The composer, holding a manuscript of the Essay for Orchestra, 1938.

(The Bettmann Archive)

S A M U E L B A R B E R: H I S T O R I C A L R E C O R D I N G S , 1 9 3 5 - 1 9 6 0
I WAS MEANT TO BE A COMPOSER When he was eight, Samuel Barber wrote a letter declaring his intentions to be a composer: Dear Mother: I have written this to tell you my worrying secret. Now dont cry when you read it because it is neither yours nor my fault. I suppose I will have to tell you 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 Im sure. . . .

Samuel Osmond Barber II was born on 9 March 1910 in West Chester, Pennsylvania. His father, Roy Barber, was a physician, and his mother, Marguerite (Daisy), was an amateur pianist. His younger sister, Sara, of a high spirited and romantic nature, was the close companion of Sams youth, and for her he wrote his earliest songs. From his earliest years Sam Barber expressed his creativity primarily through song. In his words, writing songs just seemed a natural thing to do. He wrote his first opera for his sister when he was tenThe Rose Treewith a libretto by the familys Irish housekeeper and cook, Annie Sullivan Brosius Noble, who had been imported as a young girl from Ireland by Barbers grandmother. Noble had an unlimited repertoire of Irish songs and read lots of Irish poetry and fairy tales to the Barber children. As an adult, Sam Barber never forgot her darkly humorous imagination and romantic language. To his parents credit, once they realized that there was no redirecting the goal of their impassioned son, they did everything they could to encourage his musical education. In 1924, at 14, Barber entered the newly founded Curtis Institute of Music established by Mary Curtis Bok, one of the grand patrons of American music. Every Friday he commuted by train the 30 miles to Philadelphia to study at the institute, where he soon distinguished himself as a pianist, composer, and singerthe first student allowed to take a
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Thus was his destiny affirmed.

triple major. He studied piano with the legendary Isabelle Vengerova, of the Russian School; composition with Rosario Scalero; and voice with Emilio Gogorza. For a period in the late 1930s, Barber, a baritone, seriously considered making a career of singing on the radio. That he was a singer himself was undoubtedly one reason why he could write so empathetically for the voice. The rigorous, traditional education Scalero dispensed in counterpoint, the experience in writing for all genres, and training in all musical forms unquestionably left an indelible mark on Barber. One consistent observation made about his music throughout his career is of its remarkable sense of form and well-crafted design. At Curtis, too, began the profound relationship of Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti, leading to one of the most productive personal and professional collaborations in contemporary musical life. From 1943 until 1973, the two composers shared their lives at Capricorn, their home in Mount Kisco, New York. Menotti wrote the libretto for Barbers first opera, Vanessa (1958), and he worked with Barber on the revision of Antony and Cleopatra, which had been commissioned for the opening of the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in 1966one of the greatest tributes to Barbers career, but which ironically was to become his nemesis. Barbers youthful ambitions were encouraged by his maternal aunt Louise Homer, one of the leading contraltos of the early decades of the twentieth century, and her husband, Sidney Homer, a prolific composer of songs at the turn of the century. Louise Homer sang many of her nephews teen-age efforts on her nationwide tours. Sidney Homer is one of the heroes of Barbers story. The wisdom and optimism that he transmitted to his nephew for more than twenty-five years fostered Sam Barbers mission, supported his inclination to adhere unwaveringly to the Romantic style, and inspired the direction of his intellectual development. Homer preached the value of sinceritylisten to your inner voice, he counseled Barbereven as he held up earlier masters as role models. Barber had an early and meteoric rise to fame. Many of the works he wrote in his twenties and thirties are still in the repertory todaythe Overture to The School for Scandal
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About the recordings: The archival recordings presented in this set provide an overview of Barbers creative output from his earliest published works through mid-career. The listener may also gain an understanding of the evolution of Barbers creative process in that several works are recorded both in their original and revised versions for example, the Symphony in One Movement; Symphony No. 2; the Violin Concerto;
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Although these are Franz Liszts words, they are Samuel Barbers credo. He knew just how far to go without disrupting the continuity with tradition. I do not view Barber as a conservative in the reactionary sense; rather he is a conservator, bringing new vitality to the harmonic language of the late nineteenth century, infusing elements of twentieth-century modernismdissonance and even serialismwithout compromising lyrical expression.

(1931), the Violin Concerto (1939), Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (1948), and of course, one of the great masterpieces of the twentieth century, the famous, ubiquitous Adagio for Stringsan orchestral arrangement of the second movement of the String Quartet, Op. 11 (1936)which was premiered on a nationwide broadcast by Toscanini and the N.B.C. Symphony Orchestra in 1938. A telling inscription appears on the last page of Barbers student sketchbook from the twenties and thirties: There is a degree of innovation beyond which one does not pass without dangerLamartine had the gift of seizing the exact point of permissible innovation.

