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Gustav Mahler once said “if a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music”. Perhaps this is the reason why Barber’s most iconic work, Adagio for Strings, continues to accompany some of the United States of America’s biggest dates in history like President Roosevelt’s funeral, and was used at ceremonies to mark the tragedies of September 11th 2001. Samuel Barber’s music is deeply profound and seems to fill the void in the musical landscape of the 20th century by allowing space for silence to play an important part in his work where his use of harmony seems to transcend the need for written words.
Born in the spring of 1910 in West Chester, Pennsylvania, as a boy Samuel Barber had his whole career planned. From 7 years old he began composing and subsequently dedicated his whole life to his art. He even wrote to his mother, saying “Don’t worry about me. I am destined to become a composer”. His talent and dedication shone through from a young age and he quickly enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music, excelling in piano, studying voice as a baritone, and studying composition with Rosario Scalero. This period of multidisciplinary study proved vital to his compositional development as he began to form his own musical language and style. Particularly inspired by the human voice, Samuel Barber composed for solo voice and vocal ensemble throughout his life. Under the guidance of his Uncle, Sidney Homer, a composer and amateur singer in his own right, Barber wrote Knoxville: Summer of 1915 where the composer’s natural understanding of melody intertwines with his innate ability to express spoken words.
A lover of literature, Samuel Barber was also a great admirer of Proust’s use of introspection, and Thomas Mann’s story telling. For his vocal works, Barber drew upon texts, chosen carefully from his own personal library—poetry by his contemporary James Agee, used in Knoxville: Summer of 1915, and a poem by the British writer Matthew Arnold for his first work for solo baritone.
As he was approaching his 40th year, Samuel Barber grew closer to the composer and stage director (who he himself described as his long-life partner), Gian Carlo Menotti. Their working and personal relationship inspired many works including their most well known output, Vanessa. Written over a number of years, with music by Barber and the libretto written by Menotti, Vanessa went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1958. Samuel Barber would also collaborate with ensembles of international standing such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and artists of the highest caliber such as Leontyne Price and Vladimir Horowitz. However, the composer’s many highs would also be met by many lows, falling into periods of depression, mostly following bad reviews of his works. In 1966 he was commissioned to write his opera Antony and Cleopatra to open the newly built Lincoln Centre in New York, however the premiere was so badly criticized that Barber never managed to recover from it.
A singular figure of American music
North American Music from the early 20th century could be marked by experimentation and innovation—a philosophy that distinguishes Barber’s music from his colleagues. Never looking to provoke and always striving to convince, his music avoids potentially treacherous waters. Samuel Barber’s music was often described by his contemporaries as prudish due to his preference to write predominantly tonal music. Despite this criticism, Barber gained international recognition and, later in his career was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Discover the composer’s most famous works here on medici.tv.
The Adagio for Strings remains the composer’s most iconic work. Firstly written as a movement in his String Quartet Op. 11, at the request of Arturo Toscanini, Samuel Barber rearranged the piece for orchestra. Premiered in 1938, the work demonstrates a sense of melancholy without any pretentiousness, and seems to easily bypass any barriers of musical form on its way to become one of classical music’s most well known pieces.
As for Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Samuel Barber uses a solo voice to portray memories of a summer evening in the American South from a child’s point of view, describing scenes like a train passing in the distance. Here, the composer illustrates perfectly the juxtaposition between the innocence of the child and their understanding of adult life.
His opera Vanessa is, by his own admission, inspired by the great European operatic traditions with a style akin to composers such as Puccini or Richard Strauss. The libretto, written by his personal and professional partner Gian Carlo Menotti, plunges into a world filled with typical American themes—solitude, expectation and the seeming illusion of a second chance. You can discover the work here in our collection of American Opera!
Throughout his life, Samuel Barber strived to follow the ideals and philosophies of the post-romantic tradition. However, throughout the 1940s his style would continue to evolve and adopt elements of modernism, for example he began to experiment with dissonance and chromaticism evident in his Cello Concerto, Piano Sonata and in Prayers of Kierkegaard. This new found style would later go on to inspire modern day composers like John Adams and Jake Heggie, who both strive to use music as a narration tool.
Samuel Barber on medici.tv
The complete works of Samuel Barber were almost entirely recorded throughout the composer’s life. By looking at the various different recordings available on medici.tv, it’s fascinating to compare those captured with the composer in the recording studio (for example, the version conducted by Leonard Bernstein) and more recent versions where conductors take more liberties with their interpretations (that of Gustavo Dudamel with the Vienna Philharmonic in 2019).
On medici.tv you can also discover some of Samuel Barber’s lesser known works, often overshadowed by the success of the Adagio for Strings. This playlist will allow you to discover his Violin Concerto that calls on the virtuosity of Paganini and draws on the lyricism of the Russian repertoire, or even his Excursions for Piano inspired by American pop music. Barber was a master at combining influences from many different genres and integrating them into his writing to form his own unique, expansive style.
In our collection dedicated to American Classical Music, Samuel Barber’s music is grouped with the music of his contemporaries such as Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. From this perspective we can really differentiate Barber’s music from the others, all the while cementing his place as one of the great American composers of the 20th century.
Samuel Barber said “My aim is to write good music that will be comprehensible to as many people as possible, instead of music heard only by small, snobbish musical societies in the large cities”. In his quest of ‘humane’ music, never seeking to confront nor succumb to what was expected of composers in the 20th century, Barber never looked to please. He wrote music for the soul and not to make music easy-on-the-ear. With his works like Adagio for Strings and Vanessa, he solidifies his own musical voice, far from the established schools of the 20th century.