Sponsor
Support Performance Today with your Amazon.com purchases
Search Amazon.com:
Keywords:
  • News/Talk
  • Music
  • Entertainment
Performance Today homepage

February 26, 2009

Alice gets a face lift

She's over 40 now, and her age was beginning to show. So Alice got a face lift recently. It took two years and about $160 million, but the results are smashing. Today we'll visit the newly-renovated Alice Tully Hall in New York City to hear last Sunday's grand re-opening concert. We'll hear from Hesperion XXI and the Juilliard Orchestra, under the direction of David Robertson.

Today's Playlist

hour 1

  • Modest Mussorgsky
    Entr'acte from "Kovanschina"
    The Cleveland Orchestra with conductor Oliver Knussen
  • Isaac Albeniz
    "Torre Bermeja," from "Doce Piezas Caracteristicas," Op. 92, No. 12
    Guitarist Jason Vieaux
    92nd Street Y, New York City
  • Max Bruch
    Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26
    Violinist Sergey Khachatryan with the Cleveland Orchestra and conductor Kurt Masur
    Severance Hall, Cleveland
  • Traditional
    "Three Sephardic Romances"
    Hesperion XXI
    Alice Tully Hall, New York City
  • Igor Stravinsky
    Final Movement from Pulcinella Suite
    Members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center with the Juilliard Orchestra and conductor David Robertson
    Alice Tully Hall, New York City

hour 2

  • Erich Korngold
    "Caprice Fantastique"
    Violinist Sonja van Beek and pianist Andreas Frolich
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
    Clarinet Concerto in A, K. 622
    Clarinetist Franklin Cohen with the Cleveland Orchestra and conductor Alan Gilbert
    Severance Hall, Cleveland
  • Erich Korngold
    Suite from "Much Ado About Nothing," Op. 11
    Violinist Yoon Kwon and pianist Anthony Newman
    Summerfest La Jolla, La Jolla, California
Today's Fredlines

Fred Child

Music and Silence

Posted at 9:25 PM on August 31, 2009 (5 Comments)

Robert Fripp: "Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence."

Aldous Huxley: "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."

Marcel Marceau: "Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music."

Leopold Stokowski (to an audience not providing enough silence): "A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the silence."

Former pianist, now anonymous monk: "Silence is my music now."

Edith Sitwell: "My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence."

Music theorist Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis: "The same acoustic silence, embedded in two different excerpts, can be perceived dramatically differently."

John Cage, on reaction to his 'silent' piece 4'33": "They missed the point. There's no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn't know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began patterning the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out."
Quoted by Richard Kostelanetz in his 2003 book, "Conversing with John Cage."

Comment on this post

Today in Music History

For more music history, visit Composers Datebook.

Program Archive



Questions or Comments?
Call 1-866-943-4450


Special Features

In-studio with Lang Lang, David Chan and Hai-Ye Ni In-studio with Lang Lang, David Chan and Hai-Ye Ni
Pianist Lang Lang is a superstar soloist among classical musicians, but that hectic schedule often keeps him from performing chamber music. Until now. Listen to Lang Lang's in-studio chamber performance two other musical powerhouses: concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra David Chan and principal cellist with the Philadelphia Orchestra Hai-Ye Ni.
Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio

New Classical Tracks with Julie Amacher New Classical Tracks with Julie Amacher
Julie Amacher provides an in-depth exploration of a new classical music. This week, Gustavo Dudamel's "Discoveries".
Dudamel Discoveries 11/19/2009
Download mp3 (right click and save)

Lost Gem 11/12/2009
Download mp3 (right click and save)

Star Power 11/05/2009
Download mp3 (right click and save)

Oslo Chamber Choir - Hakon Daniel Nystedt, conductor For information about purchasing a CD of the Oslo Chamber Choir please contact the Oslo Chamber Choir.

In studio with the Oslo Chamber Choir
The Oslo Chamber Choir joins host Fred Child in the studio during their American tour. The choir performs some lively traditional Norwegian folk songs as well some haunting arrangements of classical songs by Anton Bruckner, Edvard Grieg and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Those songs have a lingering melancholy which,the choir's conductor, Hakon Daniel Nystedt jokes "is our speciality."
PART I: Grieg and A Wedding March
PART II: Sheep herding songs and Rachmaninoff

Steve Reich Steve Reich
PT listeners responded in droves to "New York Counterpoint," a modern classic by Steve Reich. We often read listener emails on the air, but this time we've shared them with the composer, too. Steve Reich joins Fred to comment on our listener comments, share his thoughts about the piece, and reflect on his own evolution as a composer.
Listen to the interview

Fleck-Meyer-Hussain Trio in Miami Fleck-Meyer-Hussain Trio in Miami
Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Zakir Hussain are musical legends in their own right: on the banjo, on the double bass and on the tabla drum. They come from very different traditions, but these musicians have found some fascinating musical common ground as a trio. Fred Child joined them onstage for a live interview and performance in Miami, Florida. Their visit was hosted by Classical South Florida and made possible by the Rhythm Foundation.
Onstage in Miami

Thomas Hampson's 'Song of America'
Free Download of Thomas Hampson's 'Song of America' recital!
Thomas Hampson chose America's heartland - specifically Minnesota's bluff country - to kick off his Song of America tour. He gave a spectacular recital from three centuries of song at the Minnesota Beethoven Festival in Winona.
Download the concert for free.

Paul Moravec: I'll Be Seeing You I'll Be Seeing You
In 2002 composer Paul Moravec wrote a piece inspired by a 1945 photograph of his parents. At the time, the young couple was not yet married and Vince, his father, was on leave from the Navy. They didn't know if they would ever see each other again. Moravec took a few notes from their favorite song, "I'll Be Seeing You", and created a new song inspired by that photograph.
Listen to Vince and Jan: 1945 by Paul Moravec

In-studio: Pierre-Laurent Aimard
In-studio: Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Pierre-Laurent Aimard makes work fun. The pianist joins host Fred Child in the studio to talk about and perform etudes by Claude Debussy. Etudes are studies for the piano, but Aimard reveals their artistic and thoughtful character.
Listen to Aimard's performance

Young People's Chorus of New York City
Young People's Chorus of New York City
Download Radio Radiance, a podcast collaboration between YPC, WNYC New York Public Radio and American Public Media. In each audio file you'll hear a performance of a new work by the the Young People's Chorus and conductor Francisco J. Núñez, plus an interview with the composer. (To download, right click then save the audio file.)
Crosstown M42 by Rob Kapilow and Fred Newman
Picaflor Esmeralda by Gabriela Lena Frank
Things by Meredith Monk
Liement Me Deport by Eve Beglarian



Puzzler Podcast


The Piano Puzzler® with Bruce Adolphe is now available for download and as a podcast.

Your support makes our online services possible. Contribute Now.

Performance Today is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts - which believes that a great nation deserves great art - and also by The Huss Foundation, the Mardag Foundation, the Katherine B. Andersen Fund of The Saint Paul Foundation, the Phyllis S. Poehler / Walter E. Stremel Trust, and Emily Anne & Gedney Tuttle, and the Friends of Performance Today: Cy and Paula DeCosse, Connie and Dan Kunin.


Broadcast of work by living American composers on Performance Today is supported, in part, by the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.

Performance Today® was created
by National Public Radio.