Performance Today®

Gustav Mahler got over a bad breakup by writing his Symphony No. 1. He confided to a friend: "The music begins where the love affair ends." Mahler's First, from a concert by the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, on Monday's Performance Today.

Pianist Saleem Ashkar says he never heard classical music growing up in Israel. Then, when he was six years old, Saleem's father traded a car for a piano... and Saleem found his calling. On Saturday's Performance Today, Saleem Ashkar plays Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Luxembourg Philharmonic.

Pianist Saleem Ashkar says he never heard classical music growing up in Israel. Then, when he was six years old, Saleem's father traded a car for a piano... and Saleem found his calling. On Friday's Performance Today, Saleem Ashkar plays Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Luxembourg Philharmonic.

In 1904, French composer Florent Schmitt turned a poem by Edgar Allan Poe into an eerie, unsettling orchestral work. On Thursday's Performance Today, conductor JoAnn Falletta leads the Buffalo Philharmonic in a concert performance of "The Haunted Palace" by Florent Schmitt.

In 1874, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov traveled to the northern coast of the Black Sea. The trip left a lasting impression on the composer; he was intoxicated by the Arabic and Turkish music he heard on the streets and in coffee houses. Hear these exotic impressions in a concert performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, on Wednesday's Performance Today.

It's emotional music inspired by both the rich history and war-torn present of Aleppo, Syria. On Tuesday's Performance Today, the Apollo Chamber players perform "Aleppo" by Syrian-American composer Malek Jandali.

Andras Schiff says he begins every day by playing a full hour of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier: he says "It's like taking care of your inner hygiene. There is something very pure about it." Hear pianist Andras Schiff in concert on Monday's Performance Today.

French composer Claude Debussy spent exactly one day of his life in Spain, but he could write some amazingly Spanish sounding music. On this weekend's show, we drop into a concert in Tennessee to hear a Nashville Symphony performance of 'Iberia', from Images for Orchestra by Claude Debussy.

Anton Bruckner wrote nine massive symphonies, but only his seventh was very well received during his life. On Friday's Performance Today, Gustavo Gimeno conducts the Luxembourg Philharmonic in a concert performance of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7.