Performance Today®

In 2004, the executor of an estate in Switzerland found a dusty old book of hand-written music... that he recognized! It was the score that Sergei Rachmaninoff had used to conduct the premiere of his Symphony No. 2 in 1908. On this episode of Performance Today, get the story and hear the Houston Symphony play Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2.

Antonin Dvorak wrote his marvelous Bagatelles as a gift for a dear friend. He never meant them for public performance. Lucky for us, they escaped to the wider world. On this episode of Performance Today, we'll hear Dvorak's Bagatelles from a concert presented by the Seattle Chamber Music Society.

When you're far away, fighting a war, what do you write to your family back home? Do you mention the terrible things you see, or do you simply reassure your family that you're okay? On this episode of Performance Today, hear music inspired by letters from the trenches of World War One: Jonathan Leshnoff's Symphony No. 3.

Chris Brubeck composed a concerto for the Canadian Brass, music with no borders between different musical styles. On this episode of Performance Today, hear the Canadian Brass and the Lexington Philharmonic perform the world premiere of "No Borders" by Chris Brubeck.

Not many pieces can match the romantic drama and sheer virtuosity of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. On this episode of Performance Today, hear a thrilling concert performance by pianist Sergio Tiempo and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

When writing his Piano Concerto No. 3, Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev wrote a single word above a particular point in the composition: "coldly." It's a chilling musical descent, entombed in the concerto's fiery heat. On Friday's Performance Today, pianist Simon Trpceski and the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra perform Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 at a concert in Stavanger, Norway.

In the 1930s, Samuel Barber's career as a composer was blossoming, and he had mixed feelings about it. All of that attention can be exhilarating AND nerve-racking. On this episode of Performance Today, hear music by a young man on the rise, the Symphony No. 1 by Samuel Barber.

In 1874, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov traveled to the northern coast of the Black Sea. The trip left a lasting impression on the composer; he was intoxicated by the Arabic and Turkish music he heard on the streets and in coffee houses. Hear these exotic impressions in a Buffalo Philharmonic performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade on this episode of Performance Today.

On this episode of Performance Today, hear a composition by Valerie Coleman named "Portraits of Josephine"... inspired by the life and times of one of the most famous entertainers of the 20th Century: Josephine Baker.