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Samuel Barber

 

(born March 9, 1910, West Chester, Pa., U.S. — died Jan. 23, 1981, New York, N.Y.) U.S. composer. He studied piano, voice, conducting, and composition at the Curtis Institute. After graduation in 1934, he devoted himself to composition. Barber's style, frequently lyrical and neo-Romantic, proved highly attractive to the public. His works include the popular Adagio for Strings (1936), two Essays for Orchestra (1937, 1942), the opera Vanessa (1957, Pulitzer Prize), and a Piano Concerto (1962, Pulitzer Prize).

For more information on Samuel Barber, visit Britannica.com.

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(b West Chester, pa,9 March 1910 ; dNew York, 23 Jan 1981). American composer. He studied as a baritone and composer (with Scalero) at the Curtis Institute (1924-32) and while there began to win acclaim with such works as Drover Beach (1931), written for himself to sing with string quartet. His opulent yet unforced Romanticism struck a chord and during the 1930s he was much in demand: his overture The School for Scandal (1933), First Symphony (1936), First Essay (1937) and Adagio (originally the second movement of his String Quartet, 1936) were widely performed, the lyrical, elegiac Adagio remaining a popular classic. In the 1940s he began to include more ‘modern’ features of harmony and scoring. Of his operas, Vanessa (1958), praised as ‘highly charged with emotional meaning’, was more successful than Antony and Cleopatra (1966, for the opening of the new Met).

works:
Dramatic music

  • 2 ballets - Medea (1946), Souvenirs (1953)
  • 3 operas, incl. Vanessa (1958), Antony and Cleopatra (1966)
Orchestral music
  • The School for Scandal, ov. (1933)
  • Adagio, str [arr. from Str Qt 2nd movt] (1936)
  • 2 syms. (1936, 1944)
  • 3 Essays (1937, 1942, 1978)
  • Vn Conc. (1940)
  • Vc Conc. (1945)
  • Pf Conc. (1962)
Vocal music
  • 7 choral works, incl. Prayers of Kierkegaard (1954)
  • 12 solo vocal works, incl. Dover Beach, Mez/Bar, str qt (1931)
  • Knoxville: Summer of 1915, S, orch (1947)
  • Hermit Songs (1952-3)
Chamber and instrumental music
  • 11 works, incl. Vn Sonata (1931)
  • Vc Sonata (1932)
  • Str Qt (1936)
  • Pf Sonata (1949)


Samuel Barber (1910-1981) was among the leading figures in 20th-century American music and is perhaps best known for his "Adagio for Strings", which has become one of the most recognized pieces in contemporary orchestral music.

Samuel Barber was born on March 9, 1910, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, into a middle-class professional family. His maternal aunt was the well-known singer Louise Homer. Barber's mother was an accomplished pianist, and his own musical studies started early. He began composing at the age of seven. In 1924 he entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he remained for nine years, studying composition and piano. He also studied voice, which undoubtedly influenced the cultivation of a strong lyrical style in his musical composition. It was at Curtis that Barber began a lifelong friendship with Gian Carlo Menotti, a newly arrived student from Italy. Although Barber made frequent trips to Europe (as a recipient of the Prix de Rome he spent several years at the American Academy in Rome), he was among the first American composers trained in his own country. The roots of European tradition nevertheless had been assimilated. Except for a brief period of teaching at the Curtis Institute, he maintained his independence, primarily through grants, commissions, and royalties.

Early Works

Barber's music covers a wide range. Vocal works include choral compositions and solo settings with piano, chamber ensemble, and orchestra. Barber set to music the texts of such literary figures as Matthew Arnold, James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, James Agee, Rainer Maria Rilke, and the philosopher SÓren Kierkegaard. Among his orchestral works are three Essays for Orchestra and two symphonies. The performance in 1938 of his first Essay and of his best-known work, Adagio for Strings, with Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra, won Barber immediate national recognition. Symphony No. 2 was commissioned by the Army Air Forces while Barber served as a corporal during World War II. Three concertos for violin, violoncello, and piano reveal his grasp of instrumental idiomatic virtuosity. He also wrote ballet music for Martha Graham (Medea) and the Ballet Society (Souvenirs).

