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PODCAST

The Classical Music Minute

Steven Hobé, Composer & Host

Ever wonder who were the Florentine Camerata? Where did the conductor’s baton come from? Or the difference between Opera Buffa and Opera Seria? These little nuggets of classical music trivia are what this podcast is all about. Come hop around music history with me, Steven Hobé, as we take a minute to get the scoop!

music music history

All Episodes

1:10

Why the Symphony Became a Cultural Symbol

The Classical Music Minute ·

2026/01/12

Send us a text Description Why the Symphony Became a Cultural Symbol in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was the first to include a chorus in a symphony—an audacious move at the time. Critics were baffled. Today, its “Ode to Joy” theme is used as the anthem of the European Union, proving the symphony’s power to move from concert hall to cultural symbol. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer & actor living in Toronto. Through his m...

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1:10

Music After World War I: Art in a Shattered World

The Classical Music Minute ·

2026/01/05

Send us a text Description Music After World War I: Art in a Shattered World in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact In 1918, Erik Satie described postwar music as needing “fewer perfumes and more reality.” Many composers shared this sentiment, favoring sharp edges and transparency over lush emotion. Audiences weren’t always thrilled—but history proved these reactions marked the birth of modern music, not its collapse. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer & a...

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1:00

Bartók: When Folk Music Met Modernism

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/12/29

Send us a text Description Bartók: When Folk Music Met Modernism in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Bartók wasn’t just inspired by folk music—he treated it like scientific research. Armed with a phonograph, he recorded villagers singing in remote areas, often in harsh conditions. He transcribed songs note by note, preserving traditions that might otherwise have vanished. In the process, he became one of the founders of ethnomusicology—long before the term was widely used....

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1:00

The Oratorio: Opera Without the Costumes

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/12/22

Send us a text Description The Oratorio: Opera Without the Costumes in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact When Messiah premiered in Dublin, audiences were asked to leave their swords at home and ladies were encouraged not to wear hoop skirts—so more people could fit in the hall. Even then, Handel was drawing a crowd. The famous tradition of standing during the “Hallelujah” Chorus came later and wasn’t Handel’s idea at all. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer &a...

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1:00

Erik Satie: The Unlikely Godfather of Les Six

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/12/15

Send us a text Description Erik Satie: The Unlikely Godfather of Les Six in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Satie gave his pieces absurd titles like Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear—a jab at critics who accused him of lacking musical “form.” Les Six adored this irreverence. Poulenc once said Satie proved that “music could smile without losing its intelligence,” a lesson he took to heart. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer & actor living in Toronto. T...

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1:00

Les Six: Paris’s Modern Musical Short-Lived Spark

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/12/08

Send us a text Description Les Six: Paris’s Modern Musical Short-Lived Spark in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Les Six officially collaborated on only one major project, L’Album des Six (1920), before drifting apart. Ironically, the brevity of their partnership helped mythologize them: critics kept the label alive long after the composers stopped meeting, turning a short-lived collaboration into a lasting cultural brand. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer ...

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1:00

Francis Poulenc: The Man and His Music

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/12/01

Send us a text Description Francis Poulenc: The Man and His Music in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Poulenc adored Parisian cabarets and often slipped their cheeky harmonic twists into his classical works. After a friend accused him of being “too frivolous,” he replied, “You must take me as I am—Ravel for breakfast and a good music-hall number for dessert.” About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer & actor living in Toronto. Through his music, he create...

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Echoes Along the Nile: Music in Ancient Egypt

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/11/24

Send us a text Description Echoes Along the Nile: Music in Ancient Egypt in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact The sistrum—a sacred rattle associated with the goddess Hathor—was believed to ward off evil spirits. Priests shook it during ceremonies to “awaken” the gods. Archaeologists have found beautifully ornamented versions made of bronze and faience, proving even ancient noisemakers could be objects of stunning craftsmanship. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian compo...

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1:00

The Musician’s Life in the Romantic Era

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/11/17

Send us a text Description The Musician’s Life in the Romantic Era in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Franz Liszt was the 19th-century equivalent of a rock star. Fans reportedly fought over his discarded gloves and hair strands, a frenzy dubbed Lisztomania. While his performances caused swooning in concert halls, his income often relied more on teaching and touring than on the sale of his compositions. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer & actor living i...

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Mozart’s Piano: The Enlightenment’s Favourite Sound...

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/11/10

Send us a text Description Mozart’s Piano: The Enlightenment’s Favourite Sound Machine in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Mozart loved his personal fortepiano so much he took it on tour. It still survives today in Salzburg. Unlike modern pianos, its keys are wood-topped, not ivory, and its sound is surprisingly intimate—more like a lively conversation than a thunderous recital. You could almost imagine it gossiping in Viennese. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian com...

