Performance Today®

Handel's Messiah has been a hit ever since it premiered in Dublin in 1742. So much so that, in early performances, ladies were asked not to wear hoop skirts and men were advised to leave their swords at home, in order to accommodate more concertgoers in the hall. There wasn't a sword or a hoop in sight at a recent Messiah performance in Boston. We'll bring you highlights in 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 Schoenberg? Play along, see if you can guess the tune and the composer in this week's Piano Puzzler.

One critic said a recent performance by Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic was "like sitting on top of the orchestra world." But the praise wasn't just for the orchestra. Part of what made the concert so electrifying was the two soloists, brothers Renaud and Gautier Capucon. They teamed up for the Brahms Double Concerto for violin and cello. We'll hear it in today's show.

The women of Anonymous 4 recently joined host Fred Child for music and conversation in a chilly St. Paul church. Even so, their performances radiated warmth and joy. They tell the story of the Cherry Tree carol, and sing early English and American Christmas carols.

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 Schoenberg? Play along, see if you can guess the tune and the composer in this week's Piano Puzzler.

Joaquin Rodrigo's Concerto de Aranjuez is perhaps the most popular guitar concerto of all time. Even if you don't think you know it, there's a good chance you've at least heard the gorgeous, tender slow movement. In today's show, flamenco guitarist Juan Manuel Canizares performs it with the Berlin Philharmonic, from their special 2011 Europa concert.

In today's show, a performance of a Haydn symphony that had a Viennese audience laughing out loud. We'll let you in on the joke, as Daniel Barenboim conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in Haydn's Farewell symphony. Plus, pianist Yuja Wang gives a jaw-dropping performance of music from Stravinsky's ballet "Petrushka" in St. Paul.

"We swear, sword in hand, to die for the republic and for the rights of man." Those words, by French revolutionary writer Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, were the inspiration for Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, according to conductor John Eliot Gardiner. Gardiner leads the Revolutionary and Romantic Orchestra in a stunning performance of Beethoven's Fifth, from a concert three weeks ago at Carnegie Hall.

Cellist Cicely Parnas has been in the studios all week. Today, she wraps up her stay as the newest PT Young Artist in Residence with the final two movements of a Brahms cello sonata. Plus, we'll hear Part II of Mahler's monumental Symphony Number 8, the Symphony of a Thousand, from a concert by the San Francisco Symphony.