Barber, 1932

Knoxville: Summer of 1915, originally a work for full orchestra and later for chamber orchestra; Medea, as a 7-movement orchestral suite and its more familiar form as a onemovement tone poem. Many recordings are premiere performances of Barbers works, and others are, if not the first, at least among the earliest performances. The Toscanini broadcast of the Adagio for Strings, undoubtedly still Barbers most famous work, brought the 28-year-old composer national fame. This archival recording of the live broadcast by the newly formed NBC Symphony Orchestra was selected by the Library of Congress for the Registry of National Historical Recordings in 2006. Furthermore, virtually all the recordings provide valuable clues about Barbers preferred performance practices of his music, either because they are conducted by the composer himself, or documented through his comments as quoted in letters and interviews. In some cases, with regard to the live performances included in this series, they more accurately reflect Barbers performance intentions than some of the commercial recordings released later. This would be true of Bruno Walters performance of the revised version of the Symphony in One Movement (CD 3, Tracks 69), which, when released in a commercial recording the following year, did not adhere to the composers preferred tempos because of restrictions of early recording technology (see Barbers comments, below). The H-numbers that accompany the titles of each composition refer to catalogue numbers in my book Samuel Barber: A Thematic Catalogue of the Complete Works (Oxford University Press, forthcoming fall 2011). CD 1 VANESSA, OP. 32 (H-125)

Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New York, Live - 1 February 1958 Vanessa: Eleanor Steber Anatol: Nicolai Gedda Erika: Rosalind Elias
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The Recording: This is the only live recording of the original production of Vanessa, which Barber revised in 1964, reducing the number of acts from four to three. This CD includes the coloratura Skating Aria [Track 12] that Barber wrote for Eleanor Steber, which was removed from the revised version of the opera. A studio recording of the original version and Eleanor Steber, Rosalind Elias cast was made by RCA Victor Gold Seal in February and April 1958. There is also a live recording of the Salzburg Festival production on the Orfeo label, by the same cast with the exception of the Baroness. Libretto: Gian Carlo Menotti (19112007). The plot was inspired by Isaac Dinesens Seven Gothic Tales. Set in an unnamed northern country about 1905, the story unfolds about two women: Vanessa, a lady of great beauty who for twenty years of winter after snowy winter has awaited the return of her only love, Anatoland her beautiful young niece, Erika. Upon this somber gothic dreamscape, in which the chandeliers are dimmed and mirrors draped against the reflection of Vanessas advancing age, the wizened Baroness, Vanessas mother, through her silence condemns her daughters withdrawal from life. Another Anatol, the errant lovers fatally charming son, a bounder and an opportunist, enters the manor. Vanessa, mistaking the young man for his father, passionately inquires if he still loves her; she is devastated when she discovers the visitor is not her lover. Erika entreats the imposter to leave, but he refuses. A month later (act 2), Erika confesses to the Baroness that she had been seduced by
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Baroness: Regina Resnik Doctor: Giorgio Tozzi Nicholas: George Cehanovsky

Anatol on the night of his arrival but has refused his offer of marriage because he cannot promise eternal love. Her grandmother advises, Love never bears the image that we dream of; when it seems to, beware the disguise! Vanessa, radiant, and Anatol return from ice skating and announce to the Old Doctor plans for a New Years Eve ball reminiscent of earlier celebrations. When she realizes that her aunt is blindly in love with the rake, Erika confronts Anatol and bitterly rejects him. At the ball (act 3) Anatol and Vanessa declare their love and the Doctor announces their engagement. Erika, dazed and carrying Anatols child, stumbles into the bitter cold to abort the baby. Unaware of the reason for, and disturbed by, her beloved nieces behavior, Vanessa, nevertheless marries Anatol. As they prepare to leave for Paris, they are joined by Erika, the Baroness, and the Doctor in a quintet, a canon (To leave, to break, to find, to keep). As her aunt had earlier, Erika resigns to withdraw from the world: Now it is my turn to wait, she declares to the silent Baroness as the opera concludes. Menotti incorporated into the libretto references to Barbers past and his personal tastes: thus a recitation of a French menu to open the opera, a skating scene, a waltz, and a Protestant hymn. The endingeach character bids farewell to the house, leaving Erika and the Baroness alone on the stageis similar to that of Chekhovs The Cherry Orchard, one of Barbers favorite plays. The sets were probably inspired by a house Barber visited in Copenhagen in 1950, a manor that reminded him, even then, of the world of Isak Dinesen. He had written about it to Sidney Homer (28 November 1950): * * *

