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Joshua Weilerstein

Sticky Notes is a classical music podcast for everyone, whether you are just getting interested in classical music for the first time, or if you've been listening to it and loving it all your life.  Interviews with great artists, in depth looks at pieces in the repertoire, and both basic and deep dives into every era of music.  Classical music is absolutely for everyone, so let's start listening!  Note - Seasons 1-5 will be returning over the next year. They have been taken down in order to be re-recorded in improved sound quality!

Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast

Dmitri Shostakovich: "I have set myself a task fraught with tremendous responsibility, to express in sound the immortal image of Lenin as a great son of the Russian people and as a leader of the masses. I have received numerous letters from all over the Soviet Union with regard to my future symphony. The most important advice contained therein was to make considerable use of musical folklore."
 
In the massively consequential year of 1939, Shostakovich used these words to launch his Sixth Symphony. The piece was meant to have soloists and a chorus alongside the orchestra — perhaps a nod to his Second and Third Symphonies, which were essentially propaganda pieces. Shostakovich even promised to use the poem "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" by Vladimir Mayakovsky as the basis for his choral text.
 
The Soviet public eagerly awaited this new symphony, which was inevitably going to be compared with his Fifth Symphony — the piece that had brought Shostakovich back into the Soviet government's good graces, and which remains one of his most popular works even as it's also one of his most complex and nuanced pieces beneath its relatively conservative surface.
 
But whether Shostakovich ever actually planned to write this gigantic "Lenin" symphony is highly doubtful, since no sketches of it have ever turned up. Instead, Shostakovich pivoted publicly to describing his new symphony this way:
 
"The musical character of the Sixth Symphony will differ from the mood and emotional tone of the Fifth Symphony, in which moments of tragedy and tension were characteristic. In my latest symphony, music of a contemplative and lyrical order predominates. I wanted to convey in it the moods of spring, joy, youth."[6]
 
As you can see, Shostakovich wasn't actually saying much about the content of the symphony — if anything at all. He was leaving things deliberately ambiguous, and, fittingly, ambiguous is a pretty good description of this highly enigmatic symphony.
 
Everything about this symphony is slightly off. It's in three movements, not the typical four, and it opens with a massive slow movement; the two remaining movements are fast and significantly shorter, together lasting less than the first movement alone. It was written in 1939 — supposedly a year of military triumph for the Soviet Union, given the Stalin pact with Hitler that allowed Hitler to invade Poland and launch World War II — and yet there is not a hint of military triumphalism in it.
 
In short, this symphony confused a lot of people and has always received mixed reviews, whether from musicologists trying to fit it into the traditional "everything in Shostakovich is about Stalin" narrative, or from Soviet critics of the time trying to fit it into Socialist Realist aesthetics. In the end, descriptions of Shostakovich always attempt to put him into a box — silent dissident, Soviet stooge, hero, coward, etc. The truth, of course, is complicated, and this symphony is a great example of the eternal enigma that is Dmitri Shostakovich.
 
Today, on this Patreon-sponsored episode, I'll take you through this wonderful symphony from a musical perspective, trying to parse its unusual form, its unusually lyrical first movement, and the wild, madcap dash of the final two movements. Join us!

Shostakovich Symphony No. 6

Grieg's Peer Gynt suites are among the best-known and best-loved works of classical music in the world. They are practically embedded into popular culture, being used in a dizzying number of cartoons, advertisements, and films. In the classical music world, as with Beethoven's 5th symphony, they have almost become a cliché, and they are often performed on so-called Pops concerts. The two big hits from Peer Gynt, Morning Mood and In the Hall of the Mountain King, are instantly recognizable to the general public, even if they don't know who wrote the music or where it comes from. And where all this music comes from is really interesting, and is going to be one of the main topics of this show. Because the famous music from Peer Gynt comes from the two suites that Grieg took from his massive score of incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play in verse, Peer Gynt. The two suites together take about 45 minutes to perform, but Grieg actually wrote an extra hour's worth of music! He then extracted, for his suites, the music that he felt would stand on its own without the text, and this was quite a good decision, as they are certainly his most popular pieces and have etched his name into the classical music pantheon forever. But what about the rest of that music? What about the play itself? Today, on this Patreon-sponsored episode, we'll tell the story of the origins of Peer Gynt, both from Ibsen and from Grieg, and then we'll go through the nearly 2 hours of incidental music, most of it in a bit of a cursory way (which frankly is perfectly appropriate for Grieg, whose music abounds with naive simplicity and gorgeous tunes), but all the way through we are going to tell the wacky, wonderful, and way-ahead-of-its-time story of Peer Gynt, all through the music that Grieg wrote. On the show today you'll hear some of the most famous music in the world, and then some music that only the most passionate of connoisseurs have encountered. So, in essence, my kind of show. Join us!