Operas

It was inevitable that Barber would turn to opera. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Vanessa, with a libretto by Menotti (1958), was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, New York City. Limited to a few roles, it is a lyrical work of passionate intensity. Following the success of Vanessa, Barber was honored by another commission, Antony and Cleopatra, adapted from Shakespeare by Franco Zeffirelli, for the opening of the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, New York City, in September 1966. This opera is more complex musically and more grandiose in scope and theatricality.

Major Themes and Techniques

It is difficult to classify Barber's style. His early works represent a conservative, traditional style based on European prototypes, and his later, more complex compositions remain outside experimental trends of the period. His structure is tonal, yet the earlier works are more simple and direct. Later works, such as Symphony No. 2, the Piano Sonata, and the Piano Concerto, another Pulitzer Prize winner, are more chromatic and dissonant. Twelve-tone serial technique is used in the Piano Sonata. Barber's instrumental works reveal traditional attitudes toward musical articulation and form. His themes are carefully molded and highly motivic. His contrapuntal texture is strong, and he used canonic, fugal, and ostinato procedures. His various settings for solo voice are very sensitive and expressive, especially in the evocation of youth. A beautiful example is Knoxville: Summer of 1915, derived from Agee's A Death in the Family. Because of his direct expressivity and warm lyricism he is generally regarded as a "neoromantic," but this is a classification of attitude rather than of style.

After a period of artistic inactivity in the 1970s, Barber returned to composing with his Third Essay for Orchestra, which was performed by the New York Philharmonic orchestra in 1980. The premier of a second new work, an oboe concerto, was planned at the time of his death, January 23, 1981, following a long illness.

Further Reading

A sympathetic biography and analysis of Barber's music is Nathan Broder, Samuel Barber (1954; revised, 1985). A penetrating interpretation of Barber is given by Wilfrid Mellers in Music in a New Found Land (1965). A consideration of Barber's life and career may also be found in Barbara B. Heyman, Samuel Barber: The Composer and His Music (1992; reprinted, 1994). For additional information, see Don A. Hennessee, Samuel Barber: A Bio-Bibliography (1985).

Oxford Dictionary of Dance:

Samuel Barber

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Barber, Samuel (b West Chester, Pa., 9 Mar. 1910, d New York, 23 Jan. 1981). US composer. He wrote the music for Martha Graham's Cave of the Heart (1946). His scores have been used by many choreographers, including Bolender, Neumeier, MacMillan, and Ailey.

Columbia Encyclopedia:

Samuel Barber

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Barber, Samuel, 1910-81, American composer, b. West Chester, Pa. Barber studied at the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia. His music is lyrical and generally tonal; his later works are more chromatic and polytonal with striking contrapuntal elements. Among his outstanding works are a setting of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" for voice and string quartet (1931); an overture to The School for Scandal (1931); Adagio for Strings (1936); two symphonies (1936, 1944); Capricorn Concerto for flute, oboe, and trumpet (1944) and a piano concerto (1962; Pulitzer Prize); a ballet, Medea (1946); Knoxville: Summer of 1915, for soprano and orchestra (1947), derived from a segment of James Agee's novel A Death in the Family; a modern oratorio, Prayers of Kierkegaard (1954); and two operas, Vanessa (1957; Pulitzer Prize) and Antony and Cleopatra (1966), commissioned to open the new Metropolitan Opera House.

Bibliography

See biography by N. Broder (1954).

AMG AllMovie Guide:

