Haydn Symphony No. 94, "Surprise"
If you want to understand how a symphony works, look no further than the works of the Father of the symphony, Joseph Haydn. In 1790, a concert promoter and impresario named Johann Peter Solomon showed...
21 Jul 202239min
Derrick Skye: "Prisms, Cycles, and Leaps" w/ Derrick Skye
Derrick Skye is one of the most creative, innovative, and brilliant composers of our time. His orchestral work, Prisms, Cycles, and Leaps is a musical thrill ride spanning influences from literally al...
14 Jul 20221h
The Music of Olivier Messiaen
There is one composer who I've never devoted a full show to that fills me with the same devotion and ecstasy as the people who claim that Wagner almost immediately dissolves them into tears. His music...
7 Jul 20221h
Dvorak Symphony No. 8
Bucolic. Sunny. Cheerful. Joyous. Folksy. Ebullient. Thrilling. These are all words that I found while researching Dvorak's 8th symphony. Dvorak's gift for writing the most gorgeous of melodies is on ...
30 Jun 20221h
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
