Not many orchestras even try to play the Variaciones Concertantes by Alberto Ginastera. It's not because musicians or audiences don't like the music. They do. It's just really hard to play well. On this episode of Performance Today, the Spoleto Festival Orchestra gives a thrilling performance of this challenging piece from a concert in Charleston, South Carolina.
Join us for Christmas music played by the Freudenthal Yiddish Orchestra in the klezmer style. Why would a Yiddish orchestra play traditional Christmas tunes? We'll travel to a concert in Sweden to find out on Monday's Performance Today.
The story of Don Juan taps a deep territory in the human psyche: love, betrayal, excess, and death. On this weekend's Performance Today, we'll hear Richard Strauss's explosive tone poem Don Juan, from a concert at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Garrett McQueen guest-hosts.
Recently, pianist Sara Davis Buechner decided to tackle all the piano sonatas by Mozart -- his happy, life-affirming sonatas, his darker, moodier works, and everything in between. On Friday's Performance Today, hear Buechner play Mozart's Fantasy and Sonata in C minor, from a concert in New York City.
Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara was 28 years old when he wrote his Symphony No. 1. It's a fascinating piece that is simply not played often enough. And so... on Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear the Buffalo Philharmonic play the Rautavaara's Symphony No. 1.
The story of Don Juan taps a deep territory in the human psyche: love, betrayal, excess, and death. On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll hear Richard Strauss's explosive tone poem Don Juan, from a concert at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Garrett McQueen guest-hosts.
Aaron Copland was from Brooklyn. He was a city slicker who captured and, to a certain degree, created what we think of as the sound of the old American west. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear a suite from his cowboy ballet, "Billy the Kid."
When Beethoven's ninth symphony was first played in Vienna, it got a tremendous reception. Beethoven was already deaf and the audience knew it. They not only clapped, they threw their hands in the air, and waved handkerchiefs, so Beethoven could see his ovation. On today's episode of Performance Today, hear Ludwig van Beethoven's Ode to Joy, from a concert at the Grand Teton Music Festival.
Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, by Richard Strauss, is a musical fairy-tale... a 15-minute orchestral romp that celebrates a crass, anti-establishment prankster. Hear the Danish National Symphony Orchestra perform the piece, as well as other concert highlights from around the world, on this weekend's Performance Today, with guest-host Yura Lee.
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