Samuel Barber

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Biography

Barber is often called a neo-Romantic American composer, but he created a distinctive style noted for its rich melodiousness, new approach to tonal harmony, and colorful timbres. Without doubt, his most famous work is the Adagio for Strings (1936) from his String Quartet, Op. 11. This piece has a slowly unfolding melody that is simultaneously sad, comforting, compassionate, and noble. It was played at the funeral of Princess Diana in England. In Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986), Barber's Adagio for Strings (uncredited) slowly fades in at the very beginning as the fresh recruits of Bravo Company, 25th Infantry leave an airplane carrier and walk onto a hot and dusty military airfield in Vietnam in September 1967. They pass wounded men on stretchers and seasoned troops. The emotions of the viewers are immediately gripped by the cognitive dissonance of the music's monumental sadness mixed with the harsh reality of the imagery. The music returns about midway into the film as local village farmers are shot, raped, and battered by American soldiers who burn all the houses. The music underscores an offscreen narrative, in the form of a letter by Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) to his grandmother, in which he describes the growing animosity within the platoon. The music expresses desperate tension rather than sadness, as Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe) is shown abandoned on the ground, pursued by Viet Cong soldiers, after previously being shot in the jungle by Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger) because he told the truth about the murderous raid. Elias holds up his hands in a pleading gesture as the rescue helicopters fly away. After more overwhelming battle action, Sergeant Barnes is shot by one of his men. The music accompanies the final scenes of bodies being dumped into mass graves, and a final monologue delivered by Taylor from a helicopter as he observes first the carnage, then the beautiful hills. Toward the conclusion of David Lynch's insightful and moving The Elephant Man (1980), Barber's Adagio for Strings is heard as the deformed and soulful John Merrick (wonderfully interpreted byJohn Hurt) decides to end his life after being accepted by certain kind people from London society, protected by the London hospital, and freed from the brutishness of his former life. He simply places his body in a fully rested position rather than in the sitting position in which he must normally sleep in order not to cut off his air flow. A cameo of his mother appears floating in a starry sky and her voice is heard saying, "Never, never, nothing will die, the stream flows, the wind blows...." In an episode of the popular Seinfeld television comedy show, Barber's Adagio for Strings bypasses somber contextualization and instead enhances an extended joke: The father of Seinfeld's friend George has a phobia against cooking because he once cooked bad meat for troops in Korea thinking that he could just add a lot of spices and make the food palatable and somehow healthy again. But instead the soldiers are shown in a slow-motion, black-and-white flashback wretching and collapsing in the mess tent in a parody of serious war movie action-in-the-trenches as Barber's score plays. The Adagio for Strings is also heard in the moving Lorenzo's Oil (1992) about a boy's miraculous cure, and El Norte (1983) about Mayans who escape a repressive regime to start a new life in Los Angeles. Other fine works by Barber (e.g., the String Quartet, Op. 27, Essay for Orchestra, the cello and violin concertos, the Capricorn Concerto) offer rich possibilities as film music. ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Rovi
Gale Musician Profiles:

Samuel Barber

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Composer

Samuel Barber is regarded as one of the most distinguished composers to emerge in twentieth-century America. His talent was recognized early, and he proved to be a precocious student during his years at the Curtis Institute during the mid 1920s. Later, during the course of his lengthy career, he composed 48 opus-length works. Barber, who is generally regarded as a neo-Romantic composer, is admired for an extremely lyrical quality that permeates his compositions, works that are also characterized by a high degree of tonality. Barber wrote 103 songs in addition to his major compositions and received recognition repeatedly during a career that produced two Pulitzer Prize-winning works. Composed in 1936, Adagio for Strings is among Barber’s best-known compositions. He was a member of both the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Samuel Osborne Barber II was born on March 9, 1910, to a well-educated, middle-class family in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was the elder of two children and the only son of Marguerite McLeod Beatty and her physician husband, Samuel Leroy Barber. Barber, who was named for his paternal grandfather, came by his musical talent from his mother’s family. From an early age, Barber was exposed to the culture of professional musicians. Most notably, his composer uncle Sidney Homer, and Homer’s wife, Louise, who was a performer with the Metropolitan Opera, served as mentors.

Barber began his musical studies with piano lessons at age six and composed his first piece of music one year later. His mother, who was a pianist, took it upon herself to record her young son’s compositions in manuscript format. By the age of ten, Barber had undertaken the daunting task of composing an opera. The work, called the Rose Tree, was based on a libretto which was supplied by the family’s cook. Although Barber never completed the work, the score remains a testament to his prodigy.

Completed First Orchestral Composition
As a teenager, Barber attended at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he studied piano, voice, and composition beginning in 1924. Prior to his enrollment at Curtis, Barber had studied organ from age eleven and played for services at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in his hometown. In addition to his bent for piano and organ, Barber was a talented baritone. During his years at Curtis, he distinguished himself most notably as a student of composition under Rosario Scalero. Scalero, who recognized Barber’s genius very quickly, worked with Barber for nine years. By 1931 Barber had completed his first orchestral composition, Overture to the School for Scandal. The following year he left the

institute to work as a composer, subsidizing his early career through singing and teaching. Additionally, he completed his studies and graduated in 1934 with a bachelor’s degree in music.