They picked me up that evening and it was like driving through the night and dark woods into the Seven Gothic Tales which I so love. It was a large country manor house, . . . . a strange mixture of beautiful Scandinavian furniture, great chests and high-boys, and dreadful paintings; a large number of huge marble women . . . leading the way to the large salon opening out onto a shivering garden and a dark lake.
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Origin: 195257; revised 196465. As early as 1942, the Metropolitan Opera had offered Barber a commission to write an opera, which he declined because a libretto by Christopher La Farge did not meet his approval. His search for a librettisthaving considered Tennessee Williams, Thornton Wilder, and Dylan Thomaswas interrupted by WW II. In 1952, Menotti offered to write a libretto. He had sketched the first scene by June 1954; they worked on the opera that summer in an old farmhouse in Brooklyn, Maine, on Frenchmans Bay across from Bar Harbor. By the end of that summer, Barber had finished the music for the first scene, but it was not until a year later that Menotti completed the first draft of libretto for the entire opera. Barber began work in earnest on the music during the winter of 1956 at Capricorn and through the spring and summer on Nantucket near the Sconset Lighthouse. By early autumn, working at Capricorn and in Rome at Villa Aurelia, he finished the music for Acts II and III. Late April 1957, music for the whole opera was finished and he began work on the orchestration, completing it 3 November 1957. Subsequently, in 1964, Barber revised the opera, consolidating the four acts to three, merging Acts I and II, and eliminating the coloratura skating aria. He also altered
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Scoring: Vanessa, soprano; Erika, mezzo-soprano; Baroness, contralto; Anatol, tenor; Old Doctor, baritone; Nicholas (Major-Domo), bass; Footman, bass; and others (young pastor, servants, guests, and peasants). Orchestra: Picc; 2 Fl; 2 Ob; Eng. Hn; 2 Cl; Bass Cl; 2 Bsn; 4 Hn; 3 Tpt; 2 Trb; Tba; Timp; Perc; Harp; Strings; Accordion.

It seems no mere coincidence that Vanessas country manor is described similarly in the score: A night in early winter in Vanessas luxurious dressing room. A small table is laid for supper. All the mirrors in the room and one large painting over the mantelpiece are covered over with cloth. There is a large French window at the back which leads into a darkened jardin dhiver.

Originally, Sena Jurinac, a Yugoslavian soprano, was cast as Vanessa, but six weeks before opening night, she canceled (presumably because of illness) and Eleanor Steber stepped into the role. In what was considered a major feat, Steber learned the role of Vanessa in six weeks. Obviously, her familiarity with Barbers music was an asset. But the challenge was nevertheless enormous. The short time she had in which to learn the part, taxed every skill she possessed, and it is understandable, then, that for the dress rehearsal she still had to depend on a score hidden on a mantelpiece. Steber recalled:
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First Performance: 15 January 1958, New York City, Metropolitan Opera. Staged and directed, Gian Carlo Menotti; sets and costumes, Cecil Beaton; cond., Dmitri Mitropoulos; choreographer, Zachary Solov. Cast: Vanessa, Eleanor Steber, sop; 1958: The ensemble for the European premiere of Samuel Barbers Vanessa. Standing Erika, Rosalind Elias, mezzo- (from left): Giorgio Tozzi, Ira Malaniuk, Gian-Carlo Menotti, unknown, Alois Pernerstorfer, Nicolai Gedda and Rudolf Bing. Seated (from left): Dimitri Mitropoulos, sop; Anatol, Nicolai Gedda, Rosalind Elias, Eleanor Steber, and Samuel Barber. tenor; Baroness, Regina Resnik, contralto; Doctor, Giorgio Tozzi, baritone; Nicholas, the Major-Domo, George Cehanovsky, bass; Footman, Robert Nagy, bass. Salzburg Festival: 16 August 1958, Salzburg, Austria. Vanessa was the first American opera and first opera sung in English at the festival; also it was the first opera performed by an outside organization. Cast: as above except for the Baroness, Ira Malaniuk.

Erikas lines His child! It must not be born to suggest that she was attempting suicide rather than abortion.

The Music: The libretto provided Barber every opportunity to compose forms conventional to grand operaa glimpsed ball scene with a waltz, a folk-dance ballet, a coloratura skating aria. That Barber learned well from Mozart is demonstrated by the simultaneous musical representation of different threads of action supporting the psychological undercurrents of the drama. For example, a Protestant hymn sung from an offstage
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Steber felt a strong empathy with Vanessa. The part was made for me, she recalled many years later, it was both a singers part and an actresss part. But more importantly, far from believing the character Vanessa was eclipsed by the young Erika, Steber felt she could give the title role significance by making it her own; and indeed, eventually she was to become thoroughly identified with the opera. As rehearsals were underway Rosalind Elias, who played Erika, bemoaned to Barber that she was the only character without a major ariaand so he immediately composed for her Must the winter come so soon, one of the most moving arias in twentieth-century opera, one that might stand on its own as an art song. Cecil Beaton wanted his lavish costumes and sets to project an aura of moody eleganceEdwardian Gothic. Vanessa had six changes of costume. She wore diamond jewelrya $1,500,000 collection borrowed from the prominent jeweler Harry Winston. The sets called for more bric-a-brac and greenery than had graced the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House for years. The opening night, 23 January 1956, saw a sold-out non-subscription audience, including many celebritiesArtur Rubinstein, Fritz Reiner, Lucrezia Bori, Katherine Cornell. Vanessa received spectacular reviews. It was hailed as one of the most impressive operas . . . to appear anywhere since Richard Strausss more vigorous days.

