Performance Today®

Samuel Barber's greatest hit was his Adagio for Strings. It began its life as the slow movement of a string quartet, heard on yesterday's show. Today, it occupies a special place in our consciousness. Used at state funerals and solemn occasions. When he wrote it, it's unlikely the 26-year-old Barber could have imagined it would take on such a life of its own. The Barber Adagio, in several different arrangements, today on PT.

"Chopin's very good for you, he's a good gym composer...he really gets you in shape!" So says pianist Garrick Ohlsson in our PT interview. But that's only one side of Chopin's appeal for Ohlsson. He also says "there is an uninhibited emotionality about Chopin...he evokes on the piano an emotional state of consciousness, alive and flickering and varying moment to moment." Garrick Ohlsson joins us to talk about the art of playing Chopin. And Ohlsson plays a pair of Chopin Etudes, the Ballade No. 1, and a meltingly beautiful Nocturne.

We're continuing to focus on the music of Samuel Barber, one day after his 100th birthday. In today's show, "Knoxville: Summer of 1915," set to the words of James Agee. Agee's words describe a deliciously languid summer evening in Tennessee, with everyone gathered under the trees to stay cool. Barber's music adds just the right quality of amazement, according to conductor Nicholas McGegan. McGegan conducts the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and soprano Carolyn Sampson in a performance.

Samuel Osborne Barber II was born 100 years ago today. We'll be highlighting some of Barber's greatest hits in the coming weeks. In today's show, Barber friend and fellow composer Lee Hoiby shares stories of his friend, including one involving his overture to "The School for Scandal." Details in the show, but the moral of the story: don't snub the oboist's wife. Music by one of America's greatest composers, all this week on Performance Today.

There are two versions of Robert Schumann's fourth symphony. There's the original version from 1841, which his young friend Johannes Brahms preferred. Then there was the revised version from 10 years later, that Schumann's wife Clara liked. When Schumann died, Johannes and Clara quarreled over which version to publish. Clara won. In this hour, we'll hear the original version that Brahms was partial to, performed by the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra.

PT's Artists in Residence, the Parker Quartet, return to our studios. They'll talk about the experience of playing the prized matching Strads owned by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. They'll settle for their own instruments in our studio, and play Haydn's String Quartet No. 25.

This past Monday night, there was a gala all-Chopin concert at the Grand Theater in downtown Warsaw. We'll hear highlights: Yundi Li (winner of the 2000 Chopin Piano Competition) plays a pair of Chopin Nocturnes, and Garrick Ohlsson (winner of the 1970 Chopin Competition) plays a Chopin Waltz. And our series "Music That Matters" continues with a return to Ramallah, on the West Bank. We'll hear more from the music school "Al Kamandjati," founded by violist Ramzi Aburedwan. And from their annual winter concert in Ramallah, the Al Kamandjati Players perform the final movement from Vivaldi's "Autumn," from "The Four Seasons."

Our monthly series "Music That Matters" returns with the story of Ramzi Aburedwan, who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp. When he was 8 years old, Aburedwan became the subject of a famous photograph, a boy throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. Ten years later, he learned to play viola. Aburedwan says "I fell in love immediately, and from that day until today I am in the world of music." In 2005, Aburedwan founded a music school in Ramallah, on the West Bank.

David Soyer played his cello for 37 years as a member of the legendary Guarneri Quartet. He retired from the quartet in 2001, at age 78. But Soyer continued teaching until just before he died last week, at age 87. Guarneri Quartet members Arnold Steinhardt and Peter Wiley join us with fond memories of David Soyer, his remarkable musicianship, and his role as mentor in the lives of so many musicians. And we'll hear from several of Soyer's classic recordings with the Guarneri Quartet, including music by Dvorak, Beethoven, and Grieg.