Performance Today®

When Richard Strauss compared himself to Napoleon and wrote a piece about himself, calling it "A Hero's Life," he had his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. Some of the critics didn't get the joke - Strauss parodied them in the piece. Today we'll hear music from "A Hero's Life" featuring the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Today we'll feature two great symphonies, Schumann's Symphony No. 2 and Mozart's Symphony No. 40. Both were written during times of anguish in the composers' lives, but somehow each managed to find healing in the creative process. It's music to soothe the soul and challenge the spirit, today on Performance Today.

Igor Stravinsky was quite the cosmopolitan. He lived all over the world, finally settling in the U.S. for the last three decades of his life. Today we'll hear his Italian Suite for violin and piano from a concert in Bucharest, Romania. Plus, Gershwin's Cuban Overture from Munich and an Argentinian tango from California.

Today, we'll hear the king of instruments in the hands of a master. Organist Paul Jacobs joins the Pacific Symphony for a performance of Camille Saint-Saens' Organ Symphony from the Orange County Performing Arts Center in California. The occasion marked the debut of that new instrument -- all 4,322 pipes of it.

Gershwin had it. Pianist Jon Kimura Parker has it. It's that masterful sense of timing, of where and when to place every note for just the right amount of swing. It's rhythm, and you'll have it too after listening to today's show. Pianist Jon Kimura Parker joins the Colorado Symphony for George Gershwin's Variations on "I Got Rhythm."

If there's an earthquake down under, will we feel it here in the U.S.? Definitely. Never one for small ambitions, Antonin Dvorak said he wanted his music to "shake the world." Today on PT we'll hear the West Australia Symphony Orchestra performing Dvorak's Seventh Symphony from a concert in Perth, Australia.

Gershwin had it. Pianist Jon Kimura Parker has it. It's that masterful sense of timing, of where and when to place every note for just the right amount of swing. It's rhythm, and you'll have it too after listening to today's show. Pianist Jon Kimura Parker joins the Colorado Symphony for George Gershwin's Variations on "I Got Rhythm."

Impressionism was all the rage in France a hundred years ago, but it didn't really catch on in America. Today on the show we'll be exploring impressionism - from both sides of the Atlantic. You may not be familiar with American impressionist composer Charles Griffes. We'll hear two of his works plus music by those more famous impressionists, Manuel de Falla and Maurice Ravel.

Life dealt the Orion String Quartet a bunch of lemons earlier this year when one of their members was stranded in Chicago and unable to get to their concert in San Antonio. So the remaining three members of the quartet had to scramble to put together a performance without him. We'll hear that trio performance today.