Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast

Beethoven once said: “No one can love the country as much as I do. For surely woods, trees, and rocks produce the echo which man desires to hear.” There's no better example of Beethoven's love of nature than in his 6th symphony, where he takes simplicity to new heights, transforming the motivic cells that relentlessly drove his 5th symphony into motifs of bucolic joy. It still astounds me that the 5th and 6th symphonies were written simultaneously. Join us to learn about this most beautiful symphony..

The podcast explores the iconic opening notes and structure of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. It delves into the debate of his classification as a classicist or romantic and examines the rhythmic and thematic elements of the symphony. The emotional journey and cultural/political influence of Symphony No. 5 are also discussed.

Beethoven often gets the reputation of being a composer of extreme seriousness, shaking his fist at the heavens while dealing with a litany of medical ailments and heartbreak, and there is some truth to that as well. But the 4th symphony, a very strange and mysterious introduction aside, is a piece of almost unadulterated joy. It is another side of Beethoven: bouncy, funny, silly, and quite simply, happy. How and why did he write such a happy symphony? How does music become “happy?” Join us to find out..

Explore the revolutionary and wild nature of Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, known as the Eroica, and its departure from previous symphonies. Learn about the shock and controversy surrounding its first performance, the unique style and unconventional rhythms employed by Beethoven, and the significance of its themes. Delve into Beethoven's contemplation of suicide, the metronome marking controversy, the competitive and tense incorporation of multiple themes, and the development and significance of the main theme. Discover how this symphony changed the musical world forever.

We continue the Beethoven cycle this week with his underrated 2nd symphony. Written at the height of Beethoven's despair over his increasing deafness, you might think that the symphony would be a dark and stormy one, but instead Beethoven writes one of his most relentlessly cheerful pieces. He even invented a whole new type of movement called a scherzo (joke) to heighten the mood. How do we account for this incongruity between life and art? We'll talk about all this and more as the journey continues..

Today begins a pretty massive project for Sticky Notes - a complete Beethoven cycle over the next few weeks! We start of course with Beethoven's 1st symphony. Some people tend to think of Beethoven’s 1st as a cautious foray into the symphonic world, but I couldn’t disagree more. It is a bold, confident leap into the genre, a genre that Beethoven would end up changing for good. All of the elements that make Beethoven's symphonies so fantastic are already present in this symphony, so let's begin the journey!

Imagine compressing a 3 or 4 hour opera into 8 minutes of music. You’ve just imagined an overture! Overtures are an integral and beloved part of the opera and concert experience, and the best overtures live on as separate pieces from the work they are attached to. These overtures feature music so wonderful that they become immortal miniature masterpieces. So today I'll take you through 10 of my favorite overtures, from William Tell, to Don Giovanni, to Candide, to Romeo and Juliet, and many more. Enjoy!

Bach's Cello Suites are now an indispensable part of the cello repertoire, but this wasn't always the case. After Bach's death, they were forgotten. But starting in the 1890s, a cellist named Pablo Casals began playing the Suites, and the rest is history. Bach left very few clues on how to play these suites, and so many cellists interpret the Suites extraordinarily differently. Today we're going to take a look at 6 cellists and talk about how they interpret these enigmatic, sacred, and inspiring pieces.

Have you ever wondered how music gets from the manuscript to the printed page? Today we’re talking about Haydn, and a project by Henle Publishers to reissue all 55 of Haydn’s piano sonatas with fingerings from 55 different pianists! I talked with the editor in chief at Henle, Norbert Müllemann, and also the brilliant pianist Stephen Hough, one of the 55 pianists chosen for this project. We talked about editing, putting fingerings in, and how interpretation is affected by these decisions. This is a fun one!

Explore the transformative era of Baroque music, where composers like Bach and Vivaldi revolutionized melody and harmony. Discover the emotional depth in late Baroque arias and the legacies of Handel and Bach, navigating societal challenges through their masterful compositions. Delve into the intricate beauty of Bach's keyboard works and the revival of Baroque music in the 18th century, driven by Mendelssohn's passion for reinterpreting these timeless masterpieces. This journey reveals why this period remains foundational in Western classical music.