Performance Today®

The young Sergei Prokofiev was fed up with critics who thought he could only write crunchy, avant-garde music. So he threw them a musical curve ball, his "Classical" symphony, written in a Haydnesque style. He called it "a challenge to tease the geese." David Robertson leads the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in Prokofiev's First Symphony, in concert at the iconic Opera House in Sydney, Australia.

Would you rather be married to someone who does exactly what you do for a living? Someone who knows every little inside joke, every nuance and intricacy of your profession? Or would you rather be with someone who does something completely different, who can open up a new world to you? In 2010, Orion Weiss and Anna Polonsky decided that a two-piano household was a good thing, and they got married. In today's show, Polonsky and Weiss share how they balance music and marriage, and they play the Poulenc Concerto for Two Pianos in Buffalo.

The young Sergei Prokofiev was fed up with critics who thought he could only write crunchy, avant-garde music. So he threw them a musical curve ball, his "Classical" symphony, written in a Haydnesque style. He called it "a challenge to tease the geese." David Robertson leads the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in Prokofiev's First Symphony, in concert at the iconic Opera House in Sydney, Australia.

He was an obscure dead composer, but Mozart loved his work. He even arranged some of the old guy's keyboard pieces for string quartet. In today's show, the Orion String Quartet performs some of those curious Mozart arrangements. And that nearly-forgotten composer? That would be Johann Sebastian Bach.

It just wouldn't be New Year's Day without some Strauss from Vienna. Today, we get the whole Strauss family. Franz Welser-Most conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in works by Eduard, Josef, and Johann, Jr., from the annual New Year's Day concert in Vienna. Plus, we'll look ahead to several important milestones we'll be celebrating in 2013. Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner both turn 200 this year.

If you joined us during the past year, you know that 2012 was a big year on Performance Today. We paid visits to a number of big summer music festivals and met some of the stars of tomorrow there. Inaugurated a PT Young Artist-in-Residence series. Observed several important composer anniversaries. And all year long we brought you memorable performances from concert halls around the country and around the world. Join us in closing out 2012 today with festive music, including the overture to "Die Fledermaus," by the Waltz King, Johann Strauss, Jr.

In a hall that doesn't even feature a real pipe organ, Andrew Davis and the New York Philharmonic still managed to pull out all the stops in a performance of Camille Saint-Saens' Symphony Number 3, the Organ Symphony. Kent Tritle, the New York Philharmonic's resident organist, had to make do with an electronic instrument. We'll hear their performance, from a concert at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City.

Vienna's Musikverein is one of those spectacular old European concert halls. The walls and ceilings shimmer with real gold. And the acoustics are every bit as magnificent as the decor. We'll hear pianist Lang Lang in a recital at the Musikverein, playing Beethoven's "Appassionata" Sonata. Plus, we'll hear from a special New Year's Day concert there. Daniel Barenboim and the Vienna Philharmonic rattled those golden walls and ceilings with Johann Strauss, Jr.'s "Thunder and Lightning Polka."

Call it what you like, the conductor controversy or the soloist squabble or even the Mozart mess. In today's show we'll have the story behind the cadenza kerfuffle, a disagreement between pianist Helene Grimaud and conductor Claudio Abbado that resulted in a scuttled CD project and several cancelled concerts. And we'll hear the Mozart piano concerto that started it all.