You have no idea what Gian Carlo had me doing. He had me singing in incredible positions. I nearly fainted when I went off the stage after the first act. It was very difficult. I was lying on my back, the range was difficult, it was heavily orchestrated and took a lot of riding over the orchestra to be heard. The skating scene had a coloratura aria that was enormously difficult.

Critical Reception: Vanessa received spectacular reviews. The sold-out house to a nonsubscription audience that included many celebrities was reported to have thundered its approbation as the final curtain fell, and Barber, brought to the stage, was greeted with deafening delirium. That Steber had risen to the challenge of so difficult a role on such short notice was appreciated, and if some critics found her performance uneven or her diction lacking in clarity at times, it was recognized, nevertheless, that she was ideally cast and would grow into the role once she became more familiar with it. Elias received brilliant notices, her portrayal of Erika was considered not only a vocal, but a dramatic triumph. Giorgio Tozzi stopped the show in act 1 with his remarkable characterization of the bibulous old family doctor. The finales quintet (To leave, to break, to find, to keep), was called by Irving Kolodin, the best realized episode I know in native opera lore, and moved William Schuman to write to Barber: I was struck again with its extraordinary beauty. Those last pages, especially, are among the finest of operatic literature. A telling observation about the stylistic tendencies of opera at mid-century was made by a British critic (Henry Brandon): Artists need daring in our time to express the courage of their romanticism, especially in America. Vanessa is romantic opera in the best old traditions, not an adventure into the unknown but a fresh expression of already established taste. For Vanessa, Barber was awarded the 1958 Pulitzer Prize and the Henry Hadley
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chapel is pitted against the orchestral background to Erikas brooding over Anatol; at the ball, dance music is strikingly juxtaposed against music expressive of Vanessas anguish. The quintet in the third act was critically viewed as one of the most brilliant climaxes of the operatic literature. In Vanessa Barbers musical footprints are strongly apparent: shifting modality, metric flexibility that flows out of the logical rhythm of the text, a facile use of harmonic color to underscore the bittersweet poetry, and an abundance of diatonic, accessible melody. Rich orchestral sonority and lucid counterpoint are striking in the orchestral interludes; there are generous solos for Barbers signature instrumentsthe oboe and English hornand throughout surges of grand sweeping lyrical gesture.

Medal of the National Association for American Composers and Conductors, and he was nominated to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the select inner circle of the National Institute of Arts and Letters of which he had been a member for eighteen years. CD 2, Tracks 1318 MEDEA, OP. 23 Orchestral Suite from the ballet (1947) (H-113arr) Samuel Barber conducting the New Symphony Orchestra of London From Decca LX-3049 Recorded 12 December 1950, Kingsway Hall, London 13. I. Parodos 2:26 14. II. Choros: Medea and Jason; III. The Young Princess, Jason 7:03 15. IV. Choros 3:06 16. V. Medea 6:08 17. VI. Kantikos Agonias 2:36 18. VII. Exodos 2:51

The evolution of Medea, from ballet to tone poem: In 1945, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, Columbia University, commissioned Barber to write music for a ballet on Medea for Martha Graham, a frequent visitor at Capricorn. Barber began composing the work the end of November 1945, shortly before he was discharged from the army. The end of November, he wrote to his friend Henry-Louis de La Grange: Now I must do a ballet score for Martha Graham for small orchestra of twelve instruments. She is our greatest dancer but it must be ready by February, alas!
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Track 19 MEDEAS MEDITATION AND DANCE OF VENGEANCE, OP. 23 (H-123) Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting the New York Philharmonic Live - 16 March 1958, Carnegie Hall 12:53

In December he complained to Homer: Art takes so long, one never allows enough time. But the cello concerto was finished three weeks ago and I am on the ballet for Graham now. Mid-January 1946, still sunk in the music, Barber wrote to Anne Brown, I must force myself to remain in a deep Medea-gloom for the Martha Graham score. The score was completed in February 1946. The ballet was originally titled Pain and Wrath are the Singers. The characters, listed in a program printed for the first performance, were the Barbarian, a Hero, a Kings Daughter, and the Choragos. A note explained:

At the last minute Graham changed the title to Serpent Heart and renamed the characters as follows: One like Medea; One like Jason; Daughter of the King; and the Chorus. The new program more explicitly connected the psychological plot to the Medea legend: This is a dance of possessive and destroying love, a love which feeds
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This dance is a retelling of the Martha Graham in 1947 Cave of the Heart. myth of the jealous act. Within the cave of the heart is a place of darkness, plunging far into the earth of the past. The cave is peopled with shadows of acts of violence, terror, and magic. Try as we might to escape this monstrous heritage, we are caught up into its surge, and the past is alive.

In 1947 the score and choreography were revised and renamed Cave of the Heart. That same year Barber drew music from the original ballet score, merging the original nine sections into a seven-movement orchestral suite with a greatly expanded orchestra. The length was reduced by nine minutes. About this version, Ballet Suite Medea, (H-113arr), he wrote to Sidney Homer (10 February 1947): Were covered with two feet of snow, but I feel as light as a feather for I finished a full orchestral suite of the music for Grahams ballet of last year. It makes a very nice 23 min. suite, but had to be all re-arranged from the original chamber orchestra version. I think it will be better this way: the music was too dramatic for small orchestra. That is why I havent writtenit was sort of an ide fixe to get it finished.

upon itself, like the serpent heart, and when it is overthrown, is fulfilled only in revenge. It is a chronicle much like the myth of Jason, the warrior hero, and Medea, granddaughter of the Sun. The one like Medea destroys that which she has been unable to possess and brings upon herself and her beloved the inhuman wrath of one who has been betrayed.