Grieg: Peer Gynt

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 during this period, and Mozart's popularity had waned severely. The clarinet concerto, one of a wealth of brilliant (and yes, perfect) pieces Mozart wrote in the final year of his life, was performed once by the man for whom Mozart wrote it, Anton Stadler, before Mozart's death, but the location and the program of that concert are forgotten. The manuscript of the concerto is lost, which means we actually don't know a lot about it, especially considering it wasn't actually written for a standard clarinet, but for a basset clarinet (we'll get to that later). The piece was written just about two months before Mozart's death and was his last completed work, though there's absolutely no evidence that Mozart knew he was dying when he wrote it. All in all, there's actually a lot of mystery surrounding this perfect piece, and yet, when we hear the luminous music that Mozart wrote, all of this falls away. There is truly a kind of perfection to this music, a golden quality that is inescapable. There is no clarinet concerto that is performed more often or more recorded, and it remains a perennial favorite for clarinetists and orchestras around the world. Today, on this Patreon-sponsored episode, we'll talk about all these mysteries surrounding this concerto, Anton Stadler, the basset clarinet, and of course, the wonderful music itself, though, as always, Mozart sometimes defies description. Join us!

Mozart Clarinet Concerto

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 just arrived in the US in 1941 as a refugee from war-torn Czechoslovakia. He was 51 years old and had never written a symphony before. This delay wasn't a case of crushing self-doubt, as it was for Brahms. It was actually a seeming lack of interest in the symphonic genre, which was not unusual at the time. But in 1942, Martinů sent a letter to Serge Koussevitzky, the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a friend to the dozens of refugee composers who had arrived from Europe during the early days of World War II. Koussevitzky commissioned Martinů to write a large-scale work, and Martinů responded with his First Symphony -- a perfect welcome to his new home, and to the grand adventure he was setting off on in a country he found intimidating, exciting, and full of opportunity. The result is a piece of remarkable contrast, energy, light, and boisterous hope, given the situation back in his homeland. As the sponsor of this episode, Pere Casan Bonet, put it, the symphony is "a pool of energy that makes me feel optimistic even at my lowest points."
 
We'll start today with a quick overview of Martinů's life and work, since he might not be the most familiar composer to you, and then we'll talk our way through this incredible First Symphony. Martinů has always been one of my favorite "underrated" composers, so it's a thrill to get to talk to you about him today. Join us!

Bohuslav Martinu Symphony No. 1

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 Scriabin, and so this week's episode is an opportunity to talk about his wild (I'm going to be using that word a lot today) life and the eclectic philosophy behind Scriabin's works, as well as to take you through this masterpiece of musical sensuality. Scriabin not only doesn't shy away from sensual aspects in music but instead fully embraces them; in fact, the original title for this piece was Orgiastic Poem! Thankfully, since the piece probably would have never been performed with that title, Scriabin changed the name to Poem of Ecstasy, and the piece has stayed in the repertoire of most big orchestras ever since. And big is the key word here, because this piece is written for an absolutely massive orchestra. Like a Mahler symphony, the Poem of Ecstasy is an event whenever it is performed, simply from seeing the sheer size of the orchestra on stage when you see this piece live in concert. It is truly an overwhelming experience to listen to this piece, and I can't wait to share it with you this week. Join us!

Scriabin Poem of Ecstasy

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 explained. There are many theories about this silence, but the answer to why Sibelius stopped composing might never be found. So, we have this final major piece, Tapiola, written at the very height of the composer's powers. Tapiola, a piece of around 15–20 minutes in duration, is concentrated Sibelius at its very best. It is a piece full of mystery, atmosphere, and most of all, the immense and overwhelming power of nature. Tapiola directly translates to "The Realm of Tapio," Tapio being the forest spirit that is prominent in the Finnish national epic myth, the Kalevala. Throughout this piece, Sibelius uses an incredible economy of ideas to create something wholly unique. There is not a single composer who sounds like Sibelius, and furthermore, no piece of Sibelius' that sounds like this one, save maybe for the 7th symphony, written just before Tapiola. It is a piece absolutely at odds with modern life, with the speed and energy of a city, with the short, attention-grabbing dopamine hits of social media, and even with our modern understanding of nature. As the writer Jay Goodwin says, "Like all art, music is chiefly a humanistic pursuit, meant to provide us with a window to our world. In this piece, however, there is the hair-raising sense that the paradigm has been reversed and that we are the ones being watched. There is the sense that the music is listening to us." I would only change one word in that quote: during Tapiola, I think we have the sense that nature is listening to us, because this music is, essentially, nature. I can't wait to talk you through this wonderfully enigmatic work. Join us!

