Performance Today®

French composer Elsa Barraine lived through the Nazi occupation of Paris, where she organized concerts to support morale and promote resistance. She also supported Jewish musicians whose very lives were in danger. Barraine believed in music as a force for good in this world. On today's show, we'll take you to a concert in Paris to hear Elsa Barraine's Symphony No. 2.

When Richard Strauss wrote his opera Capriccio in 1942, he didn't do the usual big splashy overture for orchestra. The opera begins with a gentle, reflective piece for only half a dozen string players: two violins, two violas, and two cellos. Tune in today to hear the Sextet for Strings from Richard Strauss’s opera Capriccio.

In December 1884, Edvard Grieg premiered a suite of five short celebratory pieces written for his hometown of Bergen, Norway. That suite has become one of his best-known and best-loved works. On today's show, we'll hear Grieg's Holberg Suite from a concert in Skaneateles, New York. 

Two decades after he wrote his Negro Folk Symphony, composer William Dawson traveled to West Africa. Based on what he heard there, he revised his music to convey “...the missing elements that were lost when Africans came into bondage outside their homeland." On today's show, hear Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony played by The Orchestra Now with conductor Leon Botstein.

On today's show, we'll hear some fascinating new music by Navajo composer Juantio Becenti. Becenti found a unique parallel between the Navajo creation story and his own musical journey. Join us to hear the ensemble A Far Cry play The Glittering World by Juantio Becenti at a concert in Rockport, Massachusetts.

Pianist Kirill Gerstein recently released an album called Music in Time of War. The album includes the Etudes Claude Debussy wrote during the First World War and music by composer and musicologist Komitas, who lived through the Armenian Genocide. Fred Child recently spoke with Gerstein about the project and how it reflects on the world. Join us today for a special hour of music and conversation with Kirill Gerstein.

When Stewart Goodyear was a child, he spent quite a few summers with his family in Trinidad, where he was immersed in the sounds of calypso. Now, as a pianist and composer, he's combined calypso with classical music. We'll hear that combination on today's show: 'Callaloo' by Stewart Goodyear.

Composer Julio Medaglia was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1938. He studied conducting in Germany for ten years before returning to Brazil to conduct and compose. For 30 years, he hosted a daily radio show in Sao Paulo that sounded similar to PT, combining concert highlights and contemporary music. On today's show, we'll hear the Imani Winds play Julio Medaglia's 'Belle Epoque en Sud-America,’ including a really fun movement named "Crazy Baby Clarinette!"

Every week on our Piano Puzzler, composer Bruce Adolphe re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a great composer. One of our listeners calls in, tries to guess the tune and the composer whose style Bruce is mimicking. Tune in and play along with our weekly musical game: the Piano Puzzler.