Eight years later, he reworked the score as the one-movement tone poem Medeas Meditation and Dance of Vengeance, Op. 23a (H-123), which was

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Dimitri Mitropoulos

completed in Rome in August l955. For this version, Barber rescored the earlier suite into one continuous movement, basing nearly all of the new version on material related to the central character: I. Parodos, IV. Choros, and V. Medea. He reduced the length to fourteen minutes (nine minutes shorter than the suite) and considerably expanded the orchestra, adding a third flute, clarinets in E-flat and A, bass clarinet, a third trumpet, a third trombone, tuba, and extra percussion ( triangle tam-tam and whip). First Performances: Ballet: Serpent Heart: 10 May 1946, Second Annual Festival of Contemporary Music, McMillan Theater, Columbia University New York City. Martha Graham Dance Company. Cast: One like Medea, Martha Graham; One like Jason, Erick Hawkins; The Princess, Yuriko [Kimura]; The Chorus, May ODonnell.

Ballet (revised): Cave of the Heart: 27 February 1947, Ziegfeld Theater, New York City, Martha Graham Dance Company. Cast: Sorceress, Martha Graham; Adventurer, Erick Hawkins; Victim, Yuriko [Kimura]; The Chorus, May ODonnell. Orchestral Suite [H-113arr] Medea: 5 December 1947, Academy of Music, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Orchestra, cond. Eugene Ormandy. Tone poem, Medeas Meditation and Dance of Vengeance [H-123]: 2 February 1956, New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, cond. Dimitri Mitropoulos.

CD2, Tracks 1318 MEDEA, OP. 23 (H-113arr) Orchestral Suite from the ballet I. Parodos II. Choros. Medea and Jason III. The Young Princess. Jason IV. Choros
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V. Medea VI. Kantikos Agonias VII. Exodos Samuel Barber conducting the New Symphony Orchestra of London From Decca LX-3049 Recorded 12 December 1950, Kingsway Hall, London

The Recording: In 1950, Barber conducted a group of his worksthe Orchestral Suite Medea, Second Symphony, and the Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestrafor Decca. See below, The Decca Recordings. Scoring: (1947): 2 Fl; Picc; 3 Ob; Eng Hn; 2 Cl (B-flat); 2 Bsn; 4 Hn; 2 Tpt; 2 Trb; Timp, Harp; Percussion: Cym, Side Dr (without snares), Tom-Tom (Indian drum), Bass Dr, Xyl; Pf; Strings.

The Music: Barbers description appears in the preface for the G. Schirmer 1949 edition: The suite follows roughly the form of a Greek tragedy. In Parodos, the characters first appear. The Choros, lyric and reflective, comments on the action which is to unfold. The Young Princess appears in a dance of freshness and innocence, followed by a heroic dance of Jason. Another plaintive Choros leads to Medeas dance of obsessive and diabolical vengeance. The Kantikos Agonias, an interlude of menace and foreboding, follows. Medeas terrible crime, the murder of the princess and her own children, has been committed, announced at the beginning of the Exodus by a violent fanfare of trumpets. In this final section the various themes of the chief characters of the work are blended together; little by little the music subsides and Medea and Jason recede into the legendary past. Reception: Robert Horans review of the ballet could apply to the orchestral score as well: Barbers score is brilliant, bitter and full of amazing energy. The alternation of
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Critics were of two minds, representing the extreme viewpoints of Barbers audiences. Those of conservative tastes, who had always been drawn to Barbers music, found the work disappointing, heavily orchestrated, stiff in rhythm. One Philadelphia critic claimed it could have been culled from a study of Stravinskys Rites of Spring [sic] and the latest Shostakovich because Barber had forsaken his earlier melodic and poetic style. In contrast, Linton Martin embraced the work as bringing Barber new musical stature and distinction, claiming that Medea should be added to the limited list of works that survive the tonal test as concert worksfor example Daphnis and Chloe, Firebird, and Petrouchka. Virgil Thomson viewed a Samuel Barber freed at last from the well-bred attitudinizing and mincing respectabilities of his concert manner:

parts, like the swing of a pendulum, between relaxed lyrical flow and tense angularity, make a wonderful scaffolding for the tragedy. (The Recent Theater of Martha Graham, Dance Index 6, 1947)

Barber himself viewed the Philadelphia premiere performance as superb. He wrote to Sidney Homer:

Once more the theater has made a man out of an American composer who had passed his early years as a genteel music essayist. The public at large will, from now on, be aware of his real power. Its style, which is broadly eclectic modernism not at all clumsily amalgamated, is in its favor. So is its expressivity, which is intense all through. So, also, is its instrumentation, which is varied and piquant, with plenty of brutality added and not inappropriately.It brings its author suspiciously close to the clear status of a master.

