{"podcast":{"title":"Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast","slug":"sticky-notes-the-classical-music-podcast-783438","podcast_index_feed_id":783438,"rss_url":"https://stickynotespodcast.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"http://stickynotespodcast.libsyn.com/","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/b/c/7/c/bc7c96c900fe9392d959afa2a1bf1c87/resized-image-Promo.jpeg","author":"Joshua Weilerstein","episode_count":293,"summary":"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!","last_synced_at":"2026-07-23T22:19:57.957535+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sticky-notes-the-classical-music-podcast-783438"},"episode":{"title":"Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 59, No.2","slug":"beethoven-string-quartet-op-59-no-2","published_at":"2026-03-05T06:57:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sticky-notes-the-classical-music-podcast-783438/beethoven-string-quartet-op-59-no-2","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sticky-notes-the-classical-music-podcast-783438","url":"https://stickynotespodcast.libsyn.com/beethoven-string-quartet-op-59-no2","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/stickynotespodcast/Beethoven_59_2_-_05032026_07.24.mp3?dest-id=477278","summary":"I'm always tickled by composer trivia questions, like which standard canon works begin in a major key and end in a minor key? I'll give you one, but please comment others below: Mendelssohn's 4th Symphony. Well, how about this one: how many of Beethoven's 16 string quartets end in a minor key? The answer? Just one, Op. 59, No. 2, the subject of today's show. And that minor key is hugely important to this darkest of the three Op. 59 quartets, three towering achievements that changed the string quartet repertoire for good. Beethoven, as I've said many times on the show, was a revolutionary within limits, always expanding, rethinking, and reshaping what was possible without breaking anything beyond repair. But make no mistake: the Op. 59 quartets were revolutionary works. No one had written anything like them before in terms of scope, emotional intensity, difficulty, and complexity. In fact, like a few of Beethoven's greatest works, they were received with confusion and, in some cases, anger by musicians, audiences, and critics. Famously, the cellist of the first string quartet to receive the parts of Op. 59, No. 1 saw the Morse code-like, one-note theme of the second movement, threw the music aside, and stomped on it! These quartets were Beethoven going out on a limb, applying the intensity and drama of his Middle Heroic Period to a genre that had been at least partly the province of amateur musicians, but not anymore. Op. 59, No. 2, as I said, is the darkest of this group: four movements all centered around the key of E, and with the exception of the glorious second movement, all in minor, presenting a seriousness and directness of purpose that is powerfully compelling. This might be my favorite of the Op. 59 quartets, and so I'm very excited to dig into it with you tod…","meta_description":"I'm always tickled by composer trivia questions, like which standard canon works begin in a major key and end in a minor key? I'll give you one, but pleas…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3416,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/sticky-notes-the-classical-music-podcast-783438/episodes/beethoven-string-quartet-op-59-no-2/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sticky-notes-the-classical-music-podcast-783438/beethoven-string-quartet-op-59-no-2.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}