Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast

By Joshua Weilerstein

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What's Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast about?

Sticky Notes is a classical music podcast for everyone. Whether you are a beginner just looking to get into classical music but don't know where to start, or a seasoned musician interested in the lives and ideas of your fellow artists, this podcast is for you. The show will feature interviews with the top artists of today, in-depth looks at specific pieces from the repertoire, and deep dives into each era of classical music, plus much more.

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Berlioz, "Symphonie Fantast...

01.21.2021

Symphonie Fantastique, which was written just 3 years after Beethoven’s death, redefined what music could portray. Its color, fire, narrative arc, vulgarity, descriptiveness, and drug-induced hysteria put it in a class of its own in the classical music world. As ...

Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast episodes:

01.21.2021 Berlioz, "Symphonie Fantastique" Symphonie Fantastique, which was written just 3 years after Beethoven’s death, redefined what music could portray. Its color, fire, narrative arc, vulgarity, descriptiveness, and drug-induced hysteria put it in a class of its own in the classical music world. As ...
01.14.2021 History of Classical Music in 60 Minutes I'm often asked: “I want to get into classical music, but where do I start?” Today is my attempt to answer that question! Western Classical Music is an umbrella term that stretches over 1500 years of music, and there is ...
01.07.2021 Schubert Symphony No. 9, "The Great" (Re-Upload) The pianist Andras Schiff on Schubert: “There is a folk song like simplicity in Schubert’s Music; his music is never crowded. He does not want to impress you or overwhelm you. He tells you a very simple story and invites ...
12.30.2020 Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, Part 2 (Re-Upload) A few years ago, I was at a performance of the Rite of Spring. Sitting behind me were some rather conservative audience members. As one particularly violent section of the piece blasted away, I heard one of them say, “If ...
12.24.2020 Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker (Re-Upload) It's possible that the Nutcracker is the most recognizable Western Classical Music in the world, so what could one say about this ubiquitous piece? Well, from the adaptations of the original story, to the composition process, to the premiere, to ...
12.17.2020 Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, Part 1 (Re-Upload) You might be surprised to know that the famous riot at the premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring was by no means the only disturbance at a classical concert in history. But it is the most famous. This week, we'll ...
12.10.2020 Mahler Symphony No. 3, Part 3 (Season 6 Finale) Welcome to the Season 6 Finale of Sticky Notes! Mahler titled the last movement of his 3rd symphony "What Love Tells Me." This movement is my favorite movement of any Mahler symphony. It is a profoundly heartfelt chorale that traverses ...
12.03.2020 Mahler Symphony No. 3, Part 2 The middle four movements of Mahler's 3rd symphony were central to his mission - that is, to portray the entire world in one symphony. And when I say entire world I really mean it. In these movements, Mahler musically portrays ...
11.25.2020 Copland "Appalachian Spring" (Re-Upload) For this Thanksgiving week we’re doing another re-upload from the archive! Today we’ll look at Copland’s Appalachian Spring, a ballet that has captured the imagination of listeners worldwide and seems to be the marker of the “American” sound in Western ...
11.19.2020 A Conversation with Harry Christophers, Founder and Director of The Sixteen This week I spoke with Harry Christophers, who wears many different hats in his jobs as Artistic Director of the Handel and Haydn Society, and as the Founder and Director of The Sixteen, one of the world's most renowned choirs. ...
11.12.2020 Mahler Symphony No. 3, Part 1 Mahler on his third symphony: “Just imagine a work of such magnitude that it actually mirrors the whole world—one is, so to speak, only an instrument, played on by the universe. . . . My symphony will be something the ...
11.05.2020 A Conversation with Composer and Violinist Jesse Montgomery Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. Her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. Her music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, language, and social justice, placing her squarely ...
10.29.2020 Politics in Classical Music First of all, if you’re American, I hope you’re listening to this while standing in line to vote! Western Classical Music does not have the reputation for political activism that other kinds of music have, but that doesn’t mean composers ...
10.22.2020 Mozart Symphony No. 40 (Re-Upload) This week continues my project of reuploading seasons 1-5 in new and improved sound quality! The opening of Mozart's 40th symphony is one of the most recognizable tunes in the whole repertoire, but to this day we don't know what ...