It is infinitely better, of course, with a subject of such scope, in full orchestra. Medeas big dance was wildly exciting . . . . About 200 Friday afternoon old ladies walked out on it (one by one, shaking their umbrellas and grumbling) to
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The suite was one of the pieces Barber chose to conduct himself in Germany in 1951. CD 2, Track 19 MEDEAS MEDITATION AND DANCE OF VENGEANCE, Op. 23a (1955) (Medeas Dance of Vengeance) Orchestral tone poem Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting the New York Philharmonic Live - 16 March 1958, Carnegie Hall 12:53

Mothers intense annoyance! It really isnt that violent. But Saturday nights audience got it and there was cheering, and I had to come out 3 or 4 times.

Scoring: 2 Fl; Picc; 2 Ob; Eng Hn; Cl (E-flat); 2 Cl (B-flat and A); Bass Cl; 2 Bsn; Contra Bsn; 4 Hn (F); 3 Tpt (C); 3 Trb; Tba; Timp; Perc: Xyl, Snare Dr, Bass Dr, Trgl, Cym, Tam-tam; Harp; Pf; Strings The Music: As an orchestral piece, Medeas Meditation and Dance of Vengeance is more cohesive then its earlier counterpart: in reducing the seven movements to one, the most defined lyrical material from the suite is reworked into a logically developed structure. Especially striking is the reorchestrated opening material from Parodos, which in its transformation has acquired a mysterious aurathe opening figure on the xylophone and two flutes appear to bump and separate like a pair of slow motion dancers. In general, in Medeas Meditation and Dance of Vengeance climaxes are more intense, more intricately and dramatically prepared. In the new version, more than the two earlier ones, expressive tempo indications mirror the psychological states of the central characters meditations: mysterious, moving ahead, anguished, sombre, with dignity, biting, with mounting frenzy. In this sense, the more independent of the ballet the music becomesthat is, the corporal representation of
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Origin: Completed in Rome, August 1955. Dedicated to Martha Graham.

emotion is removedthe more Barber was compelled to explicitly designate psychologically oriented expression markings in the score. The preface to the G. Schirmer 1956 score presents the following scenario:

A quotation from Euripides Medea is an epitaph to the score and the emotional key to the music: Look, my soft eyes have suddenly filled with tears: O children, how ready to cry I am, how full of foreboding! Jason wrongs me, though I have never injured him. He has taken a wife to his house, supplanting me. . . Now I am in the full force of the storm of hate. I will make dead bodies of three of my enemies Father, the girl and my husband! Come, Medea, whose father was noble, Whose grandfather God of the sun, Go forward to the dreadful act!

Tracing her emotions from, her tender feelings toward her children through her mounting suspicions and anguish at her husbands betrayal and her decision to avenge herself, the piece increases in intensity to close in the frenzied Dance of Vengeance of Medea, the Sorceress descended from the Sun God.

Reception: After the New York premiere, the New York Philharmonic played the work on nine programs in South America in 1958 and the following year played it in Greece, Russia, Germany, and Belgium. The emotional impact of the music, where brashness dissolves into lush harmonies, the obsessive ostinato rhythmic underpinning of the piano in Medeas dance (reminiscent of the propulsive rhythms of Le Sacre du printemps), and the drive to the climax consistently elicit ovations from audiences. The revision, more focused and strident in tone, suggests that Barber may have been eager to break away from
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his image as lyricist with appeal only for conservative audiences. The distance traveled between this Medea and Barbers earlier works represents a major stylistic leap. CD 3, Track 1 OVERTURE TO THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL, OP. 5 (H-64) Werner Janssen conducting the Janssen Symphony Orchestra of Los Angeles From Victor 11-8591, Recorded 11 March 1942 8:13

Werner Jannsen & Ann Harding Origin: The work was probably begun during the summer of 1931, Barbers third summer with Menotti in Cadegliano, Italy. Every two weeks they traveled by car to Montestrutto for their lessons with Scalero. Barber does not specifically mention the work in his letters to his family and in fact is rather dismissive: Weve surely been lazynothing but swimming and tennis all day long. . . I am getting so fond of it I dont want to work at all. (3 July 1931) Presumably it was the Overture that he referred to in his casual reports: Our lessons went well and my idea for a new piece for orchestra got by. (6 July 1931) Nearly two weeks later he wrote:

Scoring: Picc, 2 Fl, 2 Ob, Eng Hn, 2 Cl, Bass Cl, 2 Bsn, 4 Hn, 3 Tpt, 3 Trb, Tba, Timp, Trgl, Bass Dr, Cym, Bells, Celesta, Harp, Strings

My new piece for orchestra goes well, but it is an effort to work on it! The day
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According to the dated manuscript and programs for the early performances, he finished the overture in April of 1932.

seems too fast without any music. Generally we work from one until 5 in the afternoon, playing tennis in the morning when there are no shadows on the court.

