Performance Today®

Stephen Hough is a poet at the piano and on the page. He's also quite open about his weaknesses. Hough has written about questioning his career choice, battling ego issues, fighting his nerves, and overcoming moments when he says he fails to reach his own high standards. Nevertheless, Hough keeps trying. We'll hear this heroic pianist, from a live concert in Dallas, Texas on Wednesday's Performance Today.

Argentine composer and tango master Astor Piazzolla wrote dozens of pieces inspired by tango, but none more ethereal than the one we'll hear called Oblivion. We'll go to a concert by the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, in Houston for music by the tango master on Tuesday's Performance Today from APM.

Robert Schumann wrote a remarkable Arabesque for solo piano, but he certainly wasn't the only composer to use the title Arabesque. We'll hear Yefim Bronfman play the Schumann, in concert in New York as well as Arabesques by two other composers on Monday's Performance Today from APM.

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 whose style Bruce is mimicking. Play along, see if you can guess the tune and the composer. Today's Puzzler contestant is Shawn Hampton from Round Rock, Texas.

I'll take you back to some of the great events of classical music in the 20th century: the Carnegie Hall comeback of pianist Vladimir Horowitz, the bookends to Leonard Bernstein's career: his surprise debut and his historic finale at the Berlin Wall. And Mstislav Rostropovich going home. Great musical moments of the 20th century on Friday's Performance Today from APM.

Why does the Golden Hall at the Musikverein in Vienna sound so good? Is it the hollow space under the stage? The exact proportions of the dimensions of the hall? Whatever the reason, the acoustics are incredible. We'll go to the Golden Hall in Vienna to hear Lang Lang play Chopin on Thursday's Performance Today from APM.

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 whose style Bruce is mimicking. Play along, see if you can guess the tune and the composer. Today's Puzzler contestant is Shawn Hampton from Round Rock, Texas.

Every day on Performance Today, we hear great musicians in concert. But how did they get to be so good? On Tuesday's Performance Today we'll meet double bass player David Grossman, a member of the New York Philharmonic. He'll tell us what it's like to live life at the bottom of the orchestra and how he stays on top of his game.

Solos come, solos go. In "Bolero" by Maurice Ravel, the flute takes a turn. Then the saxophone. The trombone. Most everybody else plays the melody and stops to take a breather now and then. But not the poor snare drummer. There are 4,064 snare drum taps in Bolero. The snare drummer plays the same pattern 169 times. On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear a study in deep concentration for percussionists: Ravel's Bolero performed by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in from a concert Amsterdam.