Performance Today®

It all began with a couple of friends who liked to drive around Boston listening to police radios and rushing to the scene of fires. Conductor Arthur Fiedler and his friend David Mugar were pondering how to attract a big crowd to their Boston Pops Orchestra July 4th events. Their mutual love of pyrotechnics led them to the idea of playing the1812 Overture and using actual howitzers during the performance. It concluded, of course, with a big splash of fireworks at the very end. On Performance Today, we'll hear the 1812 Overture, plus American folk tunes and patriotic marches for Independence Day 2013.

The great Johann Sebastian Bach had died 30 years earlier. But at that point, nobody really knew his work. It hadn't been published, and the only people who had it were devotees who passed around hand-written copies. One of those devotees was the Baron von Swieten, in Vienna. The Baron had a young friend named Mozart, and every Sunday, Mozart would go see the Baron, and play Bach. Mozart was enthralled. He copied out the music, studied what Bach had written for the keyboard, and re-arranged it for string quartet. On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll hear the Orion Quartet play fugues by Bach, lovingly re-imagined by Mozart.

A few years ago, violinist Gil Shaham was introduced to a piece he'd never heard. As his friend played the piece for Gil, his friend burst into tears. The music was so emotional. The piece is based on an old story about two star-crossed lovers. After their tragic death, they're reincarnated, and reunited as butterflies. On Tuesday's Performance Today Gil Shaham talks about discovering the Butterfly Lovers Concerto, a piece written in 1959 by two Chinese composers.

Pianist Alessio Bax joins host Fred Child in the studio to perform music by Brahms and Rachmaninoff and talk about what it's like to share an apartment with his toughest, kindest critic.

When Alessio Bax was five years old, he desperately wanted to play the organ. There was one problem: his legs were not long enough for his feet to reach the pedals. So he took piano lessons, impatient for the day when he could switch. Wouldn't you know it...he fell in love with the piano. Alessio Bax joins Fred Child in the studio on Monday's Performance Today to play music by Bach and Brahms.

Every week Performance Today features music written in the 21st Century. This week, we'll hear the world premiere performance of a piece Magnus Lindberg wrote to celebrate Alan Gilbert's first concert as music director of the New York Philharmonic. Lindberg is a Finnish composer. His piece is called EXPO. We'll hear that music signaling a brand new era from a live concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.

Every week Performance Today features music written in the 21st Century. This week, we'll hear the world premiere performance of a piece Magnus Lindberg wrote to celebrate Alan Gilbert's first concert as music director of the New York Philharmonic. Lindberg is a Finnish composer. His piece is called EXPO. We'll hear that music signalling a brand new era from a live concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.

On Thursday's Performance Today we'll hear a concert performance that is precise and polished. But it only got this way through professional disagreement. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has no conductor. Members of the orchestra lead rehearsals and everyone gets their say. Tune in to hear the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra perform Schubert's Symphony No. 4 at Carnegie Hall.

Jean-Fery Rebel was a prodigy and a progressive. In France in the late 1600s and early 1700s, he pushed and prodded and stretched the conventions of music, from the time he was an 8 year-old boy wonder on the violin through his long and productive life as a composer. He could do it with authority, since he was a virtuoso on just about every instrument. On Wednesday's Performance Today we'll hear a trio by the musical rabble-rouser Rebel.