Performance Today®

In 1996, a group of musical friends got together and formed an ensemble that would focus on playing Baroque era music. They named their group Tempesta di Mare ('The Storm at Sea'), inspired by the subtitle of a Vivaldi concerto. On Wednesday's Performance Today, hear Tempesta di Mare play a concerto for two recorders by William Babell, from a concert performed in their hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Camille Saint-Saens completed his last symphony in 1886, and said "I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again." It's a rare composition for full orchestra and organ. On Tuesday's Performance Today, hear Saint-Saen's Symphony No. 3, the 'Organ Symphony', performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, with Thierry Escaich on the organ.

In the 1850's, nine year-old Antonin Dvorak became transfixed by trains and railroads. In the following decades, the composer made visits to train stations a part of his daily life. In 1884, a musical theme popped into his head, triggered by the sound an arriving train. On Monday's Performance Today, hear this inspired theme and more of Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 7, in a concert performance by the Nashville Symphony.

Join the audience at Walt Disney Concert Hall as pianist Lang Lang and the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform the Piano Concerto No. 3 by Prokofiev. On this weekend's Performance Today, we have another Piano Puzzler and additional concert highlights from across the country.

Sergei Rachmaninoff finished his symphonic poem 'Isle of the Dead' while in Dresden in 1908. His inspiration was a black and white reproduction of Arnold Bocklin's painting 'Isle of the Dead', which Rachmaninoff had seen a year earlier. Rachmaninoff later saw the original painting, but said he preferred it in black and white. Black and white, yet full of color, you'll hear it on Friday's Performance Today.

During the 1870s, Czech composer Bedrich Smetana wrote a suite of six self-standing symphonic poems inspired by the legends and landscapes of his homeland. On Thursday's Performance Today, the Czech Philharmonic plays selections from 'Ma vlast' (My Homeland), from a live performance recorded in Tokyo, Japan.

When writing his Piano Concerto No. 3, Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev wrote a single word above a particular point in the composition..."coldly". He wants a chill to run down your spine. It's a chilling musical descent, entombed in the concerto's fiery heat. Join the audience as pianist Lang Lang and the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform the Piano Concerto No. 3 by Prokofiev.

In the spring of 1873, composer Giuseppe Verdi went to Naples to oversee a production of his opera, Aida. The star soprano got sick, and Verdi was forced to postpone rehearsals. He had some free time, so he tried something he hadn't done before...he wrote a string quartet. His friends really liked it, but Verdi was more skeptical. It was his only string quartet but has stood the test of time. On Tuesday's Performance Today, the Afiara String Quartet plays the String Quartet by Giusseppe Verdi, from a concert in Montreal.

If a single voice could invite harmony, it was the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. Strong and powerful, yet nuanced and musical in his sense of phrasing. The sound of his voice, and his message of freedom, peacefully fought to add voices to a border-less choir of love and decency. On Monday's Performance today, you'll hear "From the Mountaintop" by Richard Danielpour, inspired by the voice, sound, and message of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior.