Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
360 episodes - English - Latest episode: 21 days ago - ★★★★★ - 1.7K ratingsSticky 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!
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Episodes
Copland Symphony No. 3
March 28, 2024 16:16 - 1 hour - 83.8 MBThere has always been a debate about “The Great American Symphony.” By the time most prominent American composers got around to writing large scale symphonic works, the symphony had very nearly gone out of fashion. To many musicians and thinkers, the symphony had passed on with the death of Mahler. With the advent of atonality, which essentially destroyed the developmental structure that symphonies rested on, there seemed to be nowhere for the symphonic genre to go. The traditional udnerstan...
An Exploration of Klezmer Music w/ Abigale Reisman
March 14, 2024 07:13 - 56 minutes - 78 MBKlezmer music has always been very close to my heart, even as a classical violinist. During the pandemic I attempted to learn Klezmer clarinet, and soon I began collaborating with the great Klezmer(and classical!) violinist Abigale Reisman on her work for Klezmer band and orchestra called Gedanken. Abigale taught me so much about Klezmer music, including the fact that despite its reputation as a clarinet-centric genre, the violin is actually the original voice of the Klezmer sound. I've been...
Schumann Symphony No. 3, "Rhenish"
February 29, 2024 06:15 - 54 minutes - 75 MBIn 1850, Robert Schumann accepted a position as the new Music Director in Dusseldorf. This job had a lot of responsibilities, including conducting the city orchestra. Schumann, along with his wife, the legendary pianist Clara Schumann, and their 7 children moved to Dusseldorf. The city made a huge to do about the Schumann’s arrival, welcoming him with balls, speeches, and parades. This was a new adventure for the Schumann family, and Robert, at least at first, was invigorated. He loved the l...
Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 59, No. 1
February 15, 2024 08:05 - 58 minutes - 80.5 MBIn 1806, the 36 year old Beethoven received a commission from the Russian ambassador in Vienna, Count Andreas Razumovsky. Razumovsky wanted a set of string quartets for what would soon be his house string quartet which included some of the finest players Vienna had to offer. As part of his commission, Razumovsky asked Beethoven to include a Russian theme in each one of the quartets. Beethoven obliged him in 2 of the quartets, and the Razumovsky quartets, Op. 59 1, 2, and 3, were born. 1806 w...
Ethel Smyth Serenade in D
February 01, 2024 11:00 - 48 minutes - 66.1 MBI’ve mentioned Ethel Smyth a few times in the past on this show. This is partly because of her music, and partly because she remains one of the most interesting people who ever lived. She was a composer of course, but she was also a conductor and an author, as well as a political activist. Specifically, she was a suffragette, fiercely advocating for the rights of women to vote in her home country of the UK. As a composer Smyth wrote dozens of works, all of which are starting to become better...
Dvorak Cello Concerto
January 18, 2024 10:57 - 48 minutes - 67.1 MBWhen you think of the genre of the concerto, you might be thinking of something like this: virtuoso fireworks, perhaps over romantic gestures designed simply to show the soloist off, and a rather pedestrian orchestral part, giving the soloist all of the spotlight while the conductor and orchestra are mere accompanists. Of course, this is a huge generalization and it isn’t true about many concertos. But of all of the concertos that I conduct regularly, and hear regularly, there is one that ...
Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from Westside Story
January 04, 2024 07:56 - 46 minutes - 64 MBWe're back! Welcome to Season 10! Leonard Bernstein to his wife: "These days have flown so -- I don't sleep much; I work every -- literally every -- second (since I'm doing four jobs on this show -- composing, lyric-writing, orchestrating and rehearsing the cast). It's murder, but I'm excited. It may be something extraordinary. We're having our first run thru for PEOPLE on Friday -- Please may they dig it!." Westside Story ran for 732 performances, spawned a movie that won 11 Academy Awar...
Dvorak Symphony No. 9, "From the New World" - LIVE with the Aalborg Symphony!
November 16, 2023 07:18 - 1 hour - 140 MBI had the great joy to do my first ever live edition of Sticky Notes last month with the Aalborg Symphony in Denmark. For this concert, I chose a piece that is extremely close to my heart, Dvorak's New World Symphony. The story of the New World Symphony is a fascinating one. The symphony was the result of an extraordinary series of events, with Dvorak coming to America in 1892, meeting the great singer Harry Burleigh, and falling in love with a totally new, to him, genre of music: Black Amer...
