Best Joshua Weilerstein Podcasts (2025)

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Ravel and Falla: Echoes of Spain 57:49

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8d ago57:49

57:49

Nowadays it's hard to imagine Maurice Ravel as a "bad-boy" revolutionary, a member of a group whose name can be loosely translated as The Hooligans. To most listeners today, Ravel's music is the very picture of sumptuous beauty. But the group he belonged to, Les Apaches ("The Hooligans"), earned its name because of its members' uncompromising attit…

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Shostakovich Symphony No. 10 LIVE w/ The Aalborg Symphony 59:38

18d ago59:38

59:38

Longtime listeners of Sticky Notes know that Shostakovich's 10 symphony was the inaugural piece covered on the show. It's been 8 years(!) since that show, so I've totally re-written the episode and had the privilege of presenting this new version live with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra last week in Aalborg. Shostakovich, like so many composers bef…

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Barber Violin Concerto 47:26

1M ago47:26

47:26

There are so many great apocryphal stories in the long history of classical music, from the reason Tchaikovsky wrote his Sixth Symphony to what famous composers supposedly said on their deathbeds, to my favorite story: how Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 96, The Miracle, got its name. Apparently, during the premiere of the symphony, a chandelier fell, …

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100 Years of Beethoven's Eroica (recordings) 55:53

2M ago55:53

55:53

One of my favorite things about having Patreon sponsors is that they often suggest the most fascinating pieces and topics for shows. Adrian, who sponsored a show last year, gave me one of my favorite prompts when he suggested looking at works based on literature. Now he's sponsored another episode, this time with an equally compelling idea that I w…

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The Life and Music of Grazyna Bacewicz 57:46

2M ago57:46

57:46

The great Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski said this after the premature death of his contemporary Grazyna Bacewicz: "She was born with an incredible wealth of musical talent, which she succeeded to bring to full flourish through an almost fanatical zeal and unwavering faith in her mission. The intensity of her activities was so great that she ma…

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Sticky Notes meets You'll Hear It 1:10:04

3M ago1:10:04

1:10:04

I had such a wonderful time joining the jazz podcast You'll Hear It! We talked about the meeting of jazz and classical music, a topic I've explored before, but never in this much depth and never with so much input from jazz musicians and experts like Peter Martin and Adam Maness. We talk about great jazz and classical composers, but we also talk ab…

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Impressions in Blue: Ravel & Gershwin 44:34

3M ago44:34

44:34

In the mid-1920s, Maurice Ravel wrote a letter to the legendary composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. Boulanger's class was a mecca for composers, both young and old, and musicians from all over the world vied to study with her. But Ravel's letter wasn't on his own behalf. Instead, he urged Boulanger to take on a young student whom Ravel himself had…

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Beethoven Piano Sonata in B Flat Major, Op. 106, "Hammerklavier" - Part 2 53:10

4M ago53:10

53:10

There is a special category when it comes to Beethoven; a catalogue that doesn't include complete symphonies, sonatas, concerti, string quartets, etc., but just single movements. This is the catalogue of great Beethoven slow movements. Beethoven's slow movements are like a great Tolstoy novel. They span the gamut of human experience and also reach …

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Beethoven Piano Sonata in B♭ major, Op. 106, "Hammerklavier" - Part 1 44:10

4M ago44:10

44:10

Beethoven once wrote to his publisher: "What is difficult, is also beautiful, good, great, and so forth. Hence everyone will realize that this is the most lavish praise that can be bestowed, since what is difficult makes one sweat." If this credo manifests itself most powerfully in any one of Beethoven's works, it might be the piece we'll talk abou…

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Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins 1:00:01

5M ago1:00:01

1:00:01

The collaboration between Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht is rightly legendary. The two men could not have been more different from each other, and like the Brahms/Joachim relationship I mentioned in my recent show about the Brahms Double concerto, the friendship between Weill and Brecht was stormy to say the least. The two collaborated on some of th…

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The Ravel Sound with Norbert Müllemann and Stefan Knüpfer 45:32

5M ago45:32

45:32

I so enjoyed making this latest episode in my collaboration with G Henle Publishers. I talked with two absolute experts in their fields, Norbert Mülleman and Stefan Knüpfer, all about how to edit Ravel's music, and how to create the Ravel sound on the piano. This episode definitely veers into some very nerdy territory, but Norbert and Stefan are bo…

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Dvorak Violin Concerto 49:16

6M ago49:16

49:16

Admit it: if you're a fan of classical music—or even just a regular concertgoer—you might have glanced at the title of this episode and done a double take. The Dvořák Violin Concerto? Not the Cello Concerto? One of the things I love about my job as a conductor—and my side gig as a podcast host—is bringing audiences and listeners like you pieces you…

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Brahms Double Concerto 58:17

6M ago58:17

58:17

It's entirely possible that we would not know the name of Johannes Brahms very well if Brahms hadn't met Joseph Joachim as a very young man. Joachim, who was one of the greatest violinists of all time, had already established himself as touring soloist and recitalist, and he happened to know the musical power couple of Robert and Clara Schumann qui…

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Copland Clarinet Concerto 48:13

7M ago48:13

48:13

The commission for a new Clarinet Concerto from the great American composer Aaron Copland came from a rather unlikely source: Benny Goodman, the man known as the King of Swing. Goodman was one of the most famous and important jazz musicians of all time, but in the late 1940s, swing music was on the decline, and bebop had taken over. Goodman experim…

1
Steve Reich: Different Trains 52:30

7M ago52:30

52:30

Steve Reich, the great American contemporary composer, provided this program note about his work Different Trains: "The idea for the piece came from my childhood. When I was one year old my parents separated. My singer, song-writer mother moved to Los Angeles and my attorney father stayed in New York. Since they arranged divided custody, I travelle…

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Best of Frenemies: Debussy and Ravel 52:22

8M ago52:22

52:22

Debussy and Ravel are often described as the prototypical musical impressionists. It is often said that the two composers are the closest equivalents to the artistic world of Monet, Renoir, Pisarro, Degas, and others. But both Ravel and Debussy (like Monet for that matter), vehemently rejected the term Impressionism, and they both felt that they we…

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Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 50:05

8M ago50:05

50:05

It's hard to overstate the depth of the connection between Dmitri Shostakovich and the legendary cellist Mstistlav Rostropovich. Shostakovich and Rostropovich were extremely close friends, and Shostakovich wrote and dedicated several works to him, including the piece we're going to talk about today, the first Cello Concerto. Rostropovich had been d…