Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast

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...

Brahms' two piano concertos could not possibly be any more different.  The first, written when Brahms was just 25, is dramatic, stormy, and impulsive.  This makes sense seeing at it was written practi...

How do you orchestrate a painting? How do you take the detail and the visual imagery of a painting and translate that into something that is so vivid that even if you've never seen the painting before...

While the inspiration for the show today is likely obvious, I'm also very happy to get the chance to share this wonderful music with you, separate from the current horrors going on right now. Here's ...

In 1888, Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony was premiered. It was enthusiastically received by the audience, and by Tchaikovsky's friends. But Tchaikovsky's nemesis, the critics, were not so happy with the pi...

In 1902, the great French composer Gabriel Faure said this: "It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death and someone has called it a lullaby of death. But it is thus that I see...