There is nothing like hearing a Late Beethoven String Quartet for the first time. Beethoven’s late string quartets, Op. 127, Op. 130, Op. 131, Op. 132, and Op. 135, are among the 5 greatest pieces of music ever written for any combination of instruments. They reach a kind of cosmic understanding of the world that is unparalleled, and they remain the Mount Everest of every string quartet’s repertoire. The quartet we’re going to be talking about today, Op. 135, is slightly the outlier from the set, in that it is less expansive, slightly less complex, and as Misha Amory from the Brentano String Quartet says, “it is the work of a composer who seems to have suddenly attained some new, simple truth after miles of struggle.” Op. 135 is Beethoven’s last completed work, and as this year begins, I thought I would check off number 2 of 5 Late Beethoven Quartets with this work that seems to exist on another plane of existence entirely. It is a piece of great depth and sadness, and also of ecstasy and lightness. It is a piece of great seriousness that is also full of a sense of humor that is rare in Beethoven. It contains one of the greatest slow movements ever written, a movement that would inspire one of Mahler’s greatest symphonic movements, and it also features a zany and wild scherzo movement that could have been written two weeks ago. In short, Beethoven’s Op. 135 has it all. Join us as we go through this masterpiece together!

I'm so happy to share this live episode of Sticky Notes that I did with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra in Denmark back in October! This episode covered Berlioz's remarkable Symphonie Fantastique - the ultimate symphonic thrill ride. Join the orchestra and I as we talk our way through this symphony, from it's opium fueled back story, to its innovative structure and style, to the dreams and reveries of the first movement and the sadistic glee of the final two movements, and a whole lot more. Thank you to the Aalborg Symphony for their participation in this project, and I hope all of you listening have had a wonderful holidays and a Happy New Year! See you in the New Year with all new episodes from Beethoven's Opus 135 String Quartet to Smetana's Ma Vlast and much much more!

Here are two statements by Dmitri Shostakovich about the same piece, the 8th symphony that we are talking about today:

Statement No. 1, Shostakovich’s published comments about the symphony when it was first performed in 1943: The 8th Symphony reflects my…elevated creative mood, influenced by the joyful news of the Red Army's victories…. "The Eighth Symphony contains tragic and dramatic inner conflicts. But on the whole it is optimistic and life-asserting. The first movement is a long adagio, with a dramatically tense climax. The second movement is a march, with scherzo elements, and the third is a dynamic march. The fourth movement, in spite of its march form, is sad in mood. The fifth and final movement is bright and gay, like a pastoral, with dance elements and folk motifs. "The philosophical conception of my new work can be summed up in these words: life is beautiful. All that is dark and evil rots away, and beauty triumphs."

Statement No. 2, from the disputed book Testimony, published in the 1970s: ‘And then the war came and the sorrow became a common one. We could talk about it, we could cry openly, cry for our lost ones. People stopped fearing tears. Before the war there probably wasn’t a single family who hadn’t lost someone, a father, a brother, or if not a relative, then a close friend. Everyone had someone to cry over, but you had to cry silently, under the blanket, so no one would see. Everyone feared everyone else, and the sorrow oppressed and suffocated us. It suffocated me too. I had to write about it. I had to write a Requiem for all those who died, who had suffered. I had to describe the horrible extermination machine and express protest against it. The Seventh and Eighth Symphonies are my Requiems.

I don’t know of a more profound example of Shostakovich’s doublespeak, or of his ability to make diametrically opposing statements about the meaning behind his music.  Shostakovich’s 8th symphony premiered at the height of World War II, and it was not a hit, unlike his 7th symphony which had swept the world with its seeming patriotic fervor and its devastating condemnation of the Nazis. Shostakovich’s 8th is a very different piece, darker, edgier, less catchy, less simple, and certainly less optimistic. It was panned in the Soviet Union by the official critics and was effectively banned from performance in teh Soviet Union from 1948 until the late 1950s. It was also not particularly popular outside of the Soviet Union, as the 7th’s popularity and accessibility dwarfed the 8th, though this equation has now flipped, with the 8th symphony now probably becoming slightly more often played than the 7th. As always with Shostakovich, he mixes tradition with his own Shostakovich-ian innovations. The symphony has a Sonata Form first movement, but that movement is longer than the following three movements combined. It has a darkness to light theme from C Minor to C Major, like in Beethoven’s 5th and Mahler’s 2nd, but whether the ending is optimistic is subject to furious debate. It has not 1 but 2 scherzos, but they are among the least funny scherzos ever written, and it has a slow movement that is surprisingly un-emotional. The requiem Shostakovich speaks of seems to happen slowly over the course of this 1 hour symphony. It is perhaps Shostakovich’s most ambiguous mature symphony, and it is also thought of as one of his greatest masterpieces. Today on this Patreon Sponsored episode, we’ll dive into this remarkable work, trying to create a framework to understand this huge and demanding symphony. Join us!