Throughout his professional career, Barber’s private life sometimes caused scandal because of an intimate living relationship he maintained with fellow musician Gian Carlo Menotti. The close personal friendship between the two men began when they were students at the Curtis Institute. Menotti lived for a time at the Barber household, and Barber traveled with Menotti on numerous occasions to Milan, Italy, to visit with Menot-ti’s family. Furthermore, Barber lived much of his adult life in New York City, sharing living quarters with Menotti. Likewise, Barber spent 12 years in the close companionship of Valentin Herranz, which gave further credence to already existing notions of Barber’s rumored homosexuality and caused continual dismay among the less politically correct art patrons of Barber’s era.

Professional Prominence
Barber’s first major orchestral work, Overture to the School for Scandal, received its world premiere with the Philadelphia Orchestra under conductor Alexander Smallens in 1933. In 1935-36 Barber received an extended Pulitzer traveling scholarship and thereafter supported himself largely by means of fellowship grants and by composing works on commission. Also in 1935 Barber won the Prix de Rome and spent some years at the American Academy in Rome in fulfillment of the prize. Barber was commissioned to write his Symphony No. 2 by the Army Air Forces while serving as a corporal during World War II. He taught briefly at the Curtis Institute, collected royalties for his works, and received Guggenheim Fellowships in 1945, 1947, and again in 1949. In 1946 he accepted a commission to compose a ballet score for Martha Graham’s planned presentation of Medea. After completing that project, entitled Cave of the Heart, Barber subsequently expanded the original ballet music into seven movements for full orchestra in 1947. He reworked the score a second time in 1955, resulting in a single full-length movement called Medea’s Dance of Vengeance. In 1949 Barber accepted a commission to compose a work for piano to be performed by Vladimir Horowitz in celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the League of Composers.

Barber’s work, which is most memorable for its extremely lyrical quality, includes 103 solo songs. In many instances, the composer took his inspiration from literary illusion, turning to the celebrated Anglo-Saxon poets—James Agee, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, and others—for text and inspiration in composing his songs. Among his more popular lyrical works, Barber’s Hermit Songs were taken from works of Irish poetry which he adapted to music for the American soprano Leontyne Price. Hermit Songs marked the first in an ongoing series of collaborations between Barber and Price that began with Price’s Hermit Songs concert in 1953 and endured for two decades. In 1966, on commission for the opening of the new Metropolitan Opera House at the Lincoln Center in New York City, Barber wrote the opera Antony and Cleopatra with Price earmarked for the starring role of Cleopatra. That work featured an original libretto by Franco Zeffirelli, although much of the premiere production was flawed. Barber later rewrote the work in collaboration with Menotti.

Pulitzer Prize Winner
In 1958 the Metropolitan Opera produced Barber’s opera, Vanessa, a highly successful work featuring Menotti’s libretto. That work won the first of two Pulitzer Prizes for Barber. He won a second Pulitzer along with a Music Critics Circle Award in 1962 for Piano Concerto No. 1, which had its premiere at the Avery Fisher Music Hall (then Philharmonic Hall) at the Lincoln Center.

Barber’s most celebrated work is the Adagio for Strings, which he composed when he was newly out of the Curtis Institute. The composition was performed along with Barber’s Essay for Orchestra in a world premiere by the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1938 under conductor Arturo Toscanini. The Adagio was heard prominently once again in 1945 at the funeral of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was heard thereafter on many momentous and somber occasions, including the funerals of physicist Albert Einstein in 1955 and Princess Grace of Monaco in 1982.

Although the Adagio was not included among the selections at Barber’s own funeral, he was nonetheless serenaded with his own music for several months by a stream of his friends and colleagues as he lay on his deathbed, terminally ill from cancer. He died on January 23, 1981, in New York City.

Selected compositions
Overture to the School for Scandal, G. Schirmer, 1931.
First Essay for Orchestra, G. Schirmer, 1937.
Adagio for Strings, G. Schirmer, 1938.
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, G. Schirmer, 1939.
Symphony No. 2, G. Schirmer, 1942.
Medea—Cave of the Heart, G. Schirmer, 1947.
Medea—Ballet Suite, G. Schirmer, 1947.
Medea’s Dance of Vengeance, G. Schirmer, 1955.
Vanessa, G. Schirmer, 1957.
Piano Concerto No. 1, G. Schirmer, 1962.
Antony and Cleopatra, G. Schirmer, 1966.
Third Essay for Orchestra, G. Schirmer, 1978.
Sources
Books
Encyclopedia of World Biography, second edition, Gale Research, 1998.
Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Volume 1: 1981-1985, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1998.

