American Public Media’s Performance Today® is America’s most popular classical music radio program and a winner of the 2014 Gabriel Award for artistic achievement. The show is broadcast on hundreds of public radio stations across the country, including at 1 p.m. central weekdays on Minnesota Public Radio. More information about our stations can be found at APM Distribution.
Trolls, goblins, and gnomes - we'll join them all in the Hall of the Mountain King. On Friday's Performance Today, we'll hear Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite; plus, pianist Joyce Yang plays Grieg's Piano Concerto in concert at the Aspen Festival.
Christoph von Dohnanyi is a rarity among conductors. Not only is he respected by the orchestras that he works with, he is loved and greatly admired by them as well. On Thursday's Performance Today, Christoph von Dohnanyi leads the New York Philharmonic in Symphony No. 9, the 'New World Symphony', by Antonin Dvorak.
In 1996, a group of musical friends got together and formed an ensemble that would focus on playing Baroque era music. They named their group Tempesta di Mare ('The Storm at Sea'), inspired by the subtitle of a Vivaldi concerto. On Wednesday's Performance Today, hear Tempesta di Mare play a concerto for two recorders by William Babell, from a concert performed in their hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Camille Saint-Saens completed his last symphony in 1886, and said "I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again." It's a rare composition for full orchestra and organ. On Tuesday's Performance Today, hear Saint-Saen's Symphony No. 3, the 'Organ Symphony', performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, with Thierry Escaich on the organ.
In the 1850's, nine year-old Antonin Dvorak became transfixed by trains and railroads. In the following decades, the composer made visits to train stations a part of his daily life. In 1884, a musical theme popped into his head, triggered by the sound an arriving train. On Monday's Performance Today, hear this inspired theme and more of Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 7, in a concert performance by the Nashville Symphony.
Join the audience at Walt Disney Concert Hall as pianist Lang Lang and the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform the Piano Concerto No. 3 by Prokofiev. On this weekend's Performance Today, we have another Piano Puzzler and additional concert highlights from across the country.
Sergei Rachmaninoff finished his symphonic poem 'Isle of the Dead' while in Dresden in 1908. His inspiration was a black and white reproduction of Arnold Bocklin's painting 'Isle of the Dead', which Rachmaninoff had seen a year earlier. Rachmaninoff later saw the original painting, but said he preferred it in black and white. Black and white, yet full of color, you'll hear it on Friday's Performance Today.
During the 1870s, Czech composer Bedrich Smetana wrote a suite of six self-standing symphonic poems inspired by the legends and landscapes of his homeland. On Thursday's Performance Today, the Czech Philharmonic plays selections from 'Ma vlast' (My Homeland), from a live performance recorded in Tokyo, Japan.
When writing his Piano Concerto No. 3, Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev wrote a single word above a particular point in the composition..."coldly". He wants a chill to run down your spine. It's a chilling musical descent, entombed in the concerto's fiery heat. Join the audience as pianist Lang Lang and the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform the Piano Concerto No. 3 by Prokofiev.
