Performance Today®

Music was a part of movies since before they even had sound. During the silent film era, pianists or organists would play along in the theater. From the 1930s on, Hollywood has known the value of music in supporting, and even sometimes creating a sense of emotion and drama. On Wednesday's Performance Today we'll sample powerful music from the movies. A symphony by Mozart that helped to create just the right sense of dread in the 1984 film 'Amadeus.' Music by Grieg, artfully adapted for the 2010 film 'The Social Network.' And Joshua Bell joins Fred Child to talk about a 21st-century violin concerto based on music John Corigliano wrote for the 1993 film 'The Red Violin.'

How many jokes still work after more than 200 years? On Tuesday's Performance Today, Sir Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, in a concert performance of the Symphony No. 90, by Joseph Haydn. Rattle says he loves the elegance and sophistication of Joseph Haydn's writing, but also a silly joke at the end of this piece. If you simply play it the way Haydn wrote it, Rattle says the 200 year-old joke never gets old.

On Monday's Performance Today we'll sample performances from the annual Ojai Festival which begins this Thursday in California. Last year, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes was the music director. We'll hear him perform music by Mozart in what he describes "this place of beauty and slow pulse." And we'll talk with the music director for the 2013 festival: dancer, director and choreographer Mark Morris.

On an early morning walk, Antonin Dvorak heard the song of a red bird, with black wings. Dvorak was transfixed. He quickly scribbled down the melody of that bird song, then hurried home to include the song of the Scarlet Tanager in his new string quartet. We'll hear the Miro Quartet play Dvorak's American Quartet, with that American bird song in the third movement, on this weekend's Performance Today, from APM.

Camille Saint-Saens wrote The Carnival of the Animals for a private party and hoped that would be the last time it was ever heard. He thought it was too goofy to be published or taken seriously. It's now his most popular piece all around the world. We'll hear the hopping kangaroos, the braying donkeys and even the rattling bones of this piece from a concert in Buffalo, New York on Friday's Performance Today

The great voice-over actor, Mel Blanc, was born on this day, May 30th, in 1908. He created voices for Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepe Le Pew, and so many memorable characters in Warner Brothers cartoons. We'll celebrate Mel Blanc's birthday with a few excerpts from classic cartoons, and highlight the classical music they so often featured.

It was an unusually hot day in Paris: May 29th, 1913. But the heat of the late-day sun was nothing compared to the inferno generated by that day's performance at the city's big ballet company. It was an event that would change music forever: the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's ballet, the Rite of Spring. To mark the 100th anniversary of that famous and infamous premiere, music writer Alex Ross tells the story of that musical riot. And we'll go to Dallas to hear Jaap van Zweden lead a concert performance by the Dallas Symphony, on Wednesday's Performance Today.

Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, was an avid music-lover, and a fine flutist. He even wrote a few respectable flute concertos. Which presented a dilemma for his court composer, CPE Bach. Bach was obligated to write concertos for Frederick the Great, but could his be *better* than the King's own concertos? (Never wise to show up the King!) The answer, apparently, was yes. The Flute Concerto in D minor by CPE Bach combines elegance, wit, and virtuosity in a piece that the King found eminently play-able. Fred Child takes us to a concert performance in Regensburg, Germany, on Tuesday's Performance Today.

King Frederick the Great dared J.S. Bach. Could Bach improvise a three-part fugue on a weird melody? Then, he double dared him. Could Bach write a six-part fugue on the same tune? It seemed impossible, but Bach was Bach. Bach's answer to that challenge from King Fred, on Monday's Performance Today.