Online
"Samuel Barber—Biography," G. Schirmer Inc., http://www.schirmer.com/composers/barberworks.html (June 26, 2001).
  • Genres: Classical

Biography

An American composer of modern, accessible, neo-romantic symphonies and chamber music, including The School for Scandal (1933), String Quartet (1936), and Adagio for Strings (1936). Barber's music has integrity, retaining a noble and lyrical sound of its own through changing fashions and never sounding dated. ~ Blue Gene Tyranny, Rovi
Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Samuel Barber

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Samuel Barber

Samuel Barber, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1944
Background information
Birth name Samuel Osborne Barber II
Born March 9, 1910(1910-03-09)
West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States
Died January 23, 1981(1981-01-23) (aged 70)
Occupations composer

Samuel Osborne Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings (1936) has earned a permanent place in the concert repertory of orchestras. He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music, for his opera Vanessa (1956–57) and his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1962). His Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (1947), a work for soprano and orchestra, sets a prose text by James Agee.

Contents

Biography

Early years

Barber was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, the son of Marguerite McLeod (née Beatty) and Samuel Le Roy Barber.[1] At a very early age, Barber became profoundly interested in music, and it was apparent that he had great musical talent and ability. At the age of nine he wrote to his mother:

Dear Mother: I have written this to tell you my worrying secret. Now don’t cry when you read it because it is neither yours nor my fault. I suppose I will have to tell it now without any nonsense. To begin with I was not meant to be an athlet [sic]. I was meant to be a composer, and will be I’m sure. I’ll ask you one more thing .—Don’t ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football.—Please—Sometimes I’ve been worrying about this so much that it makes me mad (not very).[2]
Boyhood home of Samuel Barber in West Chester, Pennsylvania

He wrote his first musical at the early age of 7 and attempted to write his first opera at the age of 10. He was an organist at the age of 12. When he was 14, he entered the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, where he studied piano, composition, and voice.

Barber was born into a comfortable, educated, social, and distinguished Irish-American family. His father was a physician, and his mother was a pianist. His aunt, Louise Homer, was a leading contralto at the Metropolitan Opera and his uncle, Sidney Homer, was a composer of American art songs. Louise Homer is known to have influenced Barber's interest in voice. Through his aunt, Barber had access to many great singers and songs.

Barber began composing seriously in his late teenage years. Around the same time, he met fellow Curtis schoolmate Gian Carlo Menotti, who became his partner in life as well as in their shared profession. At the Curtis Institute, Barber was a triple prodigy in composition, voice, and piano. He soon became a favorite of the conservatory's founder, Mary Louise Curtis Bok. It was through Mrs. Bok that Barber was introduced to his lifelong publisher, the Schirmer family. At the age of 18, Barber won the Joseph H. Bearns Prize from Columbia University for his Violin Sonata (now lost or destroyed by the composer).

Middle years

From his early to late twenties, Barber wrote a flurry of successful compositions, launching him into the spotlight of the classical music world. Many of his compositions were commissioned or first performed by such famous artists as Vladimir Horowitz, Eleanor Steber, Raya Garbousova, John Browning, Leontyne Price, Pierre Bernac, Francis Poulenc, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. When Barber was 28, his Adagio for Strings was performed by the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Arturo Toscanini in 1938, along with his first Essay for Orchestra. The Adagio had been arranged from the slow movement of Barber's String Quartet, Op. 11. Toscanini had only rarely performed music by American composers before (an exception was Howard Hanson's Second Symphony, which he conducted in 1933).[3] At the end of the first rehearsal of the piece, Toscanini remarked, "Semplice e bella" (simple and beautiful).

Barber served in the Army Air Corps in World War II, where he was commissioned to write his Second Symphony, a work he later suppressed. (It was released in a "Vox" recording by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Schenck). Composed in 1943, the symphony was originally titled Symphony Dedicated to the Air Forces and was premiered in early 1944 by Serge Koussevitsky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Barber revised the symphony in 1947, which was published by G. Schirmer,[4] and recorded the following year by the New Symphony Orchestra of London conducted by the composer,[5] but Barber subsequently destroyed the score in 1964. It was reconstructed from the instrumental parts.[6] According to another source, however, it was precisely the parts to the symphony that Barber had torn up.[7] Hans Heinsheimer was an eyewitness, and reported that he accompanied Barber to the publisher's office where they collected all the music from the library and Barber "tore up all these beautifully and expensively copied materials with his own hands"[8] Doubt has been cast on this story, however, on grounds that Heinsheimer, as an executive at G. Schirmer, would have allowed Barber into the Schirmer offices to watch him "rip apart the music that his company had invested money in publishing".[9]

Barber won the Pulitzer Prize twice: in 1958 for his first opera Vanessa, and in 1963 for his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.

