227 episodes

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 Joshua Weilerstein

    • Music
    • 4.8 • 119 Ratings

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!

    An Exploration of Klezmer Music w/ Abigale Reisman

    An Exploration of Klezmer Music w/ Abigale Reisman

    Klezmer music has always been very close to my heart, even as a classical violinist. During the pandemic I attempted to learn Klezmer clarinet, and soon I began collaborating with the great Klezmer(and classical!) violinist Abigale Reisman on her work for Klezmer band and orchestra called Gedanken. Abigale taught me so much about Klezmer music, including the fact that despite its reputation as a clarinet-centric genre, the violin is actually the original voice of the Klezmer sound. I've been wanting to do a show about Klezmer music for a while, and Abigale was the perfect person to talk to, as she has experience in both the classical and Klezmer worlds, and was able to talk about the differences between the two sounds, as well as all of the characteristics that make Klezmer music so instantly recognizable. We also talked about the similiarites between classical and Klezmer music, which classical violinists had the most Klezmer like sound, and how to tell the difference between a traditional Eastern European folk tune and a Jewish Klezmer folk tune. I so enjoyed this conversation and I hope you will too! You'll hear an excerpt of Abigale's band Ezekiel's Wheels at the end of the show, but check them out here: 
    https://www.youtube.com/@ewklezmer/videos
    Link to the concert I mentioned at the top of the show: 
    https://www.br-klassik.de/audio/20240308-on-demand-so-joshua-weilerstein-vilde-frang-strawinsky-schostakowitsch-100.html
     
     

    • 56 min
    Schumann Symphony No. 3, "Rhenish"

    Schumann Symphony No. 3, "Rhenish"

    In 1850, Robert Schumann accepted a position as the new Music Director in Dusseldorf. This job had a lot of responsibilities, including conducting the city orchestra. Schumann, along with his wife, the legendary pianist Clara Schumann, and their 7 children moved to Dusseldorf. The city made a huge to do about the Schumann’s arrival, welcoming him with balls, speeches, and parades. This was a new adventure for the Schumann family, and Robert, at least at first, was invigorated. He loved the less reserved personality of the residents of Dusseldorf, and he was deeply inspired by the Rhine river. Very quickly, Schumann had begun composing at his usual feverish pace. He wrote his cello concerto in just two weeks, and then he began a new symphony, what would turn out to be his last symphony. It would be a celebration of the Rhineland and all of its prosperity, beauty, and charm. Soon after the symphony was written however, the euphoria turned towards catasprophe. Schumann was not a good conductor, and the musicians of the orchestra soon turned bitterly against him. His compositions were still not well understood, and his mental health began sliding towards a crisis point again. So Schumann’s 3rd symphony, the Rhenish, really represents a snapshot in time - a time of euphoria, of joy, of possibility. It is this boundless energy that comes up again and again in this remarkable symphony which we are going to talk about today. We’ll discuss the wonderful varieties of joy Schumann includes in the piece, its unusual structure, it’s transcendent fourth movement, and the unique challenges of performing Schumann’s music, which often bedevil conductors to this day. Join us!

    • 54 min
    Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 59, No. 1

    Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 59, No. 1

    In 1806, the 36 year old Beethoven received a commission from the Russian ambassador in Vienna, Count Andreas Razumovsky. Razumovsky wanted a set of string quartets for what would soon be his house string quartet which included some of the finest players Vienna had to offer. As part of his commission, Razumovsky asked Beethoven to include a Russian theme in each one of the quartets. Beethoven obliged him in 2 of the quartets, and the Razumovsky quartets, Op. 59 1, 2, and 3, were born. 1806 was near the height of Beethoven’s astonishing so called Middle Period, where the scale of his music drastically expanded from his earlier works and he began writing in a so called heroic style, with much more brash and adventurous music. This all started in 1803 with his Eroica Symphony, but Beethoven did not limit his adventures and his expanding palate to his symphonies. Everything with Beethoven’s music was expanding, including his string quartets. 
    These middle quartets form part of the core of most string quartets repertoires. They are astonishing works in every regard, where Beethoven starts pushing limits we didn’t even, or maybe he didn’t even, know he had. From the expansive 59, 1, to the intensely felt and taut 59, 2, to the often fun loving 59, 3, Beethoven explores every facet of string quartet playing and brings that heroic and passionate new style to the genre of the string quartet. For today, we’re going to go through Op. 59, 1, a remarkably expansive and brilliant piece that explores every facet of string quartet playing, pushing quartets to their technical and emotional limits in ways that were absolutely shocking at the time and still unbelievably challenging today. If you come to this show for symphonies, that’s great, but for me and many other musicians, Beethoven’s string quartets are the greatest collection of pieces by any composer in any genre. I hope that today’s exploration will help convince you of that! Join us!

