Performance Today®

When Sergei Prokofiev's First Piano Concerto premiered in 1918 in New York, one critic called it "a duel, a battle to the death between the pianist and the piano." He said the piano could be heard "shrieking, groaning, howling, and fighting back." Funny how what's outrageous to listeners in one century is embraced by another. The concerto now gets a warm reception from audiences. We'll hear Bulgarian pianist Plamena Mangova performing it in Madrid, Spain.

When it came to writing symphonies, Johannes Brahms was a late bloomer. He didn't publish his first symphony until he was in his mid-forties. He claimed that the shadow of Beethoven was looming too large over him. Brahms ultimately overcame his uneasiness about it, and wrote four symphonic masterpieces. We'll hear his fourth symphony in today's show, performed by Christoph von Dohnanyi and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London.

In a 1980 interview with NPR, composer Aaron Copland chuckled when he talked about misconceptions people have about his ballet, "Appalachian Spring.""I was not thinking about the Appalachian Mountains when I wrote it. People are very disappointed to hear me say that." In today's show, the story of how the "Ballet for Martha" became "Appalachian Spring," and a performance by the Knights in Stillwater, Minnesota. Plus, Bruce Adolphe stops by for a new Piano Puzzler.

Ukrainian pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk saw everything slip away in an instant seven years ago, when a car crash led to a month-long coma. Gavrylyuk has fully recovered from that accident, and his playing is more powerful and poetic than ever. We'll hear him play Chopin and Scriabin Etudes in concert in Miami. And another musician who has come back from a potentially devastating injury: violinist Peter Oundjian lost full use of his left hand due to a repetitive stress disorder. So he took up conducting. Today he'll lead the Toronto Symphony in excerpts from Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 4.

Today we'll meet the newest PT Artists in Residence, the nine men of the vocal ensemble Cantus. They'll be involved with the show over the course of the musical season. Today, we'll hear Cantus in a special Thanksgiving Day perfchat. They perform a number of songs, including Jean Sibelius'"Finlandia," the Shaker tune "Simple Gifts," and Bobby McFerrin's setting of the 23rd Psalm. Plus, a string quartet by a man who had a profound impact on American music, Antonin Dvorak.

In a 1980 interview with NPR, composer Aaron Copland chuckled when he talked about misconceptions people have about his ballet, "Appalachian Spring.""I was not thinking about the Appalachian Mountains when I wrote it. People are very disappointed to hear me say that." In today's show, the story of how the "Ballet for Martha" became "Appalachian Spring," and a performance by the Knights in Stillwater, Minnesota. Plus, Bruce Adolphe stops by for a new Piano Puzzler.

The members of the Parker Quartet were Performance Today's Artists in Residence last season. We'll check in on what they've been up to lately, and hear one of their performances, a Haydn quartet recorded in our St. Paul studio. And be sure to tune in to Thursday's show, where we'll meet this season's Artists in Residence: the men of the vocal ensemble Cantus.

It's expected for an artist to sign his or her work in the bottom corner of a painting. In this hour, the musical signature that Sergei Rachmaninoff used in a number of his works. It shows up at the end of his Second Piano Concerto. We'll hear a performance by pianist Alexander Kobrin and the KBS Symphony Orchestra of South Korea, and the sweet Schumann encore Kobrin played when it was over.

This weekend, a performance of a suite from Manuel de Falla's ballet, "The Three-Cornered Hat," by the New York Philharmonic. There were two advantages to having Pablo Picasso working on the premiere for the ballet in 1919. The first was having him paint the stage curtain with a swirling bullfight scene, in a way only Picasso could do. The second happened at a party following the opening of the ballet. Picasso grabbed a pencil and drew a celebratory laurel wreath on de Falla's bald head. Plus, composer Bruce Adolphe, who earns his laurel wreath each and every week with his Piano Puzzlers.