The Music: Barber was a voracious reader, and within two years at the Curtis Institute of Music, he had taken a total of ninety-two hours of courses in English literature, on the English novel, and French literature. His personal reading list suggests that his education did not stop with formal courses; on the last page of his student sketchbook are lists of books to buy, and the titles and catalogue numbers suggest that he intended to read the entire Modern Library collection: books by Dickens, Carlyle, Marlowe, Sterne, Smollet, Swift, Turgenev, Chesterton, Mansfield, Pope, Edmund Wilson, Burton, Chekhov, Montaigne, Virginia Woolfe, Yeats, and Whistler are interspersed with titles of books about music. That literature was a strong source of musical inspiration for Barber, even in purely instrumental compositions, is obvious from the titles of two of his earliest orchestral worksthe Overture to The School for Scandal and Music for a Scene from Shelley. Although the title of the overture refers to the 18th-century drawing room comedy of manners by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the composer avowed it was not intended as a prelude to the play but as a musical reflections of the plays spirit. The spirit of merriment and wily intrigue is distinctively established from the outset by seven electrifying polychordal measuresa D-major triad in the strings against an Eb-minor triad in the trumpets over the bright color of the triangle. The mood is sustained by vivacious rhythms and orchestral color, the brilliance of which results from as large a score as Barber was to use in some of his later pieces for orchestra. While there are frequent sudden shifts in
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First Performance: 30 August 1933, Robin Hood Dell, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Orchestra, cond. Alexander Smallens. The Overture was also played at the New York Worlds Fair Concert by the New York Philharmonic, under Walter Damrosch, on 7 May 1939.

dynamics and tempo, the motion presses with sureness to the climax. Characteristic of Barbers style is the engaging, pastoral second theme played by a solo oboe, which bears an English folk-song flavor, reinforcing the contrast between Barbers perspective and that of some of his contemporaries, who sought at this time to incorporate American folk song idioms into their music. Critical Reception: Apparently Barber wrote to Homer of his irritation over Fritz Reiners unwillingness to perform the overture and of his disappointment in having to miss the premiere of his first major orchestral work since he had to leave early for Italy. Homer counseled patience and trust: You will have to give up speculating as to why men like R act as they do. You will never know why, so you might as well ignore it and forget it. Things have a way of righting themselves if (a big if!) we do the work. . . . Beethoven and Brahms planned their works years ahead. They heard few performances and this affected them just not at all. (letter to Barber, 22 April 1933)

The Overture to The School for Scandal was enthusiastically received: of the premiere the music critic Linton Martin (Philadelphia Inquirer, 31 August 1933) wrote that it was robustly scored. . .marked by a certain melodic facility and a sure sense of design, neither purely freakish in effect in the modern manner, nor complacently old-fashioned. The Overture continues to have frequent performances not only because of its popular appeal, but because conductors covet good curtain raisers as well. For this work, Barber won a second Joseph H. Bearns Prize from Columbia University (the first was for an earlier Violin Sonata (H-57), which was fortuitous since the Barber family suffered financial losses in the crash of 1929 and Barber was considering leaving school the end of the spring semester in 1933. The $1,200 for musical composition in the large forms allowed him to spend another summer studying with Scalero in Italy and to extend his stay through the winter of 1934.
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About the Recording: Janssen Symphony Orchestra of Los Angeles, cond. Werner Janssen, from Victor 11-8591 (recorded on 11 March 1942). Barber took issue with the tempos in Werner Janssens recording; his comments in a letter to Sidney Homer (10 February 1947) give clues as to how he wanted the work performed: Janssens performance of S. for S. is wrong because the end of each rhythmic section should go faster (stretto) and he takes a sempre pi mosso just before the end slowerinexplicably. It spoils the drive. Also the performance is not as light or elegant as some Ive heard.

CD 3 Tracks 25; 69 SYMPHONY IN ONE MOVEMENT, OP. 9 (H-84) Artur Rodzinski conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra Live - Studio 8H, 2 April 1938 2. I. Allegro ma non troppo 7:23 3. II. Allegro molto 3:23 4. III. Andante tranquillo 5:16 5. IV. Con moto 4:12

Scoring: 2 Fl; Picc; 2 Ob; Eng Hn; 2 Cl; Bass Cl; 2 Bsn; Contra-Bsn; 4 Hn; 3 Tpt; 3 Trb; Tba; Timp, Cym, Bass Dr; Strings

Origin: The symphony was begun during the summer of 1935 in Camden, Maine, according to a letter Barber wrote to his classmate Jeanne Behrend in August 1935: We are working hard. . . .and I am well ahead with an orchestra piece of ambitious tendencies. . . . The colony is not exciting, but we do not see much of them or anybody.
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Barber intended to continue work on the symphony in the fall of 1935 at the American Academy in Rome, and although the period was unusually prolific for composing songsby early January he had composed seven new songs, six of which were written within four weeks little progress was made on the symphony. He derived much pleasure working in a studio apart from the academy, a little yellow house approached from the garden by a winding staira renovation of the stables of the old Villa Aureliayet he was bombarded with aesthetic stimuli that distracted him: he took lessons in Dante, strolled the gardens by moonlight, and was dazzled by the beauty of Rome, in particular the Sistine Chapel, where he was allowed to view Michelangelos frescoes from a temporary scaffolding: To be able to touch with your hand all the outlines. . .to see the guidelines which he made to keep the giant perspective. And then most wonderful of all, to lie on your back for three hours in the plaster and dust and stare up at the magnificent conception. . . . It was as if someone discovered some beautiful new work of Beethoven, after knowing every note of his for a lifetime, and seeing all of a sudden some of his most intimate secrets. . . .