Lutoslawski Concerto for Orchestra
November 09, 2023 07:48 - 1 hour - 85.6 MBThroughout the history of Western Classical Music, folk music has imprinted itself as an invaluable resource for composers from all over the world. In fact, it’s easier to make a list of composers who never used folk music in their compositions than it is to make a list of the composers who did! This tradition began long before the 20th century, but the work of composers like Bartok and a resurgence in the influence of nationalist music sparked a massive increase in composers using folk musi...
R. Schumann Piano Concerto
November 02, 2023 06:59 - 48 minutes - 66.3 MBIn January of 1839, Clara Wieck, Robert's future wife, wrote to Robert, “Don’t take it amiss if I tell you that I’ve been seized by the desire to encourage you to write for orchestra. Your imagination and your spirit are too great for the weak piano.” Clara knew that she would have struck a nerve with Robert, whose history with the piano was full of trials and tribulations. Robert had trained as a pianist, but a 3 year period of reckless amounts of practicing as well as the exacerbating effe...
Brahms Violin Concerto
October 26, 2023 07:03 - 50 minutes - 69.3 MBBrahms’ violin concerto is one of the most difficult works for any violinist to tackle. It is as virtuosic as the hardest piece of Paganini as well as being as musically complex as a Brahms symphony. It takes most violinists years or even decades to feel comfortable with this piece, and many violinists consider it a kind of Mount Everest. Why? What makes this piece so complex, and yet so beautiful? What kind of choices do violinists make in their interpretations? For today, I'm not only goin...
What Does Music Mean?
October 19, 2023 06:32 - 52 minutes - 72 MBToday is a bit of an unusual episode. Last month I was invited by the British Society of Aesthetics to address their annual conference. My task was to give a lecture on whatever topic I wanted, having to do with music. So, considering it was an Academic Philosophy conference, I chose the easiest and most straightforward topic possible - What Does Music Mean? Obviously, this is a topic that has been interrogated from just about every different angle, and I certainly would never claim to ha...
William Grant Still Symphony No. 1., "Afro-American"
October 12, 2023 06:23 - 1 hour - 91.4 MBOn October 29th, 1931, The Rochester Philharmonic presented the world premiere of a new symphony by the composer William Grant Still. A symphonic premiere is always something to look out for in musical history, but this one had an even greater significance. The premiere of Wiliam Grant Still’s First Symphony, subtitled “Afro American,” was the first time a symphony written by a Black American composer was performed by a leading orchestra. William Grant Still was a man of many firsts, whethe...
(Part 2) - The Music of World War II and the Holocaust with "Time's Echo" writer Jeremy Eichler
October 05, 2023 06:12 - 55 minutes - 75.8 MBThis is another episode where I highly recommend listening to Part 1 from last week before listening to this episode! It was a great honor to speak with the critic and cultural historian Jeremy Eichler about his remarkable new book "Time's Echo." In today's episode, we speak about Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen, as well as the complicated and hotly debated questions about Strauss' activities during World War II. We also talk about Shostakovich and his 13th Symphony, entitled "Babi Yar," a pi...
The Music of World War II and the Holocaust with "Time's Echo" writer Jeremy Eichler (Part 1)
September 28, 2023 05:40 - 57 minutes - 79.3 MBI had the great pleasure and honor this week(and next week) to speak with the author of the new book Time's Echo Jeremy Eichler. The book chronicles four composers and their varied reactions to World War II and the Holocaust, including Schoenberg, Strauss, Shostakovich, and Britten. This week we talked about the historical symbiosis between Germans and German Jews, the concept of Bildung, a central idea in German culture throughout the 19th and early 20th century, Mendelssohn's role in creat...
Mahler Symphony No. 4, Part 2
September 21, 2023 04:03 - 59 minutes - 82.1 MBIf you haven’t listened to Part 1 of this episode about Mahler's 4th symphony, I highly recommend doing that, as every movement of this symphony builds to the "Heavenly Life" of the last movement. On Part 2, we'll be going through the 3rd and 4th movements. Mahler told his friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner that the 3rd movement of the symphony was created by ”a vision of a tombstone on which was carved an image of the departed, with folded arms, in eternal sleep.” As you can imagine based on that...
