Mozart Clarinet Concerto
Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
When it comes to a piece like the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, a few words or phrases regularly come up: the concerto is described as "mellow" or Mozart's "swan song," but most often it is described as "perfect." Such a perfect piece as Mozart's Clarinet Concerto must have been hugely popular during Mozart's lifetime, right? It must have been played all over, by all the virtuoso clarinetists of the day. Well, that is not even close to the case. At the age of 35, Mozart was kind of old news in the economically depressed, repressed, and censored city of Vienna in 1790. There were very few concerts...
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Bohuslav Martinu Symphony No. 1
Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
It took a lot to make the composer and critic Virgil Thomson happy. He was famous for savaging new works he didn't like, and the truth is, he didn't like very many new works at all. One exception was Bohuslav Martinů's very first symphony, written in 1942. Thomson said this: "The Martinů Symphony is a beaut. It is wholly lovely and doesn't sound like anything else." The story of how this symphony came to be is as fascinating as the music itself, and it's perfectly in keeping with the relentless curiosity of Martinů as a composer. Martinů, a prolific composer who wrote nearly 400 works, had...
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Scriabin Poem of Ecstasy
Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
Thence the universe resounds With a joyful cry I AM. These are the final lines of Alexander Scriabin's epic Poem of Ecstasy, a 300-line poem that takes nearly 10 minutes to read aloud and is one of the most surreal texts in the world. Scriabin wrote a Poem of Ecstasy in text and a Poem of Ecstasy in music simultaneously. Both are absolutely wild, with the musical Poem of Ecstasy being a 20-minute thrill ride that alternates between languid, sinewy, seductive music and some of the loudest, most over-the-top, and dramatic music that could possibly exist. I've always been fascinated by...
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Sibelius Tapiola
Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
Ancient, mysterious, brooding savage dreams; Within them dwells the Forest's mighty God, And wood-sprites in the gloom weave magic secrets. These lines are affixed to the first page of Sibelius' tone poem Tapiola, a piece that is mysterious in many ways and stands as Sibelius' last completed major work. You might be expecting me to say that Sibelius died soon after its composition, but this is not the case. Sibelius wrote Tapiola in 1926, but did not pass away until 1957. Over the course of Sibelius' final 30 years, he wrote almost no music, a creative silence that has never been properly...
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Arthur Honneger, Symphony No. 3, "Liturgique"
Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
In the aftermath of World War II, the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger, who had been living in occupied Paris throughout the war, wrote a new symphony entitled "Liturgical." He wrote an extended commentary on the piece, which included these lines: "My intention in this work was to symbolize the reaction of modern man against the morass of barbarism, stupidity, suffering, machine-mindedness, and bureaucracy that has been besieging us for some years now. I have reproduced in musical terms the combat that is joined in man's heart between yielding to the blind forces that encircle him and his...
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Dvorak Piano Quintet, Op. 81
Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
In 1872, at the age of 31, Dvořák wrote a Piano Quintet designated as Opus 5. Dvořák was not a prodigy like some other famous composers; instead, his development as a composer was slow and steady. Later in his life, he would look back at some of these early pieces with a mix of nostalgia and embarrassment, burning some and revising others. In the case of the Op. 5 Piano Quintet, Dvořák decided to revise the piece in 1887, some 15 years after its original composition, at a point when he was approaching the peak of his creative powers. Soon, however, he cast aside the older quintet and...
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Mozart String Quartet, K. 465, "Dissonance"
Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
You might be wondering: why on earth would I choose a piece that is literally called "Dissonance" when I was looking for something a bit simpler or cleaner to talk about on the show today? Actually, Mozart's Dissonance quartet, probably his most famous and beloved quartet, was not called "Dissonance" by Mozart, and the rest of the piece is thought of as one of Mozart's most outgoing and cheerful works, though I think there's a bit more to it than that. This quartet was part of a set of quartets dedicated to his friend and mentor Joseph Haydn, the father of the String Quartet. Upon their...
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Bonus Episode: Beethoven 5 en français!
Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
Bienvenue dans cette édition spéciale du podcast Sticky Notes en français ! Aujourd'hui, nous parlons de la symphonie la plus célèbre du monde, et de la symphonie que nous allons interpréter à Lille les 21, 22 et 23 mai, la 5e symphonie de Beethoven. Et veuillez me pardonner pour toutes les erreurs de prononciation dans ma deuxième langue ! Bonne écoute ! »
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Liszt Faust Symphony
Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
Thank you to Jerry for sponsoring today's episode on Patreon! Goethe's Faust is considered to be the greatest work of German literature. This sprawling, 2-part play occupied Goethe's life for nearly 60 years, from its original version, begun in 1772, all the way to Goethe's final revisions before his death. It inspired just about every Romantic era composer who came after it, including Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Berlioz, Gounod, Mahler, and our subject for the show today, Franz Liszt. Liszt, who was in many ways the world's first pop star, was initially skeptical...
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Schubert: Die Schöne Mullerin Mini-Episode No. 1 (Free Preview)
Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast
This is a free preview of my new series of mini-episodes over on Patreon all about Schubert's Die Schöne Mullerin, one of the great masterpieces of the 19th century. Each week we'll explore one song from the cycle, in a series of 21 episodes! Come join us over on Patreon.com/stickynotespodcast and thanks for listening!
info_outlineThe story of Lili Boulanger's life is one of the most fascinating and tragic in all of musical history. A remarkably precocious talent, Boulanger learned to read sheet music before the alphabet, played the violin, piano, cello, and harp, and composed regularly from a young age. Despite her talent and commitment, Boulanger suffered from chronic illness her entire life, which severely dampened her budding career and prevented her from reaching her potential. She died at the age of just 24, likely from Crohn's disease, and left behind several spectacular pieces that unfortunately were soon relatively forgotten. Boulanger's sister, Nadia, became one of the preeminent composition teachers of the 20th century, working with luminaries such as Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, David Diamond, Philip Glass, Astor Piazzolla, and many more. But throughout the 20th century there was very little interest in Lili Boulanger's musical output. That has changed somewhat with a renewed focus on bringing the works of female composers to the stage, and this has led to an explosion of performances of a few works, specifically Boulanger's brilliant short orchestral pieces D'un Matin de Printemps and D'un Soir Triste. But there is still a dearth of performances of some of Boulanger's great choral pieces, and in particular of Psalm 130, a piece that I find to be absolutely stunning but which is almost never performed. The piece, written in memory of Lili and Nadia's father Ernest, is a lament that shows off the potential of the 22-year-old composer, writing a piece far beyond her years in its emotional maturity and technical construction. In many ways, Lili Boulanger should be thought of in the pantheon of the great musical prodigies in Western classical music. Unfortunately she should also be thought of in the pantheon of the great composers who died tragically young. Today on the show, we're going to do a brief overview of Lili Boulanger's life to orient you into her style, and then we'll go through this gorgeous piece, talking about Boulanger's influences and her creative use of those influences, and discussing whether the piece was autobiographical or not. I think you will really discover something very special with this piece, so come join us!