Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast

It's very easy to compare Sergei Prokofiev to Dmitri Shostakovich.  They are the two most famous representatives of Soviet and Russian music of the 20th century, they lived around the same time, and t...

Imagine writing a concerto that prompted Beethoven to remark to a friend: "we'll never be able to write anything like that.  Or a piece that prompted Brahms to call it: "a masterpiece of art, full of ...

Today I've got a pretty special show for you. It's set up in two parts, with the first part featuring an interview, and the second part will be a more typical Sticky Notes analysis of a specific piece...

Mahler once said this to Bruno Walter, his protege and great advocate of Mahler's works: "What one makes music from is still the whole—that is the feeling, thinking, breathing, suffering, human being"...

It's easy to forget that Mahler, for all of his ubiquitous success nowadays, was much better known as a conductor during his life than as a composer.  He had basically one major success in his composi...

Remember where we ended in the first movement of Mahler's 9th symphony? After a 27 minute farewell which touched on the two poles of rage and acceptance, while filling in every conceivable emotion in ...

Two events, occurring on the same day, drove Mahler to the brink. His daughter Maria died at the age of just 4, and Mahler himself was diagnosed with a heart condition that would prove to be fatal. He...

Shostakovich is one of the easiest composers to do podcasts about because his life and his music is full of such incredible stories. But as easy as it is, it's also complicated. Shostakovich's music i...

Barber's Adagio seems to access a deep well of sadness, heartache, passion, and nostalgia in the listener that is very difficult to explain.  As dozens of commentators have noted, there is nothing in ...

There are many reasons why Schubert's Unfinished Symphony remains a mystery to this day -  the literally unfinished form, the unusual way of the symphony's emergencee into public consciousness, and pr...