Mahler Symphony No. 4, Part 1
September 14, 2023 06:48 - 51 minutes - 71.2 MBAfter the truly heavenly slow movement of Mahler’s 4th symphony, a soprano emerges and sings a song literally called “The Heavenly Life.” It is a symphonic ending like no other, one that leaves the listener peaceful and contented after taking a long(but not as long as usual) and winding journey with Gustav Mahler and his 4th symphony. The 4th symphony is a symphony of moments, like the famous sleigh bells that begin the piece, and a symphony of long, massive, and momentous arcs, like in the ...
Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 132, Part 2
September 08, 2023 09:54 - 44 minutes - 61.3 MBIf you joined me last week, you heard about the severe intestinal illness that Beethoven suffered from during the year of 1825. Beethoven thought that he was near death; he was spitting up blood, in terrible pain, and regularly begged his doctor for help. Ensconced in Baden, a Viennese suburb known for its nature and calm, Beethoven slowly and miraculously recovered from the illness, giving him 2 more years to compose. These two years brought us the quartets Op. 130 Op. 131, Op. 135, a se...
Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 132, Part 1
August 31, 2023 04:53 - 45 minutes - 61.8 MBI had long hesitated to write a show about any of Beethoven’s late string quartets. These are pieces that professional quartets spend the better part of their careers grappling with, struggling with, failing with, and much more rarely, succeeding with. They are some of the most extraordinary pieces of art ever conceived of. 5 quartets, Opus 127, Opus 130, Opus 131, Opus 132, and Opus 135, all written near or at the end of Beethoven’s life, arguably representing the pinnacle of everything ...
Nielsen Symphony No. 4, "Inextinguishable"
August 24, 2023 05:59 - 59 minutes - 81.8 MBAt the top of the score for the Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s 4th symphony, he wrote: “Music is life, and like it, inextinguishable.” This could easily be the shortest podcast I’ve ever done. I could leave you with that quote and then play you the beginning of the symphony, and you would understand everything Nielsen wanted to portray in this remarkable music. But don’t worry, I won’t do that. Carl Nielsen’s music has never quite made it into the standard standard repertoire, but if there...
Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream
August 17, 2023 12:57 - 52 minutes - 72.4 MBThe stories, legends, and myths about the trials and travails of composers lives are legion, like Beethoven’s battles against fate, Mozart and Schubert’s struggles with finances, Brahms’ failures with women, Mahler’s troubles with just about everyone, and Shostakovich’s near fatal interactions with the government. These stories tend to add to the general understanding of these composers, and in fact they tend to enhance their reputations. We see their struggles in their music, and it makes...
Elgar Cello Concerto
August 10, 2023 07:06 - 52 minutes - 71.9 MBElgar's Cello Concerto was composed in the shadow of World War 1. It was a piece that marked a profound shift in Elgar's outlook on life and music, and was his last major work before a long silence caused by the death of his wife Alice. It is a piece of remarkable passion for a composer like Elgar, and never fails to move the audience with its combination of grief, melancholy, nostalgia, rage, but also tenderness. Elgar as a composer had been passed by with the invention of atonality and wit...
Romeo and Juliet in Classical Music
August 03, 2023 04:42 - 49 minutes - 67.7 MBThe "love theme" from Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture is one of the most famous themes in the history of Western Classical Music. The story it accompanies might be the most famous Western play ever written. Just like Eine Kleine Nachtmusik seems to define the powdered wig era of classical music to the general public, the passionate theme from Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet seems to define romanticism in music because Tchaikovsky’s Overture-Fantasy captures Shakespeare’s ma...
Mozart Symphony No. 38, "Prague"
July 27, 2023 06:51 - 53 minutes - 73.4 MBVery few cities have had a relationship with a single person, especially a foreigner, like the city of Prague and its love affair with Mozart. Here’s what Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart’s librettist for some of his greatest operas, said about it: "It is not easy to convey an adequate conception of the enthusiasm of the Bohemians for [Mozart's] music. The pieces which were admired least of all in other countries were regarded by those people as things divine; and, more wonderful still, the great be...
Jean-Louis Duport Cello Concerto No. 4
July 20, 2023 05:40 - 43 minutes - 59.2 MBThank you to Nicole for sponsoring today's show on Patreon! Have you ever heard of Jean-Louis Duport? I imagine that unless you are a professional cellist, or someone who studied cello as a child, you probably haven’t. Even though my sister is a professional cellist, I had never heard of him before I was asked to make this show. Duport is a historical figure who has been almost completely forgotten, though he was part of a fascinating group of musicians who encountered Beethoven, Frederick...
