Performance Today®

Le Pont Mirabeau: New music by Wang Jie, composed during PT's 2018 musical tour of Paris and Normandy.

Alan Hovhaness read Dante's Divine Comedy, including the line: "O human race, born to fly upward..." Those words sparked a lifetime of musical ideas, inspired by the idea of space travel. On Tuesday's Performance Today, hear "Star Dawn" by Alan Hovhaness, performed by the United States Marine Band.

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. We'll hear Dvorak's Bagatelles from a concert in Seattle. Plus, concert highlights from the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on the next Performance Today, from APM.

Serge Koussevitzky was famous as a 20th century conductor, but he was also a composer... and a virtuoso on the double bass. On this this weekend's Performance Today, hear Koussevitzky's double bass Concerto, with Robin Kesselman on double bass, in concert with the Houston Symphony.

Leonard Slatkin says conducting gives him a sense of great power and, at the same time, a feeling of helplessness. On Friday's Performance Today, Slatkin talks to us about the curious art of conducting. Plus, we'll hear him lead a performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 4, from a concert in Warsaw, Poland.

Gustav Mahler destroyed nearly all the music he'd written as a teenager. But one piano quartet survives... written when he was just 15 years-old. On Thursday's Performance Today, hear Mahler's youthful Piano Quartet in A minor, from a concert at the Music@Menlo festival.

Serge Koussevitzky was famous as a 20th century conductor, but he was also a composer... and a virtuoso on the double bass. On Wednesday's Performance Today, hear Koussevitzky's double bass Concerto, with Robin Kesselman on double bass, in concert with the Houston Symphony.

The way you start your day says a lot about you. For pianist Andras Schiff, it's almost always the same; he spends an hour or so playing music preludes and fugues by Johann Sebastian Bach. On Tuesday's Performance Today, hear Andras Schiff play Prelude and Fugue No. 24 from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2.

Franz Schubert wrote a fantasy so demanding and difficult that he himself was unable to play it. Never fear... we'll hear from a pianist who can! On Monday's Performance Today, Juho Pohjonen gives a virtuoso performance of the Wanderer Fantasy in concert at the Music@Menlo Festival.