Later years

Barber spent many years in isolation after the harsh rejection of his third opera Antony and Cleopatra. He suffered from depression, and was also beset by alcoholism.[10] The opera was written for and premiered at the opening of the new Metropolitan Opera House on September 16, 1966. After this setback, Barber continued to write music until he was almost 70 years old. Barber's music in his later years would be lauded as reflective and contemplative, but without the morbidity or unhappiness of other composers who knew they had a limited time to live. The Third Essay for Orchestra (1978) was his last major work.

Barber died of cancer in 1981 in New York City at the age of 70. He was buried in Oaklands Cemetery in his hometown of West Chester, Pennsylvania.[11]

Achievements and awards

Barber was the recipient of numerous awards and prizes including the Rome Prize (the American version of the Prix de Rome), two Pulitzers, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1961.[12]

Barber was initiated, as a full collegiate member, into the Zeta Iota chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity at Howard University in 1952.

In addition to composing, Barber was active in organizations that sought to help musicians and promote music. He was president of the International Music Council of UNESCO, where he did much to bring into focus and ameliorate the conditions facing musicians and musical organizations worldwide. He was one of the first American composers to visit Russia (then part of the Soviet Union). Barber was also influential in the successful campaign by composers against ASCAP, the goal of which was to increase royalties paid to composers.

Music

I just go on doing, as they say, my thing.

Barber[13]

Orchestral music

Barber played and studied the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and was an adherent of Johannes Brahms, from whom he learned how to compress profound emotions into small modules of highly charged musical expression (Cello Sonata, 1932).[citation needed]

In 1933, after reading the poem "Prometheus Unbound" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Barber composed the tone poem Music for a Scene from Shelley, Op. 7. In 1935, when the work was premiered at Carnegie Hall, it was the first time the composer heard one of his orchestral works performed publicly.[citation needed]

Barber's compositional style has been lauded[by whom?] for its musical logic, sense of architectural design, effortless melodic gift, and direct emotional appeal. This was evident in the Overture to The School for Scandal (1931) and Music for a Scene from Shelley (1933). These were characteristics of his music throughout his lifetime.[citation needed]

Through the success of his Overture to The School for Scandal (1931), Music for a Scene from Shelley (1933), Adagio for Strings (1938); (First) Symphony in One Movement (1936), (First) Essay for Orchestra (1937) and Violin Concerto (1939), Barber garnered performances by the world's leading conductors – Artur Rodziński, Eugene Ormandy, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Bruno Walter, Charles Münch, George Szell, Leopold Stokowski, and Thomas Schippers.

His compositions later included polytonality (Second Symphony, 1944); atonality (Medea, 1946, Prayers of Kierkegaard, 1954); Twelve-tone technique (Nocturne, 1959 and the Piano Sonata, 1949); and jazz (Excursions, 1944; and A Hand of Bridge, 1959).[citation needed]

Among his finest works[citation needed] are his four concertos, one each for Violin (1939), Cello (1945) and Piano (1962), and also the neoclassical Capricorn Concerto for flute, oboe, trumpet and string orchestra. All of these works are rewarding for the soloists and public alike, as all contain both highly virtuosic and beautiful writing, often simultaneously. The latter three have been unfairly neglected until recent years, when there has been a reawakening of interest in the expressive possibilities of these masterpieces.[citation needed]

Barber's final opus was the Canzonetta for oboe and string orchestra (1979/1981).

Piano

The four piano "bagatelles" Excursions, Op. 20 (1942–44), was his first and only venture into Americana music. Its elements of boogie-woogie, blues, theme and variations on a cowboy song, and hoedown are not typical of Barber's generally more classical style.[citation needed] In 1949, Barber wrote his Piano Sonata, which has maintained a prominent position in the concert repertoire since its premiere.[citation needed] The Nocturne for Piano (Homage to John Field), Op. 33, is another respected piece which he composed for the instrument.

