Performance Today®

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.

A month after he became a U.S. citizen, composer Igor Stravinsky wrote his Symphony in Three Movements. The New York Philharmonic premiered the piece in 1946; on Friday's Performance Today, we'll hear a much more recent performance by that same ensemble.

Maurice Ravel was 31 when he began writing a piece that he called simply, "La Valse," a light tribute to carefree Viennese waltzes. He set the piece aside, then saw the agony of World War I firsthand. When the 45-year-old Ravel came back to his waltz, the world was different place. He was a different man. And La Valse was no longer a light tribute. Hear pianist Alex Beyer perform Ravel's "La Valse", on Thursday's Performance Today.

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 Wednesday's Performance Today. Yura Lee guest-hosts.