Performance Today®

Marie-Claire Alain was the first French female organist to record the collected works of J.S. Bach. She also championed the music of her brother who died in World War II. Michael Barone talks with Fred Child about her legacy.

She has fans who follow her around the globe. She's one of the most revered and sought-after pianists of our time. She's Martha Argerich, and we'll hear her play two concertos from Lugano, Switzerland. Schumann's Piano Concerto and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 on today's show.

Every week on our Piano Puzzler, composer Bruce Adolphe re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a classical composer. We get one of our listeners on the phone to try to guess the tune, and the composer Bruce is mimicking. Is it "Stand by Your Man" in the style of Tchaikovsky? Or maybe "Do Re Mi" in the style of Arnold Schoenberg? Play along, see if you can guess the tune and the composer in this week's Piano Puzzler.

Gustav Mahler never called his Symphony No. 2 the "Resurrection Symphony." But the name has stuck. It has resonated because his subject matter was death, and redemption, and Resurrection. We'll bring you highlights from Mahler's Resurrection Symphony from a concert in New York.

When he was growing up in Vienna, nobody in Rudolf Buchbinder's house played music. But for some reason, the family had a piano. It was more of a furniture piece, he says, until he started to imitate music he had heard on the radio on the piano. Very quickly, he became the youngest student ever accepted at the Vienna Conservatory. Buchbinder has grown up to have a tremendous career as a pianist. We'll hear him on the radio, playing Beethoven, on Thursday's Performance Today.

Many classical musicians practice by doing the same thing over and over again. It limits the risk of something unexpected happening. Recorder player Matthias Maute has a different philosophy: "no risk, no fun." We'll hear Maute improvise with a set of Baroque pieces on Wednesday's Performance Today, from APM.

Violinist Joshua Bell performs in the studio with pianist Sam Haywood and talks about his new role as music director for The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

Violinist Joshua Bell has played with the some of the best orchestras in the world, giving him a chance to glean some insider advice from some the best conductors in the world. Bell is now putting that advice to good use, conducting the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 4. We'll hear that piece, and Joshua Bell performs a short Sonatina by Schubert in the PT studios.

On a lonesome drive through the mountains of Wyoming, Ranaan Meyer found himself in a place with no cell phone service. He couldn't even find a station to listen to on his car radio. With no distractions, and only the mountains for company, this music began to take shape in his head. We'll hear that music: it's called Wyoming 307, named after the area code.