Brahms B Major Piano Trio
July 06, 2023 11:45 - 55 minutes - 76.1 MBWhen we listen to the music of Johannes Brahms, we often are reminded of the image of the portly bearded Brahms at the piano, eyes closed in a soulful pose. Brahms’ works always, even in his youth, seemed to have a burnished maturity about them. As I’ve said many times on this show, Brahms’ music is often described as autumnal, and there’s a good reason for this, as its gentle melancholy is one of those things that never left Brahms even in his earlier works. But the piece we’re talking abou...
Sibelius Violin Concerto
June 29, 2023 06:20 - 48 minutes - 66 MBThere’s a joke among classical musicians that the only parts of a piece that matter are the beginning, the end, and one place in the middle. I don’t think its something that anyone really believes in, but the value of the beginning of a piece in setting the scene cannot be ignored, and the absolutely stunning opening of the Sibelius violin concerto is no exception. A soft carpet of violins slowly oscillating between two notes sets up the entrance of the violinist, who over the course of th...
Ravel, Bolero + La Valse
June 22, 2023 06:40 - 54 minutes - 74.8 MBMaurice Ravel the Magician, the Swiss Watchmaker, the aloof, the elegant, the precise, the soulful, the childlike, the naive, the warm, the radical, the progressive. These are all words that were used to describe a man of elegant contradictions throughout his life and into today. I talked a lot about Ravel’s skill with orchestration last week when we discussed Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, but Ravel's brilliance and creativity in terms of orchestral sound is absolutely unparalleled...
Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition
June 15, 2023 05:34 - 58 minutes - 80.8 MBHave you ever been to an art museum and wished that you had music to accompany your experience? Music that made the art you were looking at more vivid, more immediate, and more emotionally intense? Well, Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is the piece for you. Inspired by his late friend Victor Hartmann’s paintings and designs, Mussorgsky composed a series of 10 miniature pieces for piano based on Hartmann's works. Unlike many other collections of miniature pieces that have th...
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4
June 08, 2023 05:54 - 59 minutes - 81.8 MBWelcome to episode number 200 of Sticky Notes!! On December 22nd, 1808, a day that would live in classical music lore forever, Ludwig Van Beethoven sat down for his very last appearance as a solo pianist to play this new piano concerto, his 4th. This performance was not only the premiere of the new piano concerto, but the premiere of two new symphonies as well, the 5th and the 6th. It featured many other new works, and the concert itself lasted nearly 4 hours, all inside of the cold and da...
Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8
June 01, 2023 09:17 - 50 minutes - 69.7 MBWhat did Dmitri Shostakovich intend to portray in his music? There is probably no more debated a question in all of 20th century Western Classica lMusic than this one. On the surface, it seems to have an easy answer. Shostakovich portrayed his own thoughts and feelings in his music, just as any other composer would. And that is certainly true. Shostakovich, above anything else, was truly one of the great composers in history. HIs mastery of form, meldoy, strcuture, pacing, and his ability to...
What Does a Conductor Really Do?
May 25, 2023 12:14 - 47 minutes - 64.6 MBHave you ever wondered what it is that us conductors are really doing up there? Are we just waving our arms in time to the music? What role does the conductor actually play in a concert? How about a rehearsal? Do we also learn to be train conductors as well? Well, today's episode is about answering those questions! We'll talk about conducting on 3 different levels, including the basic level where we'll talk all about beat patterns, studying, rehearsals, concert programming, and more. We'll a...
All things Piano with Marc-André Hamelin
May 18, 2023 11:05 - 52 minutes - 72.3 MBMarc-André Hamelin is one of the world's greatest living pianists. He is known as a virtuoso of the highest order and has made nearly 100 recordings spanning the gamut of the piano repertoire. In this conversation we talk about how Marc fell in love with Gershwin, piano rolls, Busoni, Godowsky, the nature of virutosity, Haydn, CPE Bach, programming, nerves on stage, and much much more! This was such a fun and wide-ranging conversation and I certainly learned a lot speaking with Marc about th...
