Richard Wagner's operas are so epic, they're sometimes an inch away from being self-parody. On Thursday's Performance Today, the Cleveland Orchestra gives a serious (and seriously great) performance of the Ride of the Valkyries.
Violinists work for years to be able to play just one of Niccolo Paganini's 24 caprices. Then along came a pianist who said, "anything you can do, I can do better." On Wednesday's Performance Today we'll hear the result of that attitude: Sergei Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini.
Just south of San Francisco, the 2014 Music@Menlo Festival is in full swing. PT will be there later this week, and in the meantime we'll bring you concert highlights from Menlo, including a string quartet by Franz Schubert featuring cellist and Music@Menlo founder, David Finckel.
The 2014 Aspen Music Festival features more than 300 concerts and musical events. On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear a highlight from three weeks ago - the great English pianist Stephen Hough playing fantasies by Johannes Brahms.
On this weekend's Performance Today, the Vienna Philharmonic dazzles with a performance of Mozart's Haffner Serenade. Plus, Bruce Adolphe joins us for this week's Piano Puzzler.
American conductor and violinist Lorin Maazel died recently at the age of 84. On Friday's Performance Today we'll hear a highlight from the Maestro's long career; Maazel leading the New York Philharmonic in Igor Stravinsky's Song of the Nightingale.
Violinist Robyn Bollinger is one of the current crop of PT Young Artists in Residence. She also has the distinction of having attended rehearsals since before she was born. On Thursday's Performance Today, she joins Fred in the studio to talk about her musical history and to perform music by Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Paganini.
On Wednesday's Performance Today, the Vienna Philharmonic dazzles with a performance of Mozart's Haffner Serenade. Plus, Bruce Adolphe joins us for this week's Piano Puzzler.
In 1939, Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly wrote a set of shimmering variations on a song about escaping from tyranny; the piece was promptly banned by the Hungarian authorities. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear it from a concert in Buffalo, New York.
