Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
Joshua Weilerstein
Sticky Notes is a classical music podcast for everyone, whether you are just getting interested in classical music for the first time, or if you've been listening to it and loving it all your life. Interviews with great artists, in depth looks at pieces in the repertoire, and both basic and deep dives into every era of music. Classical music is absolutely for everyone, so let's start listening! Note - Seasons 1-5 will be returning over the next year. They have been taken down in order to be re-recorded in improved sound quality!
Episodes
Mentioned books
Sep 3, 2021 • 1h 4min
Brahms Symphony No. 2
Brahms spent much of his life battling with his ambition to write great symphonies and his terror at the spectre of Beethoven looming over him. His first symphony was a success, and with immense relief, Brahms quickly turned out a second symphony in just 4 months, a bit less than the 14 tortured years it took him to craft the first. At first glance this symphony sounds pastoral and idyllic, but there are plenty of clouds in this seminal masterpiece, something we'll discuss throughout the show. Join us!
Aug 26, 2021 • 46min
How to Understand(and Enjoy!) Atonal Music, Part 2: The Wars of the 1950s
The 1950s featured a musical battle, pitting composers like Boulez, Carter, and Babbit against Bernstein, Copland, and Messaien. But how did the Post World War II movement towards total serialism and the avant-garde came about? And how did even the most forward thinking of artists become caught between the two camps of the tonalists and the serialists? We'll talk all about this today, as the battles between these two camps have ensnared almost every composer and continue to this day. Join us to learn more!
Aug 19, 2021 • 53min
How to Listen to (and Enjoy!) Atonal Music, Part 1
This week we're talking all about atonal music! I'm going to tell you all about the history of this controversial development in classical music, its development, and perhaps most importantly, I'll try to find a way to help you enjoy this music in all of its complexity, intensity, and yes, beauty. Part 1 is focused on 12 tone music and the beginnings of this powerful movement that transformed 20th century music, and according to some, ruined it. If you're ready to give atonal music a shot, join us!
Aug 12, 2021 • 1h 1min
The Degenerates: Music Suppressed by the Nazis
From the end of WWI until 1933, classical music in Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe was flourishing, with composers such as Zemlinsky, Weill, Krenek, Korngold, Schreker, Schulhoff, Haas, Krasa, and Ullmann writing spectacularly innovative and thrilling music. The Nazis exiled or murdered many of these musicians while in power, but their music lives on. I've never found researching an episode so moving, enraging, and inspiring. Join us this week in this journey of rediscovery - you won't regret it!
Aug 5, 2021 • 56min
Sibelius Symphony No. 2
In 1901, in the throes of the Finnish Independence movement, Jean Sibelius composed his legendary 2nd Symphony. Sibelius' close colleague, the conductor Robert Kajanus, said that the symphony "strikes one as the most broken-hearted protest against all the injustice that threatens at the present time to deprive the sun of its light and our flowers of their scent." But is the symphony actually about Finnish Independence? Or was it simply, as Sibelius said, "a confession of the soul"? Join us for a deep dive!
Jul 29, 2021 • 58min
Dvorak Symphony No. 9, "From the New World"
Within three months of his arrival in New York, Antonin Dvorak was enamored with the sound of American music. Quickly he put forth what was at the time a controversial idea: "In the Negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music..." This inspiration is threaded through almost every note of the New World Symphony, with a healthy dose of Dvorak's Bohemian roots and Germanic tradition as well! Join us as we explore this legendary masterpiece from every angle.
Jul 22, 2021 • 1h 9min
Havergal Brian, "Gothic Symphony"
Havergal Brian's ambitious Gothic Symphony has been called many things - massive, ambitious, barbaric, incompetent, insane, moving, brilliant, awful, torture, and much more. It is almost never performed due to the forces it requires and its two hour duration. Today on the show I'll tell you about the background to this monumental work, and then I'll try to walk you through the structure of this symphony. Like a Gothic cathedral, there are lots of corners to get lost in, but I'll try to keep you on the path!
Jul 16, 2021 • 58min
Bruckner Symphony No. 7
With the rise of Wagner, the symphony seemed to be left for dead. But one composer in particular, Anton Bruckner, decided to take the plunge back into the symphonic genre, though he did it with a markedly Wagnerian touch. His most popular symphony? The 7th. We'll talk about the connection between Wagner and Bruckner throughout the show, but we'll also explore Bruckner's distinctive orchestral sound, and how his music seems destined to be performed in a cathedral, always looking up into the sky in wonder.
Jul 8, 2021 • 35min
A Conversation with Gabriela Lena Frank, Composer
Gabriela Lena Frank is currently serving as Composer-in-Residence with the storied Philadelphia Orchestra and was included in the Washington Post's list of the 35 most significant women composers in history, I've always been a huge fan of Lena Frank's music, and I was so thrilled to talk with her about how she approaches writing, the sense of fantasy that is so present in her work, the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy, and her fascinating NY Times article about Beethoven's deafness. This is a fun one!
Jul 1, 2021 • 1h 4min
Shostakovich Symphony #13: "Babi Yar"
In 1961, a poem appeared by the young poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, entitled Babi Yar. The first line of this poem is: "There are no monuments over Babi Yar." In September of 1941 at least 33,771 Jews were murdered at the Babi Yar ravine in Ukraine; the largest single massacre of Jews to that point in WWII. Shostakovich, moved by the bravery of Yevtushenko's poem, set it and 4 other Yevtushenko poems and created his 13th symphony. This is one of those unforgettable pieces - join me to learn all about it.