Opera

Barber's life partner Gian Carlo Menotti, whom he had met at Curtis, supplied the libretto (text) for Barber's opera, Vanessa. Using his vocal training, in 1956 Barber played and sang the score to the Metropolitan Opera's General Manager, Rudolf Bing, who accepted the work. It premiered in January 1958. The title role was written for Sena Jurinac but she cancelled six weeks before the opening, to be replaced by Eleanor Steber, with whom the role has become closely identified.[citation needed] Vanessa won the 1958 Pulitzer Prize and gained acclaim as the first American grand opera.

Menotti also contributed the libretto for Barber's chamber opera A Hand of Bridge. Barber's Antony and Cleopatra was commissioned to open the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in 1966. The elaborate production designed by Franco Zeffirelli was plagued with technical disasters; it also overwhelmed and obscured Barber's music, which most critics derided as uncharacteristically weak and unoriginal. The critical rejection of music that Barber considered to be among his best sent him into a deep depression. In recent years, a revised version of Antony and Cleopatra, for which Menotti provided collaborative assistance, has enjoyed some success.[14][15]

Vocal

Barber's background, deeply rooted in singing (including studies with Emilio de Gogorza), his love of poetry, and his intimate knowledge and appreciation of the human voice, inspired his vocal writing. Barber's most famous vocal compositions, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (to words by James Agee) and Dover Beach (to the poem by Matthew Arnold), were greatly successful. Their critical acclaim has made a powerful case for Barber as one of the twentieth century's most accomplished composers for the voice.[citation needed]

In honor of Barber's influence on American music, on October 19, 1974, he was awarded the prestigious University of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit.[16] This award was established in 1964 "to bring a declaration of appreciation to an individual each year who has made a significant contribution to the world of music and helped to create a climate in which our talents may find valid expression."

In September 1992, soprano Cheryl Studer, baritone Thomas Hampson, the preeminent Samuel Barber pianist John Browning and the Emerson String Quartet recorded the complete songs of Samuel Barber (with the exception of Knoxville: Summer of 1915) at the Brahms-Saal of the famous Musikverein in Vienna, Austria. The Deutsche Grammophon (catalogue 435 867–2) set has become a classic of American song on record.[citation needed]

Violin

In 1939 Philadelphia industrialist Samuel Simeon Fels commissioned Barber to write a violin concerto for Fels' ward, Iso Briselli, a graduate from the Curtis Institute of Music the same year as Barber, 1934.[17] The Barber biographies written by Nathan Broder (1954) and Barbara B. Heyman (1992) discuss the genesis of the concerto during the period of the violin concerto's commission and subsequent year leading up to the first performance. Heyman interviewed Briselli and others familiar with the history in her publication. In late 2010, previously unpublished letters written by Fels, Barber, and Albert Meiff (Briselli's violin coach in that period) from the Samuel Simeon Fels Papers archived at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania became available to the public.[18]

Notable compositions

Popular culture

Adagio for Strings is a string-orchestra version of the slow movement from Barber's only string quartet. It was broadcast as part of a radio tribute following the death of US president, Franklin D. Roosevelt and at the funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco.[19] It was used by French film composer, Georges Delerue, as part of his score, in the opening and various other passages of Platoon (1986), a film directed by Oliver Stone about the Vietnam War and in the film, Lorenzo's Oil, starring Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon.[20] It is the soundtrack of the movie The Elephant Man (1980) directed by David Lynch. It has also been remixed by electronic dance artist DJ Tiesto and a choral version served as the theme to the real-time strategy game Homeworld.

