Performance Today®

We're celebrating Christmas around the world, our annual program of musical highlights from concert halls and churches all around the globe. Including ancient Byzantine carols from Romania, an over-the-top Christmas medley by Leroy Anderson, and two lovely settings of the Ave Maria. Plus, Edward Elgar's "Nursery Suite," written for the four-year-old Princess Elizabeth, now Queen Elizabeth II of England. And Bruce Adolphe stops by for a new Piano Puzzler.

Word on the street was, it was going to be something special. Advance ticket sales were hot. To pack as many people as possible into the theater, ladies were asked not to wear hoop skirts. Gentlemen were advised to please leave their swords at home. It was the premiere of Handel's Messiah in 1742. It's a work that still packs people into concert halls, nearly 270 years later. In today's show, one of the best Messiah performances from last season, by the Academy for Ancient Music Berlin and the Rias Chamber Chorus, from a concert in Berlin.

The Shaker ideal: Don't make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don't hesitate to make it beautiful. The members of the Rose Ensemble join host Fred Child in the studio for early American holiday music, including several beautiful Shaker tunes. Plus, Ottorino Respighi's "Three Botticelli Pictures," from a concert in St. Paul.

Ottorino Respighi loved his adopted home city of Rome, especially the hundreds of fountains. He once said, "I wonder why no one has ever thought of making the fountains of Rome 'sing,' for they are, after all, the very voice of the city." Since no one else thought to do it, Respighi took on the job. The result was his orchestral tone poem, "The Fountains of Rome," with its evocative depictions of splashing, gurgling, spurting water in the Eternal City. Vladimir Ashkenazy leads the San Francisco Symphony in a performance from Davies Symphony Hall.

"Dear Mr. Grieg: I am writing about a project I propose, and I invite your participation. I propose to adapt my poem Peer Gynt for the stage. You will compose the music, yes?" That letter was from playwright Henrik Ibsen to composer Edvard Grieg in 1873. Grieg said yes, and the result was some of the greatest theater music ever written. Neeme Jarvi leads the Lucerne Symphony in a performance of Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, from Lucerne, Switzerland. And from that same concert, music from the play "Pelleas and Melisande," by Jean Sibelius.

History isn't absolutely clear on this point, but we're pretty sure today is Ludwig van Beethoven's birthday. Most of us have the image of the older Beethoven in our heads: stone deaf, isolated, angry, tormented. Some of that late Beethoven is in the show today, but also some early Beethoven, like a charming little Sonatina for recorder and guitar from the Minnesota Beethoven Festival. Plus Beethoven's massive oddity for orchestra, chorus, and piano soloist: the Choral Fantasy, from a concert in San Francisco.

Ottorino Respighi loved his adopted home city of Rome, especially the hundreds of fountains. He once said, "I wonder why no one has ever thought of making the fountains of Rome 'sing,' for they are, after all, the very voice of the city." Since no one else thought to do it, Respighi took on the job. The result was his orchestral tone poem, "The Fountains of Rome," with its evocative depictions of splashing, gurgling, spurting water in the Eternal City. Vladimir Ashkenazy leads the San Francisco Symphony in a performance from Davies Symphony Hall.

Sometimes, it helps to be reminded of why music is so important. Latvian composer Peteris Vasks wrote, "Beauty and harmony are rare in life, but in music, they are possible. I say 'Yes' until my last breath, to the beauty of the world." We'll hear Vasks saying "Yes" to beauty, in his lovely Cantabile for Strings, from a concert in Monaco. Plus, the women of Anonymous 4 join host Fred Child for music and conversation.

It was a memorable collision between technology and art. A new instrument had just been invented in France: the celeste, a keyboard instrument with a sound like a tinkly set of magic bells. Peter Tchaikovsky heard it on a trip to Paris, and knew instantly that he had the perfect tune for it. Nowadays, people automatically associate the sound of the celeste with the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from his ballet, "The Nutcracker." At the premiere, the audience was astounded at the new invention. We'll hear Act II from the Nutcracker today, including that big celeste solo. Simon Rattle leads the Berlin Philharmonic.