Performance Today®

In the mid 1970s, composer Arvo Part became obsessed with the peal of bells, and even began to imitate bells in his own music. Music with a spartan beauty: Fratres, by Arvo Part, on Thursday's Performance Today.

In 1824, Gioachino Rossini wrote an unusual string duet. It was played once, and then disappeared for nearly 150 years. The manuscript re-emerged in 1968 and is now back in circulation. On Wednesday's Performance Today, hear Rossini's Duet for Cello and Double Bass, from a concert in Atlanta.

Amy Beach, nee Cheney, debuted with the Boston Symphony at the age of 17. She married two years later, and her husband forbade her from having a career on stage, so... Amy Beach became a great composer. A story of perseverance and the power of music, on Tuesday's Performance Today.

In 1930, Maurice Ravel wrote a special concerto for Paul Wittgenstein, a pianist who had lost his right arm in the First World War. On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear a performance of Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, from a concert in Round Top, Texas.

Barbara Haws has been the New York Philharmonic's Archivist/Historian since 1984. On this weekend's Performance Today, Haws shares stories and memories of the great American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein.

Barbara Haws has been the New York Philharmonic's Archivist/Historian since 1984. On Friday's Performance Today, Haws shares stories and memories of the great American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein.

Franz Schubert composed his fourth symphony in his spare time... when he was just 19 years old. The symphony wasn't performed by an orchestra until 20 years after his death. On Thursday's Performance Today, Louis Langree conducts the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Schubert's Symphony No. 4.

When composer Ferde Grofe was in his twenties, he went camping at the Grand Canyon, and later translated his experience into music. Experience the wonder of the Grand Canyon Suite by Ferde Grofe, from a concert in Buffalo, on Wednesday's Performance Today.

In the 1930's, artistic expression in the Soviet Union could be a very risky proposition. On Tuesday's Performance Today, tune in for a story about the danger of art, with evocative music by composer and survivor Dmitri Shostakovich.