How to Understand(and Enjoy!) Atonal Music, Part 2: The Wars of the 1950s
The 1950s featured a musical battle, pitting composers like Boulez, Carter, and Babbit against Bernstein, Copland, and Messaien. But how did the Post World War II movement towards total serialism and ...
26 Aug 202146min
How to Listen to (and Enjoy!) Atonal Music, Part 1
This week we're talking all about atonal music! I'm going to tell you all about the history of this controversial development in classical music, its development, and perhaps most importantly, I'll tr...
19 Aug 202153min
The Degenerates: Music Suppressed by the Nazis
From the end of WWI until 1933, classical music in Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe was flourishing, with composers such as Zemlinsky, Weill, Krenek, Korngold, Schreker, Schulhoff, Haas, Krasa, an...
12 Aug 20211h 1min
Sibelius Symphony No. 2
In 1901, in the throes of the Finnish Independence movement, Jean Sibelius composed his legendary 2nd Symphony. Sibelius' close colleague, the conductor Robert Kajanus, said that the symphony "strikes...
5 Aug 202155min
Dvorak Symphony No. 9, "From the New World"
Within three months of his arrival in New York, Antonin Dvorak was enamored with the sound of American music. Quickly he put forth what was at the time a controversial idea: "In the Negro melodies of ...
29 Juli 202158min
Havergal Brian, "Gothic Symphony"
Havergal Brian's ambitious Gothic Symphony has been called many things - massive, ambitious, barbaric, incompetent, insane, moving, brilliant, awful, torture, and much more. It is almost never perform...
22 Juli 20211h 9min
Bruckner Symphony No. 7
With the rise of Wagner, the symphony seemed to be left for dead. But one composer in particular, Anton Bruckner, decided to take the plunge back into the symphonic genre, though he did it with a mark...
16 Juli 202158min
A Conversation with Gabriela Lena Frank, Composer
Gabriela Lena Frank is currently serving as Composer-in-Residence with the storied Philadelphia Orchestra and was included in the Washington Post's list of the 35 most significant women composers in h...
8 Juli 202134min
