Performance Today®

Critics beware. History may not judge your work all that kindly. Case in point: Peter Tchaikovsky's ballet, Swan Lake. It was a big flop. Critics didn't think much of it. One said it suffered from "a poverty of creative ideas." That critic is long forgotten, but Tchaikovsky's music has lived on. Valery Gergiev leads the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra in highlights from Swan Lake, from a concert last month in London.

Dmitri Shostakovich's Ballet, the Age of Gold, is a witty and raucous farce, full of what conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen calls "the most skillfully-written wrong notes in the history of music." It's a Soviet take on the old good guys vs. bad guys story. The good guys are a hard-working Soviet soccer team. The bad guys are the greedy Western capitalists who try to exploit them. It's no surprise who wins in this delightful ballet by Shostakovich. In today's show, we'll hear highlights from a recent Proms concert in London.

Death stood peering over Mozart's shoulder as he struggled to finish his Requiem Mass in 1791. Mozart was ill, and seemed to know that he was in a race against time. He wrote frenziedly. But in the end, death didn't have the patience to wait for him to finish. He died at age 35, leaving it to others to complete this most beautiful of Requiems. In today's show, a performance of Mozart's Requiem from a concert at the BBC Proms last month.

In the days and weeks after the 9/11 tragedy, musicians responded in the only way they knew how. They played. For the dead, for the injured, and for all of us who were struggling to cope with the enormity of what had happened. In today's show, we look at how the nation responded through music to the horrors of September 11, 2001. And we'll hear several new works written in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

In the days and weeks after the 9/11 tragedy, musicians responded in the only way they knew how. They played. For the dead, for the injured, and for all of us who were struggling to cope with the enormity of what had happened. In today's show, we look at how the nation responded through music to the horrors of September 11, 2001. And we'll hear several new works written in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein completely changed the way she practiced after one "nightmare performance" where she suffered a memory lapse. In today's show, she joins host Fred Child in our occasional series on the Art of Practice. And Emily Reese, avid gamer and host of the popular podcast Top Score, joins Fred to talk about classical music and video games.

Robert Schumann's Cello Concerto lay in a stack of papers, collecting dust, on the desk of the great 19th century violinist Joseph Joachim. It wasn't discovered until after Joachim's death. Now, you may wonder what a violinist was doing with Schumann's music. In today's show, the story of the many transformations of Schumann's Cello Concerto, and a performance by a violinist, from a concert in Australia.

It's long been known that music has the ability to help transport us out of our daily lives. It's one of the reasons so many of us listen to it. In today's show, we have a whole hour of music about other realms of being, and higher planes of existence. "Visions of Another World," by Karim Al-Zand, "Music of the Spheres," by Josef Strauss, and a Transcendental Etude by Franz Liszt. Plus an ethereal Norwegian vision of heaven from the women of Trio Mediaeval.

When you think of three instruments that just naturally belong together, it's not likely your first thought would be banjo, string bass, and tabla (Indian drums). Banjoist Bela Fleck, bassist Edgar Meyer, and tabla player Zakir Hussain come from very different musical backgrounds, but they've formed a unique and compelling trio that is capturing the attention of music lovers. PT's Fred Child hosted a live event recently in Miami, featuring interviews and performances by Fleck, Meyer, and Hussain. We'll hear highlights on today's show.