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4
May 11, 2023 05:34 - 1 hour - 83.1 MB“This is Fate, the force of destiny, which ever prevents our pursuit of happiness from reaching its goal, which jealously stands watch lest our peace and well-being be full and cloudless, which hangs like the sword of Damocles over our heads and constantly, ceaselessly poisons our souls.” With this description, Tchaikovsky gave his patron Nadezhda von Meck a rare insight into the inspiration behind what he called the “nucleus” of his 4th symphony. Despite the fact that Tchaikovsky’s music is...
My 25 Favorite Moments in Classical Music (Part 2)
May 04, 2023 06:45 - 55 minutes - 75.8 MBLast week we covered moments 1-15 in my top 25 favorite moments in classical music, going all the way up towards the end of the 19th century. This week we're going to explore 9 of my favorite moments from the wide world of 20th century music, and then, in a little twist, I'm going to look at 5 of my favorite moments from living composers. We're going to hear from Stravinsky, Mahler, Dawson, Barber, Shaw, Gruber, Widmann, Scriabin, Shostakovich, Debussy, Ravel, Chin, Skye, and more this week ...
My Top 25 Favorite Moments in Classical Music (Part 1)
April 27, 2023 06:38 - 52 minutes - 72 MBWhat MAKES a moment in a piece of classical music? Sometimes it’s the result of careful pacing from a composer, the slow build to a powerful release. Sometimes it’s about surprise, a sudden explosion, or even a sudden extinguishing of sound. Sometimes it’s about a harmonic transition, where the music lifts off the ground or is brought down to earth. Sometimes it’s the culmination of over an hour of effort, finally reaching the top of the mountain. Music lovers of all stripes often talk about...
Mendelssohn Octet in E Flat Major, Op. 20
April 20, 2023 04:36 - 1 hour - 86.9 MBFrom 1825-1827, Mendelssohn wrote 3 of his most beloved and most played works: his Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, his String Quartet, Op. 13, and the piece were going to talk about today, his Octet. What is truly astonishing about these three pieces is that they were all written before Mendelssohn turned 18 years old. Mendelssohn was the greatest prodigy in the history of Western Classical Music, writing music so spectacular at such a young age that it almost overshadows his later, more m...
Mahler Symphony No. 5, Part 2
April 13, 2023 05:57 - 48 minutes - 67.1 MBI left you last week after Part 1 of Mahler’s 5th symphony, dazed and defeated. There seems to be no hope, and no way out. But as many of you know by now, Mahler reaches for the entire emotional spectrum in his music, and what Mahler builds out of the ashes of the first two movements is a complicated, difficult, and fascinating Part II, and a warm, sunny, and loving Part III. Part II is a single movement, a massive 17 minute scherzo that serves as a bridge to Part III and also is practica...
Mahler Symphony No. 5, Part 1
April 06, 2023 06:15 - 57 minutes - 79.6 MBThere is a thread of musical theory called Schenkerian analysis, based on the work of Heinrich Schenker. Schenker believed that musical works could be boiled down to their fundamental structures and harmonies. Entire works could be described with single chords. If Schenker had applied his analysis to Mahler’s 5th symphony, he might have played just two chords for you: a C# minor chord, and then a D Major chord. The reason why? Over the course of 70 minutes, Mahler takes the listener on ...
Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht
March 30, 2023 05:35 - 57 minutes - 79.2 MBI’m not sure there’s ever been a composer who changed as much throughout his or her life as Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg would become famous, or infamous, depending on who you talk to, for his invention of atonality; the equalization of all keys so that the system of harmony that had been followed, in one way or another, in Western music for nearly a thousand years, was banished. This invention radically changed the course of contemporary classical music, and it remains controversial to ...
What Does an Opera Director Really Do? W/ Tabatha McFadyen
March 23, 2023 06:16 - 59 minutes - 82.1 MBHave you ever wondered what exactly goes on behind the scenes putting together an opera? Have you ever asked yourself how a director make decisions on how to interpret the libretto of an opera? Why do some productions look so completely different to others? What is "regie theater" and why it is so controversial? Well, all of these questions and more are answered by my guest today, the fantastic director, performer, and writer Tabatha McFadyen, who takes us through the process of directing an...
The Life and Music of Clara Schumann
March 16, 2023 06:15 - 48 minutes - 66.7 MBClara Schumann, without a doubt, was one of the greatest pianists of all time. Schumann’s playing didn’t just leave critics and audiences in raptures, it also left other composers amazed that their music could sound so beautiful. Liszt called her the Priestess of the Piano, Chopin adored her playing, and Mendelssohn brought her over and over again to Leipzig to play concerts with the Gewandhaus orchestra. She toured practically her entire life while raising a family of 8 children, and tak...