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1:00

Harmony Behind Stone Walls: Life in the Medieval...

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/11/03

Send us a text Description Harmony Behind Stone Walls: Life in the Medieval Cloister in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact The earliest Western musical notation emerged in monasteries, where scribes invented “neumes”—tiny marks above text to guide singers. This humble invention paved the way for modern sheet music. So, the next time you read a score, thank a monk with very steady handwriting. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer & actor living in Toronto. Th...

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1:00

Benjamin Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the...

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/10/27

Send us a text Description Benjamin Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra: A Musical Who’s Who in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact When The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra premiered, Britten wasn’t sure audiences would take it seriously. He needn’t have worried—it’s now one of the most-performed orchestral works ever written for education. Ironically, it’s also one of the most sophisticated fugues in the entire 20th-century repertoire. About Steven, Ho...

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1:00

The Pulse Redefined: Rhythmic Complexity in...

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/10/20

Send us a text Description The Pulse Redefined: Rhythmic Complexity in 20th-Century Music in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact When The Rite of Spring premiered in Paris, 1913, its jarring rhythms helped cause a near riot. Audience members shouted, booed, and even fought. A century later, the same rhythms are considered masterpieces of modernity—proof that innovation often sounds like chaos before it becomes art. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer & actor...

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Breaking the Spell: Reaction Against Romanticism in...

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/10/13

Send us a text Description Breaking the Spell: Reaction Against Romanticism in Early 20th-Century Music” in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact When Stravinsky’s Pulcinella premiered in 1920, audiences were puzzled—was it parody, homage, or rebellion? Stravinsky called it “a look backward with a smile,” summing up the entire neoclassical spirit: modern sensibility dressed in old-fashioned clothes. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer & actor living in Toronto...

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Mozart in Miniature: Master of Chamber Music

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/10/06

Send us a text Description Mozart in Miniature: Master of Chamber Music in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Mozart’s publisher worried that his Piano Quartet in G minor (1785) was too difficult for amateurs—the intended market for chamber music. Sales flopped at first, but the piece later became a cornerstone of the repertoire. It’s a reminder that Mozart sometimes wrote not for popularity, but for pure artistry. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer & acto...

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1:00

Form, Function, and Flourish: The Classical Sonata

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/09/29

Send us a text Description Form, Function, and Flourish: The Classical Sonata in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata wasn’t named by him at all—the nickname came years later, when a critic compared its first movement to moonlight on Lake Lucerne. Beethoven might have rolled his eyes, but the title stuck, and today it’s one of the most famous (and misinterpreted) sonatas ever written. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer & actor ...

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1:00

Back to the Future: Neoclassicism in Music

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/09/22

Send us a text Description Back to the Future: Neoclassicism in Music in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Stravinsky admitted that Pulcinella wasn’t just homage—it was liberation. “It was a backward look, of course,” he said, “but it was a look in the mirror too.” By reworking 18th-century melodies with his own twists, he essentially invented neoclassicism—proving that recycling old material can still create something revolutionary. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian...

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1:00

Faraway Fantasies: Exoticism in Opera

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/09/15

Send us a text Description Faraway Fantasies: Exoticism in Opera in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact When Carmen premiered, critics complained it was too scandalous and “vulgar” for the Paris stage. Yet the opera’s Spanish flair and exotic energy soon captivated Europe. Ironically, Bizet never visited Spain—the rhythms and melodies came from French collections of “Spanish” tunes. Authentic or not, it became a timeless hit. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer ...

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1:00

Showtime with Strings Attached: The Romantic Concerto

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/09/08

Send us a text Description Showtime with Strings Attached: The Romantic Concerto in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Franz Liszt’s piano concertos were so demanding that critics sometimes accused him of showing off. He didn’t mind—he once said performing should “transport the listener.” Paganini caused similar uproar: audiences whispered he’d sold his soul to the devil to master the violin. Marketing hype, 19th-century style. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian compos...

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1:00

Bigger, Louder, Wilder: The Romantic Orchestra Arrives

The Classical Music Minute ·

2025/09/01

Send us a text Description Bigger, Louder, Wilder: The Romantic Orchestra Arrives in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop! Fun Fact Wagner was so ambitious he built his own opera house in Bayreuth just to fit the expanded orchestra he envisioned. His pit design hid the musicians from the audience—so all you saw was drama on stage while an enormous, unseen orchestra unleashed waves of sound beneath. About Steven, Host Steven is a Canadian composer & actor living in Toronto. Through ...

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257 results

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