Performance Today®

One hundred years ago this weekend, 1500 men, women, and children lost their lives when the RMS Titanic went down in the North Atlantic. Musicians on board were said to have played the hymn, "Nearer my God to Thee," as the great ship was sinking. In today's show, musical memories of the Titanic, including Carl Nielsen's arrangement of "Nearer my God to Thee."

There's plenty of gloomy talk these days about the impending death of classical music. Nay-sayers point to dwindling audiences and orchestra balance sheets awash in red ink. After today's show, you won't be able to reach any conclusion except one: the future of classical music is in very good hands. We're featuring some remarkable young musicians, including Time for Three, pianist Mariangela Vacatello, and PT's newest Young Artist-in-Residence, violinist Mayumi Kanagawa, who will be in the PT studios for the next five days.

Like plenty of other great ideas, at first glance, it might leave you scratching your head a bit. Start with an old chestnut by Antonio Vivaldi, the Four Seasons. And see it through an entirely different lens, the sultry, smoky Argentinian tango. Is that really such a good idea? Well, in a word, yes! Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg plays Astor Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, from a concert in San Francisco.

Times were tough for Mozart in the summer of 1788. His financial life was a shambles, and he was reduced to writing a series of pitiful letters to a friend, pleading for money. But at the same time, he was also writing his final three symphonies, each of them a masterpiece. He churned them out over the course of two months that summer. We'll hear Mozart's Symphony Number 39, from a concert by James Levine and the Boston Symphony.

Pianist Maurizio Pollini has been accused of being stiff and unemotional on stage. One writer said, "There are morticians who go about their duties more chirpily than Pollini on the concert platform." That may be, but he manages to generate a lot of emotion in his performances. Pollini joins Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic for a lively - and emotional - performance of Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto.

On July 12, 1941 conductor Lorin Maazel led the NBC Summer Symphony in a concert that was broadcast live from coast to coast. He was 11 years old. Among the pieces he led on that 1941 live national broadcast was the Symphony No. 40, the great G-minor Symphony by Mozart. The very same Lorin Maazel just turned 82. And last month, he led another live national broadcast of that very same piece, the Symphony No. 40, by Mozart. We'll hear this Mozart Symphony, the second time around, on today's Performance Today.

This day is holy for two of the world's great religions, Judaism and Christianity. Jews observe the beginning of Passover at sundown tonight. And Christians call this day Good Friday, the day Jesus died on the cross. In today's show, music in observance of both traditions, including traditional Passover songs and highlights from the Bach St. John Passion.

Gustav Mahler's massive Fifth Symphony rages on for over an hour. But in the middle of that storm, there's a 10-minute oasis of calm. The Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth has been used for everything from funerals for heads of state to Olympic skating routines. Most people hear it as an outpouring of grief, but some say there's much more to it than that. In today's show, the story behind Mahler's Adagietto and a performance from the Aspen Music Festival.

On July 12, 1941 conductor Lorin Maazel led the NBC Summer Symphony in a concert that was broadcast live from coast to coast. He was 11 years old. Among the pieces he led on that 1941 live national broadcast was the Symphony No. 40, the great G-minor Symphony by Mozart. The very same Lorin Maazel just turned 82. And last month, he led another live national broadcast... of that very same piece, the Symphony No. 40, by Mozart. We'll hear this Mozart Symphony, the second time around, on today's Performance Today.