Performance Today®

A friend of pianist Gilles Vonsattel convinced him to take a chance and learn a relatively unknown but very demanding piece by Austrian composer Ludwig Thuille. It was a challenge, but in the end, he was glad he went with his friend's judgment. On today's show, we'll hear Gilles Vonsattel and the St. Lawrence String Quartet play Thuille's Piano Quintet No. 2 at a concert in Charleston, South Carolina.

For a special Valentine's Day edition of Piano Puzzler, Fred Child and Bruce Adolphe welcome married couple Janie and Andrew Wittenberg, who are calling from Cincinnati. Watch now!

Richard Strauss was aiming, not just for our greatest hopes and fears, but for the meaning of life when he wrote one of his most monumental pieces. On today's show, we'll take you to a concert in Cincinnati to hear Death and Transfiguration by Richard Strauss.

Indian-American composer Reena Esmail works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music. In 2017, Esmail drew inspiration from the words of Rumi, a 13th-century Sufi poet: "Religions are many, but God is one. The lamps may be different, but the light is the same." On today's episode, we'll take you to a concert at the University of Georgia to hear the Imani Winds play Reena Esmail's 'The Light is the Same.'

One hundred years ago today, George Gershwin took the stage with Paul Whiteman and his Concert Orchestra at New York's Aeolian Concert Hall for the premiere of Rhapsody in Blue. Pianist Lara Downes sees the piece as an evolving landscape of American culture—past, present, and future—so she asked Puerto Rican composer Edmar Colon to join her in a 'reimagining' of Gershwin's classic. On today's show, we'll hear Lara Downes and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra play Colon's reimagined arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue by Georg Gershwin.

Every week, composer Bruce Adolphe joins us for a musical game: the Piano Puzzler. Bruce re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a great composer, and we get one of our listeners on the phone who tries to guess the hidden tune and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating. Play along with the PT Piano Puzzler!

Pianist Clayton Stephenson gives an exclusive performance of Art Tatum’s arrangement of Tea for Two in the Olivier Music Barn at Tippet Rise Art Center in Fishtail, Montana.

Grammy-winning violinist Hilary Hahn loves Eugene Ysaye's collection of solo violin sonatas. They're wonderfully witty and inventive, but they're not well known outside of violin circles. Recently, Hahn recorded the complete set — it's an absolute treat for violin lovers. On today's show, Hahn joins Fred Child in our New York studio to discuss her recording of Ysaye's Solo Violin Sonata No. 2 (Obsession).

Violinist Hilary Hahn recently joined Fred Child in our New York studio to discuss her latest album, Eugene Ysaye: Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op. 27. In this extended interview, Hahn unpacks her theory about light and redemption in the Dies Irae theme found throughout Ysaye’s Sonata No. 2, “Obsession.”