT.

We'll hear music about two great cities from London's BBC Proms Music Festival. First, Duke Ellington's musical depiction of Harlem on a Sunday morning, played by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Next, George Gershwin's classic, "An American in Paris," courtesy of the BBC Concert Orchestra. Plus lots more American music for the Labor Day holiday.

We'll conclude two days of music from last Thursday's final American concert by the Beaux Arts Trio. The legendary piano trio performed an all-Schubert program at the Tanglewood Festival in Massachusetts. On today's show, they'll play Schubert's Piano Trio No. 1.

On the grounds of a vineyard in California's Napa Valley, violinist Joshua Bell recently led the UBS Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra in a concert. We'll hear them perform an arrangement for string orchestra that Gustav Mahler made of Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" String Quartet.

We'll conclude two days of music from last Thursday's final American concert by the Beaux Arts Trio. The legendary piano trio performed an all-Schubert program at the Tanglewood Festival in Massachusetts. On today's show, they'll play Schubert's Piano Trio No. 1.

Last Thursday, the legendary Beaux Arts Trio played its final American concert at the venue where it debuted 53 years ago: The Tanglewood Festival in Massachusetts. We'll take you there for the final piece on the program, a piano trio by Schubert, followed by an encore by Dvorak.

A Chinese folk tale became music in the hands of composers Chen Gang and He Zhanhao. And violinist Gil Shaham decided that he wanted to share this beautiful piece with the world. He's joined by Lan Shui and the Singapore Symphony for the "Butterfly Lovers" Violin Concerto.