Mendelssohn Symphony No. 4, "Italian"
How does a composer capture the spirit of a country, especially if it's not his native land? Mendelssohn, in his Italian Symphony, gives us one of the best examples of someone doing just that, giving...
23 Jun 202247min
Brahms Piano Quartet in G Minor (+Schoenberg!)
Today I'm going to be talking about one piece, but in two different ways. I'm going to start today with an in-depth look at Brahms' Piano Quartet in G Minor, an early piece of his that reveals an inc...
16 Jun 202258min
Berio Folk Songs
In 1964, the popular 20th century composer Luciano Berio was commissioned by Mills College in California to write a piece for voice and chamber orchestra. What Berio came up with is one of his most re...
9 Jun 202255min
Prokofiev Symphony No. 5
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...
2 Jun 20221h 3min
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24
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 ...
26 Mai 202244min
The Life and Music of Florence Price
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...
19 Mai 202251min
Mahler Symphony No. 9, Part 4
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"...
12 Mai 202247min
Mahler Symphony No. 9, Part 3
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...
5 Mai 202236min
