Music of Life and Death

‘Performance Today’ has selected performer and composer Jessie Montgomery as the 2025 Classical Woman of the Year. This annual award recognizes women who have made significant contributions to the classical music art form and have inspired our listeners. Find out more!

Johannes Brahms described his fourth symphony as "dark and melancholy." The powerful final movement is built on a theme from a Bach cantata, creating a massive, ebbing chaconne that balances gravity and beauty. Today, Gianandrea Noseda conducts the Zurich Philharmonia in a performance of Brahms's Symphony No. 4.

When Felix Mendelssohn was in his late teens, he processed his first romantic heartbreak by "breaking up" one of his own songs and weaving its fragments into his String Quartet No. 2. On today's show, we'll hear the Pacifica Quartet perform this emotionally charged work, which was once famously—and perhaps fittingly—mistaken for the music of Beethoven.

Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason draws inspiration from Clara Schumann both as a musician and as a powerful female role model. On today's show, Kanneh-Mason performs Schumann’s Piano Concerto, a piece Schumann began composing at just 13 years old.

On today’s episode, we're featuring the world premiere of a new suite by Hanna Helgegren. Inspired by the quiet magic of the forests and bogs near her home in rural Sweden, the work pays tribute to the natural world. On today's show, we'll hear the Camerata Nordica Octet perform Helgegren’s "The Nordic Seasons."

Violinist James Ehnes says Dvořák's Violin Concerto can surprise listeners. Many violin concertos emphasize high, soaring notes, but Dvořák’s work highlights the rich, warm colors of the violin’s lower register. Join us today to hear Dvořák's concerto performed by James Ehnes and the Minnesota Orchestra, with Edward Gardner conducting.

For composer Kevin Puts, the key of C major is a sonic representation of "home." It's familiar and comforting. In 2019, Puts wrote a string quartet that begins in that familiar key, but the music soon moves into what Puts calls "the search for new and unfamiliar harmonic terrain." He wanted the music to explore the sonic possibilities, but then return to his musical idea of home. Puts knew that, however he got there, the feeling of home would be changed by the journey. Join us today to hear the Miro Quartet play Home by Kevin Puts.

Today, we're featuring the world premiere of a new suite by Hanna Helgegren. Inspired by the quiet magic of the forests and bogs near her home in rural Sweden, the work pays tribute to the natural world. On today's show, we'll hear the Camerata Nordica Octet perform Helgegren’s "The Nordic Seasons."

Composer Jimmy Lopez says the pulse of techno music is instantly recognizable in any dance hall or club around the world —a steady, thumping rhythm that you feel in your body. Tune in today to hear the thrilling power of techno combined with world music: Fiesta! by Jimmy Lopez.

In the spring of 1968, the late conductor Paul Freeman ran into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Atlanta airport. Their brief conversation was one he never forgot. On this episode of Performance Today, hear about that life-changing encounter in our musical celebration of King's life and legacy.