Performance Today®

We'll have a couple of performances from the lively Philly classical scene on the show today. First, pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn plays a Brahms Scherzo at a Curtis Institute alumni recital. Then, the East Coast Chamber Orchestra performs Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings.

When it comes to playing cadenzas, pianist Robert Levin doesn't believe in doing it by the book. He improvises them whenever he performs a concerto. Hear what he came up with Dallas when he plays Mozart's 24th with Claus Peter Flor and the Dallas Symphony.

Kurt Masur isn't the retiring sort. But, at the age of 80, he's giving up the last of his full-time conducting jobs, the position of music director with the French National Orchestra. Here's an opportunity to hear him lead that ensemble in a work that echoes with triumph, despite the fact that Schumann was trying to stave off mental illness while he wrote it.

Conductor Daniel Barenboim formed the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with young musicians from several Middle Eastern countries. The group performed an historic concert in the Palestinian city of Ramallah on the West Bank, and we'll go there to hear performances of a Mozart Sinfonia Concertante and some of Sir Edward Elgar's "Enigma" Variations.

The symphonies of Shostakovich are powerful musical testaments to a creative life lived under the burden of an oppressive government. And a deep understanding of that comes through in this exceptionally powerful performance of the third and fourth movements. Conductor Yuri Temirkanov leads the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra in concert in Birmingham, England.

Renowned English pianist Imogen Cooper is known for her brilliance with the music of Mozart and Schubert. Now, after four decades on the concert stage, she's performing Bach for the first time. She stopped by our St. Paul studios earlier this week to talk about this new adventure, and to play a Bach partita.

Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet performs works both intimate and expansive on today's "Performance Today." From West Palm Beach, Florida, he'll offer a pair of etudes by Chopin. And we'll follow him to Geneva, Switzerland, where he plays Camille Saint-Saens'"Egyptian" Concerto with Bertrand de Billy and the Orchestra of the Suisse Romande.

Renowned English pianist Imogen Cooper is known for her brilliance with the music of Mozart and Schubert. Now, after four decades on the concert stage, she's performing Bach for the first time. She stopped by our St. Paul studios earlier this week to talk about this new adventure, and to play a Bach partita.

We'll travel to Coral Gables, Florida, to hear music from the Spanish baroque performed by violinist Jordi Savall and Hesperion XXI. And Kristian Bezuidenhout will sit down at the harpsichord and offer a Toccata by Johann Froberger.