10.15.2020 "Wagnerism" with Alex Ross This week I got to cross off a Sticky Notes bucket list item by interviewing the best-selling author and critic Alex Ross. We talked about his incredible new book Wagnerism, discussing Wagner’s influence on just about every artist/thinker of his ...
10.08.2020 Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann: A Love Story (Re-Upload) Today is the beginning of a new project to re-upload older episodes in new and improved sound quality! First up is a story I can't believe Hollywood hasn't told in decades - the story of Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann. ...
10.01.2020 Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto In one of the most famous reviews in this history of Western Classical Music, Eduard Hanslick torched the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, saying that the violin was "beaten black and blue." This review wounded Tchaikovsky to his core, and he wasn't ...
09.24.2020 Bruckner Symphony No. 4 Bruckner's symphonies are a world unto their own. They are epic works that are also full of a trademark humility that is present in the work of no other composer. Bruckner's 4th Symphony, the "Romantic," has remained one of his ...
09.17.2020 Stravinsky Pulcinella In 1919, the impresario Sergei Diaghilev came up with the idea of having Stravinsky write a ballet inspired by 18th century music by composers like Pergolesi. The result, Pulcinella, began a transformation of Stravinsky’s music. Stravinsky would later say: “Pulcinella ...
09.10.2020 Beethoven Symphony No. 7 The composer Carl Maria Von Weber called it the work of a madman. Clara Schumann’s father, Friedrich Wieck, called it the work of a drunk. Beethoven’s 7th symphony has been popular ever since its premiere, but as you can see, ...
09.03.2020 The Music of William Grant Still William Grant Still was a man of firsts. He was the first African American to to conduct a major symphony orchestra in the United States. In 1931, his first symphony became the first complete symphony ever performed by a major ...
08.27.2020 Mozart Symphony No. 36, "Linz" In 1783, Mozart wrote a letter to his father. He wrote, in part: "On Tuesday, November 4th, I am doing a concert in the theatre here and, as I have not a single symphony with me, I am writing a ...
08.20.2020 Caroline Shaw on Composing, Performing, and Letting Go This week I had the huge honour to speak with the composer, vocalist, violinist, and producer Caroline Shaw about her music and her performing career. Caroline is one of the most exciting composers around these days, and it was a ...
08.17.2020 Goldberg Variations Mini-Episode + Announcement Today's mini-episode is a sneak peek at my Patreon Exclusive mini episodes. Every Thursday on Patreon, I do a sort of deep dive on a specific passage that I didn’t get to in the main show. Sometimes its a specific ...
08.13.2020 Bach, The Goldberg Variations In 1741, Bach published a piece called “Aria with diverse variations.” Little did he know that the piece would become one of the most beloved and nearly mythical works in all of Western Classical Music. The piece I’m talking about ...
08.10.2020 "Chasing Chopin," with Annik LaFarge This week I had the pleasure of speaking with Annik Lafarge, author of “Chasing Chopin.” This is really a wonderful book and you’ll hear in this interview all of Annik’s abiding enthusiasm about Chopin which comes through so beautifully in ...
08.06.2020 Brahms Requiem In February of 1865, Johannes Brahms received a letter from his brother saying: “If you want to see our Mother again come at once.” Brahms rushed off to Hamburg but was two days too late. He had long thought about ...
08.03.2020 Talking Conducting, Studying, and Loneliness w/ Dalia Stasevska Dalia Stasevska is a wonderful conductor whose career has skyrocketed in the past few years. She is the Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony and is the incoming Chief Conductor of the Lahti Symphony in Finland. We had a ...
07.30.2020 Beethoven Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral" 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.” Beethoven poured these sentiments into his 6th symphony, one of his most ...
07.27.2020 The Connection Between Language and Music w/ Yundu Wang I had the great pleasure of speaking with my friend Yundu Wang about her doctoral thesis exploring the connections between language and music. This research gets into thorny questions about the relationship between national origin and the way we interpret ...
07.20.2020 A Decidedly Undogmatic Conversation w/ Mahan Esfahani Mahan Esfahani is a world-renowned harpsichordist who has said that it is his mission to rehabilitate the harpsichord as an instrument for modern audiences. In this conversation, we talked about Beethoven, playing modern music on the harpsichord, and nearly starting ...
07.16.2020 Mahler Symphony No. 6, Part 3 Albert Camus once wrote: “when I describe what the catastrophe of man looks like, music comes into my mind—the music of Gustav Mahler.” The last movement of Mahler 6 is a symphony within a symphony. It is a difficult movement ...
07.09.2020 Mahler Symphony No. 6, Part 2 There are few controversies like the ones surrounding the order of the inner movements of Mahler 6. Musicologists and conductors battle with each other about what Mahler meant and what his wife knew, and they also are at each other's ...