So What's It Like To Be The Principal Horn Of The Berlin Philharmonic? W/ Stefan Dohr
March 09, 2023 07:32 - 49 minutes - 67.4 MBStefan Dohr is one of the greatest french horn players in the world today. He has been the Principal Horn of the Berlin Philharmonic, one of the world's greatest orchestras, since 1993. In this really fun interview, Stefan and I talked about how he switched to the horn after starting out on the viola, his most memorable performances, what's it like to actually play in the Berlin Philharmonic, how to blend sound between the different sections of the orchestra, and much much more. Stefan is on...
Brahms Symphony No. 1
March 02, 2023 07:32 - 52 minutes - 72.1 MBBrahms was only 20 years old when Robert Schumann wrote his famous Neue Bahnen(New Paths) article that proclaimed Brahms as the future of music and the heir of Beethoven. Beethoven had only been dead for 26 years at this point, and his shadow still loomed large over every single composer living in Germany, and beyond. Brahms knew that the most concrete way he would be compared with Beethoven would be through a symphony, and so…he studiously avoided writing one. It’s not like he didn’t try. B...
Debussy String Quartet
February 23, 2023 10:51 - 48 minutes - 67.2 MBJust one year before Debussy wrote his legendary Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, he completed another groundbreaking work. It was a string quartet, which he expected to be the first of many. But in the end, it would be the only one he would ever write. If you aren’t familiar with Debussy’s music, this quartet might be the perfect place to start. In the string quartet, Debussy mastered for the first time many of the things that would mark his later orchestral masterpieces, like La Mer, I...
A Conversation with Martin Fröst: "The Highest Feeling You Can Get is that Someone Got Better"
February 16, 2023 07:41 - 46 minutes - 63.8 MBMartin Fröst very well may be the greatest living clarinetist. His brilliant sound, feats of virtuosity, eclectic taste, and amazing performing ability has made him a superstar in the classical music world. I recently worked with Martin in Spain and a month later we had time to sit down and record a conversation at his home in Stockholm. This was a fascinating and wide ranging conversation talking about Martin's early experiences with the clarinet, his view on concert programming and how cla...
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring, Part 2
February 09, 2023 13:45 - 44 minutes - 60.5 MBBy as early as 1909, composers like Mahler knew that tonality was reaching its breaking point, and composers like Debussy were experimenting with colors and ideas a composer like Brahms wouldn’t have dreamed were possible. Strauss was shocking the world in his own right with his erotic and disturbing opera Salome. Mirroring the roiling tensions all over the world, music was pushing and stretching at its boundaries in ways that it simply hadn’t before. The years from 1900-1914 were a powder...
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring, Part 1
February 02, 2023 13:55 - 45 minutes - 63.1 MBThe most famous thing about Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is the riot that took place at its premiere. Perhaps its overcompensating for classical music's reputation for being a bit stuffy, but musicians and musicologists LOVE talking about the riot at the Rite of Spring, and I’m no exception. But you might be surprised to know that the Rite Riot was by no means the only disturbance at a classical concert. There are myriad stories of chaos at concerts throughout musical history, but none...
Stravinsky: Petrouchka
January 27, 2023 07:14 - 1 hour - 86.6 MBIf you listened to my show last week about Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird, you know that Stravinsky’s life was never the same after the premiere of the ballet in 1910. Sergei Diaghilev, the founder of the Ballets Russes and Stravinsky’s greatest collaborator, said just before the premiere, “this man is on the eve of celebrity.” Diaghilev was absolutely right, as The Firebird made Stravinsky a Parisian household name practically overnight. Of course, immediately everyone wanted to know what...
Stravinsky: The Firebird
January 19, 2023 07:49 - 45 minutes - 63.1 MBIn 1906, the impresario Sergei Diaghilev created a sensation in Paris with an exhibition of Russian Art. This was the first time a major showing of Russian art had appeared in Paris, and from this point forward, the city was obsessed with Russian art, literature, and music. Diaghilev, ever the promoter, then put together the Ballets Russes, the Russian Ballet, in 1909, a company based in Paris that performed ballets composed, choreographed, and danced, by Russians. Over the next 20 years, ...