Performance Today®

Like Dr. Frankenstein, Paul Hindemith took a few used parts from a long-dead composer and electrified them into something huge and powerful. The unwitting donor? That would be Carl Maria von Weber. His charming little tunes and marches served as the raw material for today's monster with a heart of gold, Hindemith's "Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber." We'll hear it from a concert in Los Angeles.

In today's show, two composers who looked back to earlier forms and came up with startlingly different interpretations. Sergei Rachmaninoff (pictured) took a complicated little violin melody by Paganini and turned it into a triumphant Romantic barnburner for piano and orchestra. And Maurice Ravel saw the unraveling of European society in the form of the Viennese waltz. We'll hear Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini" and Maurice Ravel's "La Valse."

Gioachino Rossini was born on this day in 1792, which makes today his 53rd birthday. If the math doesn't quite work out, it's because Rossini was born on Leap Day, a day that happens only once every four years. We'll pay tribute to the man with the elusive birthday, including a spectacular performance of Rossini arias by tenor Juan Diego Florez.

Management theory experts call it centralized management. Political historians might unflatteringly call it a dictatorship. Musicians simply use the word conductor. There are advantages to having a centralized authority figure, but the members of the always conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra like to look at the flip side. They're empowered to make more musical decisions themselves. Everyone is an equal. And they all have to know the music inside and out. We'll hear the decentralized Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in Beethoven's Second Symphony.

Carl Nielsen wrote his fourth symphony amidst the horror and destruction of the First World War. But he believed so fervently in the power to survive, that he gave his symphony the title "Inextinguishable." We'll hear a performance by the inextinguishable Nashville Symphony. Their concert hall was nearly destroyed in a devastating flood that hit Nashville in 2010. This concert took place right after Schermerhorn Symphony Center reopened, after eight months of repairs.

The Academy Awards are happening this Sunday evening. We'll take a look at some of this year's Oscar nominees for best film score, including music by John Williams, who now has 47 nominations. He's up for two different films this year. And we'll hear from this year's frontrunner, Ludovic Bource's score for "The Artist."

The Academy Awards are happening this Sunday evening. We'll take a look at some of this year's Oscar nominees for best film score, including music by John Williams, who now has 47 nominations. He's up for two different films this year. And we'll hear from this year's frontrunner, Ludovic Bource's score for "The Artist."

Air is the energy that fuels wind instruments. And sharing that air with trusted colleagues, learning what makes them tick on a musical level, is what inspires the people who play them. Gro Sandvik, flutist with the Bergen Woodwind Quintet, says, "What we inhale is the inspiration for what is going to happen when we exhale." Today and tomorrow, the members of the Bergen Woodwind Quintet draw inspiration from each other, joining host Fred Child in the PT studio.

The members of the Bergen Woodwind Quintet aren't just chamber music colleagues. They also play together as the principal winds of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. All that togetherness makes for a heightened sense of musical ESP, and some spectacular music-making. The BWQ joined host Fred Child in the PT studio for two days of lively conversation and works by Giuseppe Cambini and Jim Parker.