    • 58 min
    Ethel Smyth Serenade in D

    Ethel Smyth Serenade in D

    I’ve mentioned Ethel Smyth a few times in the past on this show. This is partly because of her music, and partly because she remains one of the most interesting people who ever lived. She was a composer of course, but she was also a conductor and an author, as well as a political activist. Specifically, she was a suffragette, fiercely advocating for the rights of women to vote in her home country of the UK. As a composer Smyth wrote dozens of works, all of which are starting to become better known as performers and administrators look to bring more music by female composers onto concert stages around the world. Smyth did not have it easy, constantly fighting for her place, battling conductors, other composers, and even her own father, all for the right to be a composer.  Today, after I introduce you to a bit more of Smyth’s amazing biography, we’re going to focus on her first orchestral work, her Serenade in D Major. This is a piece that certainly doesn’t sound like a first orchestral piece, and it is full of all of the qualities that make Smyth’s music so enjoyable to listen to - lush warmth, humor, raucous intensity, and the quiet passion that runs through the music of so many great British composers. Smyth’s Serenade in D is starting to be performed more, and I’m really proud to be using my own recording of the piece for the show today, which I made with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra in 2021. It is only the second professional recording of the piece, and the recording has just been released on Claves Records. So today, we’re going to go through this wonderful piece and also spend some more time in the wild and unpredictable world of Dame Ethel Smyth. Join us!

    • 48 min
    Dvorak Cello Concerto

    Dvorak Cello Concerto

    When you think of the genre of the concerto, you might be thinking of something like this: virtuoso fireworks, perhaps over romantic gestures designed simply to show the soloist off, and a rather pedestrian orchestral part, giving the soloist all of the spotlight while the conductor and orchestra are mere accompanists.  Of course, this is a huge generalization and it isn’t true about many concertos.  But of all of the concertos that I conduct regularly, and hear regularly, there is one that always stands out as the exception to the rule: Dvorak’s Cello Concerto.  The Dvorak deserves every bit of popularity it has received over the years. In fact, you could argue that it is THE perfect concerto.  It's enjoyable to play, perfectly written for the cello, enjoyable to listen to, and enjoyable to accompany for the orchestra. It has everything, which makes it all the more shocking to think that before Dvorak wrote the piece, he didn’t even think of the cello as a suitable instrument for a solo piece!   But once convinced of the cello’s viability as a solo instrument, Dvorak gave everything to to the piece. We’ll talk all about the sometimes tragic history behind the writing of the concerto, the specific difficulties it places on the cellist, the conductor, and the orchestra, and of course, go through the piece in detail, pointing out all the different facets that result in the Dvorak being perhaps the greatest of all concertos. Join us!
    Cellist: Miklos Perenyi 

    • 48 min
    Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from Westside Story

    Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from Westside Story

    We're back! Welcome to Season 10!
    Leonard Bernstein to his wife: "These days have flown so -- I don't sleep much; I work every -- literally every -- second (since I'm doing four jobs on this show -- composing, lyric-writing, orchestrating and rehearsing the cast). It's murder, but I'm excited. It may be something extraordinary. We're having our first run thru for PEOPLE on Friday -- Please may they dig it!."  Westside Story ran for 732 performances, spawned a movie that won 11 Academy Awards, and is still a go to on every list of the greatest Broadway Musicals ever written.  The collaboration between Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Jerome Robbins was a revolution on par with the collaborations of Stravinsky, Diaghilev, and Nijinsky with the Rite of Spring.  Simply put, no Broadway show had ever been so gritty, so tragic, and so raw. This was a musical, a comedy, a tragedy, a political statement, and most importantly, a stunningly revolutionary work of art by these collaborators.  And today, I want to tell you about the music, and more specifically, the Symphonic Dances from Westside Story; an arrangement that Bernstein made with his colleague Sid Ramin 3 years after the show’s premiere.  The Symphonic Dances brought Bernstein’s electric music from the theatre to the concert stage, and it’s stayed there ever since.  So today, we’ll go through each number, talking about just what makes this music so great, and also about the show itself - its background, its production, and the issues that Bernstein, Laurents, Sondheim, and Robbins were trying to tackle, all through the eyes of a tale of woe about Juliet and her Romeo, or of course, Maria and Tony. Join us!

    • 46 min

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5
119 Ratings

119 Ratings

Dootsiez ,

Exceptional work

I rarely write reviews on podcast but felt the need to. The sheer amount of work in this podcast is amazing. It is insightful and engaging. I’m not in classical music but have really enjoyed listening in and learning more about different pieces of music, not to mention growing my playlist with a new appreciation for the music. Highly recommend.

asteroidproject ,

Warm, informative, engaging!

A fascinating podcast for anyone who loves music. You don’t have to be a musician to enjoy Joshua’s warm, informative and engaging podcast, journeying across a wide range of orchestral music. Depth and detail with the musical excerpts presented. Bravo!

Janakarex ,

Marvellous musical analysis

This is a fabulous podcast: informative, entertaining, elucidating and enjoyable.
I relish Joshua’s deep interrogation of the musical forms and the location of the music and the creators. He never fails to provide new insight into both familiar and (to this listener) unheard works.

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