Shostakovich Symphony No. 6

More from Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast

1. 

   S10 · E294 · 1 Oct 2026 · 52 min

   Gerald Finzi: Dies Natalis

   As I've often said, I love doing Patreon-sponsored episodes in part because they allow me to discover music I might never have encountered otherwise. Today's episode is one of those, because the truth is that before I made it, I had heard of Finzi, but that was about it. I knew nothing about the circumstances of his life or his music, and while I knew this was a hole in my musical knowledge, I hadn't had time to fill it. Well, thanks to Jillian, I got the time to explore this wonderful 20th-century composer's works, and now I'm ready to tell you about him, since I imagine his is an…

2. 

   S10 · E292 · 3 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 8 min

   Grieg: Peer Gynt

   Grieg's Peer Gynt suites are among the best-known and best-loved works of classical music in the world. They are practically embedded into popular culture, being used in a dizzying number of cartoons, advertisements, and films. In the classical music world, as with Beethoven's 5th symphony, they have almost become a cliché, and they are often performed on so-called Pops concerts. The two big hits from Peer Gynt, Morning Mood and In the Hall of the Mountain King, are instantly recognizable to the general public, even if they don't know who wrote the music or where it comes from. And where all…

3. 

   S10 · E291 · 20 Aug 2026 · 52 min

   Mozart Clarinet Concerto

   When it comes to a piece like the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, a few words or phrases regularly come up: the concerto is described as "mellow" or Mozart's "swan song," but most often it is described as "perfect." Such a perfect piece as Mozart's Clarinet Concerto must have been hugely popular during Mozart's lifetime, right? It must have been played all over, by all the virtuoso clarinetists of the day. Well, that is not even close to the case. At the age of 35, Mozart was kind of old news in the economically depressed, repressed, and censored city of Vienna in 1790. There were very few…

4. 

   S11 · E290 · 6 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 2 min

   Bohuslav Martinu Symphony No. 1

   It took a lot to make the composer and critic Virgil Thomson happy. He was famous for savaging new works he didn't like, and the truth is, he didn't like very many new works at all. One exception was Bohuslav Martinů's very first symphony, written in 1942. Thomson said this: "The Martinů Symphony is a beaut. It is wholly lovely and doesn't sound like anything else." The story of how this symphony came to be is as fascinating as the music itself, and it's perfectly in keeping with the relentless curiosity of Martinů as a composer. Martinů, a prolific composer who wrote nearly 400 works, had…

5. 

   S11 · E289 · 23 Jul 2026 · 51 min

   Scriabin Poem of Ecstasy

   Thence the universe resounds With a joyful cry I AM. These are the final lines of Alexander Scriabin's epic Poem of Ecstasy , a 300-line poem that takes nearly 10 minutes to read aloud and is one of the most surreal texts in the world. Scriabin wrote a Poem of Ecstasy in text and a Poem of Ecstasy in music simultaneously. Both are absolutely wild, with the musical Poem of Ecstasy being a 20-minute thrill ride that alternates between languid, sinewy, seductive music and some of the loudest, most over-the-top, and dramatic music that could possibly exist. I've always been fascinated by…

6. 

   S11 · E288 · 10 Jul 2026 · 47 min

   Sibelius Tapiola

   Ancient, mysterious, brooding savage dreams; Within them dwells the Forest's mighty God, And wood-sprites in the gloom weave magic secrets. These lines are affixed to the first page of Sibelius' tone poem Tapiola , a piece that is mysterious in many ways and stands as Sibelius' last completed major work. You might be expecting me to say that Sibelius died soon after its composition, but this is not the case. Sibelius wrote Tapiola in 1926, but did not pass away until 1957. Over the course of Sibelius' final 30 years, he wrote almost no music, a creative silence that has never been properly…

7. 

   S11 · E287 · 25 Jun 2026 · 53 min

   Arthur Honneger, Symphony No. 3, "Liturgique"

   In the aftermath of World War II, the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger, who had been living in occupied Paris throughout the war, wrote a new symphony entitled "Liturgical." He wrote an extended commentary on the piece, which included these lines: "My intention in this work was to symbolize the reaction of modern man against the morass of barbarism, stupidity, suffering, machine-mindedness, and bureaucracy that has been besieging us for some years now. I have reproduced in musical terms the combat that is joined in man's heart between yielding to the blind forces that encircle him and his…

8. 

   S11 · E286 · 11 Jun 2026 · 50 min

   Dvorak Piano Quintet, Op. 81

   In 1872, at the age of 31, Dvořák wrote a Piano Quintet designated as Opus 5. Dvořák was not a prodigy like some other famous composers; instead, his development as a composer was slow and steady. Later in his life, he would look back at some of these early pieces with a mix of nostalgia and embarrassment, burning some and revising others. In the case of the Op. 5 Piano Quintet, Dvořák decided to revise the piece in 1887, some 15 years after its original composition, at a point when he was approaching the peak of his creative powers. Soon, however, he cast aside the older quintet and decided…

9. 

   S11 · E285 · 28 May 2026 · 49 min

   Mozart String Quartet, K. 465, "Dissonance"

   You might be wondering: why on earth would I choose a piece that is literally called "Dissonance" when I was looking for something a bit simpler or cleaner to talk about on the show today? Actually, Mozart's Dissonance quartet, probably his most famous and beloved quartet, was not called "Dissonance" by Mozart, and the rest of the piece is thought of as one of Mozart's most outgoing and cheerful works, though I think there's a bit more to it than that. This quartet was part of a set of quartets dedicated to his friend and mentor Joseph Haydn, the father of the String Quartet. Upon their…

10. 

    S11 · E284 · 15 May 2026 · 43 min

    Bonus Episode: Beethoven 5 en français!

    Bienvenue dans cette édition spéciale du podcast Sticky Notes en français ! Aujourd'hui, nous parlons de la symphonie la plus célèbre du monde, et de la symphonie que nous allons interpréter à Lille les 21, 22 et 23 mai, la 5e symphonie de Beethoven. Et veuillez me pardonner pour toutes les erreurs de prononciation dans ma deuxième langue ! Bonne écoute ! »

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