07.06.2020 Programming Post-Covid, Competitions, and the Negro Folk Symphony, w/ Ryan Bancroft Ryan Bancroft is a conductor who has seen a meteoric rise ever since winning the Malko Competition for Conductors in 2018. In this conversation, we talked about programming post-pandemic, and also about our common entry into the conducting world, and ...
07.02.2020 Mahler Symphony No. 6, Part 1 Mahler's 6th Symphony is one of his most complex and ambitious pieces, though it retains a firmly classical structure throughout. It has notorious performance problems such as the order of the middle movements, and the symphony within a symphony final ...
06.29.2020 Founding an Orchestra, w/ Eric and Colin Jacobsen of The Knights Eric and Colin Jacobsen are co-founders of the The Knights. The orchestra has claimed a spot over the last 10 years as one of the most dynamic and adventurous orchestras in the world. Colin and Eric are some of the ...
06.25.2020 Saint-Saens Symphony No. 3, "Organ" Saint-Saens considered his 3rd symphony his greatest work: “I have given all that I had to give. What I have done I shall never do again.” Later in his life, Saint-Saens would be known as an arch-conservative, but at the ...
06.22.2020 The Organ, Competitions, Filmmaking, and more w/ Alcee Chriss and Stacey Tenenbaum I had a chance to sit down with the award winning duo of organist Alcee Chriss and filmmaker Stacey Tenenbaum for a fascinating interview about the organ, competitions and more. We talk about Chriss' experience at the Canadian International Organ ...
06.18.2020 Beethoven Triple Concerto Beethoven’s Triple Concerto might be his most heavily criticized work. Musicians look down on it, critics always complain about it, conductors hate conducting it, orchestral musicians hate playing it, and yet it still gets performed fairly regularly. But I’m here ...
06.15.2020 Encounters with Milhaud, Messiaen, Stravinsky, Lutoslawski, and Ligeti, with John Heiss John Heiss teaches composition, flute, and music history at the New England Conservatory. I first encountered Mr. Heiss in his legendary Schoenberg/Stravinsky class at NEC and have been an admirer of his ever since. Mr. Heiss spearheaded visits to NEC ...
06.11.2020 The Life and Music of Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges Just a glance at a biography of Le Chevalier should have every movie producer salivating. He was the son of a 17 year old slave and her white owner. He was an expert athlete, known as the greatest fencer in ...
06.08.2020 Stephen Hough on Practicing Through the Pandemic, Composing, and Classical Music as Entertainment. First, I want to let my listeners know that Thursday will begin a new commitment to exploring the works of minority composers. It's long past time to begin doing that. For today, please enjoy this thoughtful and deeply entertaining conversation ...
06.04.2020 Bartok Violin Duos and Social Duoing 1.Please consider donating to the ACLU or any other organization fighting systemic racism. 2.Bartok's 44 Violin Duos are a triumph of Bartok's devotion to the folk music of Eastern Europe. 42 of the 44 are based on field recordings Bartok ...
06.01.2020 How Musical Revolutions Were Created, Part 2 - w/ Jan Swafford Jan Swafford was such a fantastic guest last time that I thought we had to have him back on! During these past two weeks, we discussed how so much of the revolutionary music in the history of classical music was ...
05.28.2020 Sibelius Symphony No. 7 Sibelius' 7th Symphony is a piece that is barely a symphony at all, and yet it carries symphonic logic throughout. It's only 20 minutes long, in one movement that never stops evolving, with a form that has sparked many debates, ...
05.25.2020 How Musical Revolutions Were Created, Part 1 - w/Jan Swafford Jan Swafford was such a fantastic guest last time that I thought we had to have him back on. This week(and next week), we discussed how so much of the revolutionary music in the history of classical music was influenced ...
05.21.2020 Respighi, "The Pines of Rome" Respighi occupies a strange place in musical history. He is almost never considered to be one of the “greats,” though his mastery of orchestral color is never doubted by anyone. Today on this Patreon sponsored episode, we’ll look at his ...
05.18.2020 Quarantine, Richter, Kleiber, Dvorak, Zander, Wearing Different Hats, and Schumann w/ Zsolt Bognar Zsolt Bognar is a Renaissance Man. He is a pianist, a writer, and the host of Living the Classical Life, an amazing show where Zsolt sits down with some of the leading lights of the classical music world. Today I ...
05.14.2020 Mahler Symphony No. 2, Part 3 At the end of 1893, Mahler could not find a way to end his 2nd Symphony. But the funeral of Hans Von Bulow, a conductor who Mahler worshipped even though Von Bulow hated Mahler’s music, gave Mahler what he called ...
05.11.2020 Classical Music During the Pandemic Today I was thrilled to have with me Matthew Szymanski of the Phoenix Orchestra and Aram Demirjian of the Knoxville Symphony on the show to talk about what classical music as a whole is going to need to do to ...

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