My Patreon sponsor for this episode, Adrian, set me a challenge: The influence of literary works on classical compositions, exploring pieces inspired by poetry, novels, or plays. He also asked me to do something else, and I’m going to quote him here:

Also, if I may add something regarding the episode: It is of course possible to make an episode about the influence of literature on music by simply doing an overview of different works that have some obvious attachment to a work of literature. However, it would be particularly interesting if you could say something more general or principled (or philosophical, if you will) about the relation between literature and music. Why do so many composers write pieces about or inspired by literary works? Does music based on literary works have any distinguishing features compared to other music? Does literature add something to music beyond simply being a subject matter among many possible subject matters? 

To attempt an answer at Adrian’s last question, I think the answer is yes, literature(or poetry or theatre) can add something to music beyond being simply a subject matter. I think this is the key reason why music based on literary works is so compelling to us as listeners and why these inspirations have been so fruitful for composers. Of course, I had dozens of masterpieces to choose from when deciding which pieces to talk about in a bit of detail. But in the end, I’ve chosen 5 pieces to discuss today, 3 works based on poetry, and 2 based on a novel. The ways the composers I’m going to talk about manipulated and molded these works of literature or poetry into their music is remarkable, and throughout the show today I’ll try to show you the techniques they used to do this, whether it’s explicitly trying to depict images, like in Strauss’ Don Quixote, or whether the music tries to express some sort of deeper philosophy behind the poems, like in Mahler’s Das Lied von Der Erde. I hope this episode is as fun to listen to as it was fun to research and write! Join us!

The muses were Ancient Greek goddesses of inspiration. Throughout history, the term muse has been used to describe any number of people, all of whom inspired works of great art and/or literature. In the popular imagination, muses are almost always women, inspiring brilliant men to their greatest artistic achievements. Why am I bringing this up? Because in the case of the piece we are going to talk about today, the Brahms Clarinet Quintet, the muse, and the source of inspiration, was very different. In 1890, Brahms retired from composing. In a way this was very rare. Composers very rarely retired, and most went on composing until their deaths, leaving unfinished works, but Brahms declared that he had nothing left to contribute, and that a younger generation should take over. He was only 57 years old, but he had become embittered both with the world of music and with the world as a whole. His 4th symphony had ended in a kind of apocalyptic destruction of the symphonic genre as a whole; a paroxysm of disillusionment with the direction music was going and with the direction of politics in Europe. But in March of 1891, Brahms heard a clarinetist named Richard Muhlfeld. Muhlfeld quickly became, for lack of a better word, Brahms’ muse. His playing directly inspired Brahms to write 4 works for the clarinet, a trio, 2 sonatas, and a quintet, the topic for today’s show. The clarinet quintet is practically the definition of the so-called autumnal Brahms. The clarinet quintet is one of Brahms’ most expansive chamber works, and it is Brahms at his most wistful, nostalgic, and even tragic. Today on the show I’ll take you through this magisterial work, exploring all of the things that make this piece so special, so touching, and so unforgettable. Join us!

Classical music and politics have never been easy bedfellows. Composers and performers throughout history have relied on patronage and support from wealthy sources in order to keep their dreams afloat, and so unlike many other forms of music, classical music often has the reputation of being a politics-free zone. But the truth is that there is a whole repertoire of classical music that is infused with politics, and not just music from the 20th and 21st centuries. Today, with the American election looming just around the corner, we'll explore a series of pieces that all had political messages, the stories behind them, the motivations of the composers who wrote these pieces, and of course, the music itself. We'll be covering music by Haydn, Smyth, Shostakovich, Verdi, Adams, and much more today - join us!