Sibelius Tapiola

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 instinct for happiness, his love of peace, his apprehension of a divine refuge. My symphony is, if you like, a drama played out between three characters, whether real or symbolic: misery, happiness, and man. These are everlasting themes. I have tried to give them new life."
 
 It doesn't get much clearer than that in terms of a "message" behind a piece, and the symphony reflects these feelings of Honegger's in almost every note. This is not a symphony to be taken lightly, and over the course of its roughly 30-minute runtime, Honegger explores these ideas from three different perspectives, all centered around the Catholic liturgy. In this symphony, we find an attempt at understanding after the unthinkable had occurred, a passionate condemnation of war, and a search for eternal peace. This is a symphony that, in its heyday, was fairly popular, with recordings by two of the world's great conductors, Herbert von Karajan and Charles Munch, but it slowly faded from concert stages and is now very rarely performed. Thanks to Staffan for sponsoring today's episode on this symphony, which was a discovery for me and which I think will be a discovery for many of you as well. Today we'll talk about the detailed program that Honegger attached to the symphony, the liturgical connections in the piece, and of course the music itself. Join us!

Arthur Honneger, Symphony No. 3, "Liturgique"

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 decided to write an entirely new piece. What we were gifted was his Op. 81 Piano Quintet: a luminous, gorgeous, exciting, tragic, joyful, folk-like, classical, and flat-out masterful work that in some ways sums up what makes Dvořák such a wonderful composer, and why his music never really gets old.
 
The Dvořák Piano Quintet is the kind of piece that feels like an old friend from the moment you start listening. Forty minutes later, as it comes to its rollicking end, you feel as if you've been on a journey through a familiar tale told in the most illuminating way. I've always adored this piece, and now that I'm able to explore more chamber music on the show, I'm thrilled to share it with you this week. We'll talk about Dvořák's blend of folk-like sonorities with his adherence to classical forms, his inexhaustible melodies, and the intangibles that make his music so fresh and inviting. Join us!
 
Recording: Cleveland Quartet w/ Emanuel Ax

Dvorak Piano Quintet, Op. 81

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 publication, Mozart wrote to Haydn: "Behold here, famous man and dearest friend, my six children. They are, to be sure, the fruit of long and arduous work, yet some friends have encouraged me to assume that I shall see this work rewarded to some extent at least, and this flatters me into believing that these children shall one day offer me some comfort."
 
 The final one of this set of six quartets is the one we're going to talk about today, the one that has been dubbed "Dissonance." This single dissonance caused massive controversy in its time, which we'll get to later, but it is a fascinating insight into the rules of harmony at the time. Our sojourns into late Romanticism over the last few weeks, and especially my conversation with Case Scaglione about Wagner and the Tristan Chord, should help us understand the intensely heated debates that arose over that chord I just played you. So today on the show, we'll spend some time on that famous dissonance, then dive right into this glorious quartet, exploring Mozart's unparalleled ability to write the most glorious melodies and the most perfect harmonies.
 
 Recording: Alban Berg Quartet
 
 First Sight Analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IctjJOMU9dk
 
 Produced by: Charlie Koczela

Mozart String Quartet, K. 465, "Dissonance"

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 ! »

Bonus Episode: Beethoven 5 en français!

"I think Mozart just really loved people." - Jan Swafford.
 
For the Season 8 Finale, I had the great pleasure of welcoming back Jan Swafford, the great writer on music, who has written a spectacular new biography of Mozart. In this conversation, we talked about who Mozart really was as a person, some of the myths that defined him during his lifetime and into the present day, and of course, the incomparable music that Mozart was able to create, sometimes on a whim or in a single afternoon. This is a conversation about a man who understood people perhaps better than almost any composer, and a musician who scraped and struggled during his life while achieving immortality through his creations. Please note that this will be the last episode of Season 8 and Season 9 will begin on September 8!

Mozart, The Music, The Myth, The Legend, w/ Jan Swafford

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