Notes

  1. ^ Broder 1954, 9–10.
  2. ^ Heyman 1992, 7.
  3. ^ Heyman 1992, 164.
  4. ^ Samuel Barber, Second Symphony, op. 19, G. Schirmer's Edition of Study Scores of Orchestral Works & Chamber Music, no. 55 (New York: G. Schirmer, 1950; reprinted 1990).
  5. ^ Samuel Barber: Symphony no. 2, op. 19, LP recording, 10-inch, London LPS 334 (New York and London: London Records, 1951); reissued as Samuel Barber: Symphony no. 2, op. 19; Medea Ballet Suite, op. 23, LP recording, 12-inch, London LL 1328 (London: London Records, 1956); reissued in this same pairing on 12-inch LP recording, Everest SDBR 3282 (Los Angeles, CA: Everest Records, 1970); reissued as Samuel Barber: Symphony no. 2, op. 19; Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra, op. 22; Media, op. 23: Orchestral Suite from the Music to the Ballet Cave of the Heart, with Zara Nelsova (cello), CD recording, Pearl GEM 1051 (Wadhurst, E. Sussex, England: Pearl, 2001).
  6. ^ Vox Records liner notes[Full citation needed]
  7. ^ Schenck 1988.
  8. ^ Heinsheimer 1968.
  9. ^ Wright 2010, 95.
  10. ^ Heyman 1992, 461.
  11. ^ Samuel Barber at Find a Grave
  12. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterB.pdf. Retrieved May 17, 2011. 
  13. ^ Károlyi 1996, 43. Cited in Wade 2003, 149.
  14. ^ Smith 2002, citing Heyman 1992 as a general reference.
  15. ^ Heyman 1992, 455–58, citing Henahan 1975 and Valente 1983.
  16. ^ "The University of Pennsylvania glee Club Award of Merit Recipients". http://www.dolphin.upenn.edu/gleeclub/MEMBERS_merit.html. 
  17. ^ http://www.curtis.edu/about-curtis/history/full-alumni-listing/view-by-class-year.html
  18. ^ Mostovoy 2010.
  19. ^ Lee 2002, 16–17.
  20. ^ Brennan, Elizabeth A. and Clarage, Elizabeth C. (1999). Who's Who of Pulitzer Prize Winners, p.429. ISBN 9781573561112.

References and further reading

  • Brévignon, Pierre. 2011. Samuel Barber, un nostalgique entre deux mondes. Paris: Editions Hermann. ISBN 2782705681869.
  • Broder, Nathan. 1954. Samuel Barber. New York: G. Schirmer. Reprinted Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985. ISBN 0313249849.
  • Heinsheimer, Hans W. 1968. "The Composing Composer: Samuel Barber". ASCAP Today 2:7.
  • Henahan, Donal. 1975. "Juilliard Rehabilitating 'Antony and Cleopatra'". New York Times (February 8).
  • Heyman, Barbara B. 1992. Samuel Barber: The Composer and His Music. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195090581.
  • Károlyi, Ottó. 1996. Modern American Music: From Charles Ives to the Minimalists. London: Cygnus Arts; Madison [N.J.]: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 9780838637258 (cloth); ISBN 9781900541008 (pbk).
  • Lee, Douglas A. 2002. Masterworks of 20th-Century Music: The Modern Repertory Of The Symphony Orchestra. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-93846-5
  • Mostovoy, Marc. 2010. "Iso Briselli, Samuel Barber, and thbe Violin Concerto, op. 14: Facts and Fiction". Iso Briselli website. (Accessed December 6, 2010)
  • Schenck, Andrew. 1988. Booklet notes. Samuel Barber: Symphony No. 2; Music for a Scene from Shelley; Overture to The School for Scandal; First Essay; Adagio for Strings. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Schenck, cond. CD recording. Stradivari Classics SCD 8012. Hackensack, NJ: Special Music Company.
  • Simmons, Walter. 2004. Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0810848848. Paperback reprint edition, Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2006. ISBN 0-8108-5728-6.
  • Smith, Patricia Juliana. 2002. "Barber, Samuel". glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture, edited by Claude J. Summers. Chicago: glbtq, Inc.
  • Staubrand, Jens. 2009. Kierkegaard International Bibliography: Music Works and Plays: Appendix: About The Seducers Diary and the Illness and Death of Søren Kierkegaard, new edition. Copenhagen: Eget Forlag; i kommission hos Forlaget Underskoven. ISBN 978 87 92259 91 2.
  • Valente, Erasmo. 1983. "A Spoleto rinasce Cleopatra". L’unità (June 27).
  • Wade, Graham. 2003. A Concise Guide to Understanding Music. Pacific, MO: Mel Bay Publications. ISBN 9780786649815.
  • Warrack, John Hamilton, and Ewan West. 1992. The Oxford Dictionary of Opera. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-869164-5
  • Wright, Jeffrey Marsh II. 2010. "The Enlisted Composer: Samuel Barber's Career 1942–1945". PhD diss. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Antony and Cleopatra (music)
Knoxville: Summer of 1915
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