Performance Today®

It was an unusually hot day in Paris, May 29th, 1913. But the heat of the late-day sun was nothing compared to the inferno going on inside the Theatre des Champs-Elysees. It was an event that would change music forever: the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's ballet, the Rite of Spring. On today's show, music writer Alex Ross tells the story of that riotous premiere. And Jaap van Zweden leads a performance by the Dallas Symphony.

In nine minutes of ravishing music by Richard Strauss, Salome sheds her inhibitions along with her clothes in a dance for her step-father, King Herod. The scene from Strauss' opera Salome shocked audiences when it premiered in 1905. In today's show, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra plays Strauss' infamous Dance of the Seven Veils, in a concert from the BBC Proms in London.

In 1938, composer Paul Hindemith fled Nazi Germany and later came to the U.S. One of his first projects here was to write a ballet based on themes by Carl Maria von Weber. Weber's tunes were charming but insubstantial. But Hindemith took that music of limited possibilities and turned it into something spectacular. His Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Weber is in today's show, in a performance by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet is about to turn 50, and is getting philosophical. In today's show, Thibaudet shares his thoughts on being an overnight sensation vs. building a career more slowly. And he plays the sensational Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1 in Dallas.

The Netherlands conjures up images of windmills, page-boy haircuts, and wooden shoes. But despite its small size, it's a big player on the classical music scene. In today's show, the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra plays Dvorak's 8th Symphony at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. And Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden leads the Dallas Symphony in Beethoven's 7th, from a concert in Dallas.

It was the hottest ticket of the 2011 BBC Proms, the July performance of William Havergal Brian's Symphony No. 1, the Gothic Symphony. A massive work that calls for 1000 musicians and spans about three hours, it hadn't been performed in Britain in over a generation. The only place you can hear it outside the U.K. is right here on PT. We'll have highlights in today's show.

With apologies to great Spanish composers, the fact is that many of the best Spanish-sounding works in classical music were written by the French. In today's show, we'll hear two of the best: Claude Debussy's Iberia and Maurice Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso, from a recent concert at the Proms in London. It's Spanish music by French composers, played by a British orchestra.

Robert Schumann had a budding career as a concert pianist, until he injured his right hand from too much practicing. In today's show, the piece that might have been Schumann's undoing, his Toccata in C Major. Most pianists shy away from it because of its difficulty. Host Fred Child demonstrates what makes this piece so arduous, and we'll hear a performance by Evgeny Kissin from Verbier, Switzerland.

Beethoven at 45 was a confirmed bachelor. Hard to know how much was by choice, and how much by circumstance. Turns out, he did have his eye on someone. Beethoven didn't say who she was, but left behind a set of love songs to his "Distant Beloved." We'll hear them, from a concert in distant Sydney, Australia. Plus, Beethoven's Triple Concerto from the Proms in London.