The original production of Westside Story ran for 732 performances, spawned a movie that won 11 Academy Awards, and is still a go to on every list of the greatest Broadway Musicals ever written.  The collaboration between Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Jerome Robbins was a revolution on par with the collaborations of Stravinsky, Diaghilev, and Nijinsky on the Rite of Spring.  No Broadway show had ever been so gritty, so tragic, and so raw.  The first performances of Westside Story were done against the backdrop of a rise in gang violence in New York City.  The socio-economic aspects of the show were evident to everyone who watched it, and I always like to remind people that the location where Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, who adapted Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet for this show, and Sondheim imagined the story taking place is where Lincoln Center now sits, a seat of opulence and extravagance. Simply put, this was a musical, a comedy, a tragedy, a political statement, and most importantly, a stunningly revolutionary work of art by these collaborators.  Today, I want to tell you about the music, and more specifically, the Symphonic Dances from Westside Story, an arrangement that Bernstein made with his colleague Sid Ramin 3 years after the show’s premiere.  The Symphonic Dances brought Bernstein’s electric music from the theatre to the concert stage, and it’s stayed there ever since.  So today, we’ll go through each number, talking about just what makes this music so great, and also about the show itself - its background, its production, and the issues that Bernstein, Laurents, Sondheim, and Robbins were trying to tackle, all through the eyes of a tale of woe about Juliet and her Romeo, or of course, Maria and Tony. Join us!

Caroline Shaw is one of the most fascinating, innovative, and brilliant composers of our time. Since winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2013, she rocketed onto the scene and has stayed there ever since, writing music that has captivated audiences around the world. In this conversation, which dates back to 2020(so there is a bit of pandemic talk at the beginning), we talked about her musical upbringing, the shock and surprise of her Pulitzer win, her compositional process, and much much more. This was a really fun and edifying conversation and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! 

In 1929, the conductor Nicolas Slonimsky contacted the American composer Charles Ives about performing one of his works. This was a bit of a surprise for Ives, since he had a checkered reputation among musicians and audience members, if they even were familiar with his name at all. In fact, he was much more famous during his lifetime as an extremely successful insurance executive! Ives mostly composed in his spare time, and his music was mostly ignored or ridiculed as that of a person suffering from a crisis of mental health. Most of his music was never performed during his lifetime, and even today, he is thought of as a great but extremely eccentric composer, and orchestras and chamber ensembles often struggle to sell tickets if his name appears on the program. But for those who love Ives, there is an almost evangelical desire to spread his music to the world. I’m one of those people who loves Ives, and it is one of my personal missions to bring his music to as many places as possible. The piece I chose to talk about today is Three Places in New England, or the New England Symphony, a piece that is a perfect amalgam of what makes Ives such a spectacular composer - his radical innovations, his ahead of his time experiments, his humor, his humanity, his warmth, and the staggering creativity that marked all of Ives’ great works. We’ll start with a little biography of Ives in case you’re not familiar with him, and then we’ll dive into Three Places in New England.  By the end of the show, I hope, if you’re not already, that I will have converted you into an Ives fan for life!

Fundraiser link here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1026719635067?aff=oddtdtcreator

On October 29th, 1931, The Rochester Philharmonic in New York State 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, whether he was the first Black American conductor to conduct a major orchestra, the first to have an opera performed by a major company, the first Black American to conduct an orchestra in the South of the United States, and much more. Today we’re going to focus in on Grant Still’s first symphony, a symphony that Grant Still had long thought about, conceptualized, and dreamed of. It was also a symphony wrapped up in the roiling currents of Black America at the time, with the Harlem Renaissance in full swing and Alain Locke’s tract The New Negro sparking discussion and debate all over the country. It was a symphony that attempted to do something no one had ever done before; that is, to marry together the genre of the Blues with that of symphonic music. Until 1950, it was THE most performed symphony written by an American composer. But until 10 or 15 years ago, it had all but disappeared from the stage, but due to the explosion of interest in Black American composers of the past and present, this brilliant symphony is making its way back onto stages all over the world. The way that Grant Still constructed this meeting of two genres of music was ingenious and innovative from start to finish, and so today on the show we’ll explore all of the historical context of the symphony, what Grant Still was trying to do with his monumental new endeavor, and of course, all of the music itself. I want to thank John McWhorter for his brilliant contributions to this episode, as well as the Aalborg Symphony for embarking on a fantastic recording of the symphony, which you will hear throughout this episode.