Mahler Symphony No. 9, Part 1
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...
14 Apr 202254min
Shostakovich String Quartet No. 4
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...
7 Apr 202246min
Barber Adagio For Strings
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 ...
31 Mar 202236min
Schubert Symphony No. 8, "Unfinished"
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...
24 Mar 202240min
Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2
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...
17 Mar 202254min
Rachmaninoff: The Isle of the Dead
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...
10 Mar 202245min
The Music of Ukrainian Composers
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 a...
2 Mar 202247min
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5
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...
24 Feb 20221h 1min
