Acclaimed novelist Julian Barnes has published a new book about composer Dmitri Shostakovich, which explores the most turbulent years of Shostakovich's life under the regimes of Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev.
The story of Don Juan taps a deep territory in the human psyche: love, betrayal, excess, and death. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear Richard Strauss's explosive tone poem based on the story of Don Juan.
When Claude Debussy wrote music for the ballet "Jeux," he was picturing a game of tennis between two women and one young man. In tennis, "love" means nothing; in Debussy's music, love is everything. On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll hear romance and seduction on the courts, from a concert by the New York Philharmonic.
Mitsuko Uchida loves playing Mozart concertos without a conductor; being conductor-less means that the orchestra players have to listen more carefully, and the resulting collaboration is much closer. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear Uchida collaborating with the Cleveland Orchestra.
Richard Wagner's operas are so dramatic, they're sometimes an inch away from self-parody. On Monday's Performance Today, the Cleveland Orchestra gives a serious (and seriously great) performance of the Ride of the Valkyries. Plus, we'll hear a bit of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd's take on Wagner's music.
Each week on our Piano Puzzler, composer Bruce Adolphe re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a classical composer. We then get one of our listeners on the phone to try to guess the tune and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating. Play along with our Piano Puzzler, on this weekend's Performance Today.
The Chiara String Quartet memorizes its repertoire before setting foot on stage. That may sound overwhelming, but according to them, making the decision to lose the music was freeing. On Friday's Performance Today, the Chiara String Quartet joins Fred in the studio for music and conversation.
The ensemble joins host Fred Child in the studio to play Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout by their friend, composer Gabriela Lena Frank. Members of the Chiara String Quartet also talk about what it means to play music "by heart."
This past fall, violinist Karen Gomyo was asked, at the last minute, to sit in with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Her task? To play the demanding solo part of Jean Sibelius' Violin Concerto. So, how did Gomyo do? Listen and find out on Thursday's Performance Today.