Artur Rodzinski, 1937

24

The symphony was completed on 24 February 1936 during a two-week stay at the Anabel Taylor Foundation in the French Alpine village of Roquebrune.

First performances in U.S. 21 January 1937, Severance Hall; Cleveland Orchestra, cond. Rudolf Ringwall (substitute for Artur Rodzinski). 24 March 1937, New York, New York Philharmonic, cond. Artur Rodzinski. Barber recalled: Right after the first rehearsal, the tuba player of the orchestra came up to me and congratulated me. Maestro, he said, . . . Ive been waiting for a tuba part like that for fifteen years! (interview with James Fassett, CBS, 19 June 1949) Subsequent performances in Europe: 24 June 1937, London, London Symphony Orchestra, cond. Artur Rodzinski. 25 July 1937, Salzburg Festival, Vienna Philharmonic, cond. Artur Rodzinski. This event was a landmark in that it was the first time in the history of the festival that a symphonic work by an American composer was performed.

First Performances: 13 December 1936, Adriano Theatre, Rome. Philharmonic Augusteo Orchestra, cond. Bernardino Molinari.

Revised version: Completed January 1943. Dedication: To Gian Carlo Menotti.

The Music: The symphony is, in Barbers words, quoted in program notes for its New York premiere: a synthetic treatment of the four-movement classical symphony. An expositionwith a main theme, a second more lyrical theme, and a closing themeis followed by a brief development. Instead of a recapitulation, the first theme in diminution is the basis of a scherzo section; the second theme (oboe over muted strings) appears in augmentation as an extended Andante tranquillo; the finale is a passacaglia based on the first theme, into which is woven the other themes, serving as a recapitulation for the entire symphony. In that the entire symphony is generated from themes present at the outset, the
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symphony shares a similarity with Sibeliuss one-movement Symphony No. 7, which was in fact the model for Barbers work as documented by an outline in his student sketchbook. CD 3, Tracks 69 Symphony in One Movement, Op. 9 (Revised Version) (H-84) Bruno Walter conducting the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra Live - 12 March 1944, Carnegie Hall I. Allegro ma non troppo 6:40 II. Allegro molto 4:29 III. Andante tranquillo 4:28 IV. Con moto 3:50

First performances of 1943 revision: 18 February 1944, Academy of Music, Philadelphia; Philadelphia Orchestra, cond. Bruno Walter. About this performance, Barber wrote: I had a wonderful week with Bruno Walter and the Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the best performances Ive ever had. The symphony sounds so much better in its revision. Walter conducted superbly (by memory, every note) and the men came to life as never under Ormandy. . . .[Walter] said: an astonishing work, no one is composing today who handles form that
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Origin: In 1942 Barber began revisions on the symphony, honing the structure into a more focused unity. Minor changes mostly involved condensing and tightening the Allegro and Andante, and the Passacaglia. The scherzo was replaced with an entirely new one in a quasi-fugal stylebuilt on a diminution of a figure of the chief subject of the first movement. Olin Downes, who heard both versions, regarded the new scherzo, filled with sardonic humor and imaginatively orchestrated, as providing a more vivid contrast to the rest of the symphony than the original one.

6. 7. 8. 9.

Critical Reception: After conducting the U.S premiere of the symphony, Rodzinski viewed the twenty-seven-year-old composer as a leading musical hope. Indeed, Barbers musical godfather, as the conductor was called, became a zealous missionary during the symphonys first season in bringing it to audiences around the world. Music critic Francis D. Perkins, of the Herald Tribune, declared that the symphony displayed: clearly defined musical ideas of considerable cogency in an instrumental garb wrought with unusual mastery. . . .and an exceptionally well-developed knowledge of the orchestral palette. . .with a definite idea of what he wants. . .and how to attain it.

Two weeks later, on 9 March 1944, Walter conducted the New York PhilharmonicSymphony Orchestra in a performance at Carnegie Hall.

way. Kept saying, Kolassal.

When, in December 1938, it was finally given performances in Philadelphia by the Philadelphia Orchestra, under Ormandy, music critic Henry Pleasants enthusiastically wrote, It is hard to believe that a composition so much discussed has not been played at least once by every orchestra in the land. Walters performance of the revised symphony in New York received equally splendid reviews. But especially interesting was the canniness with which he programmed Barbers work with Schumanns Fourth Symphony. Both works, though written a century apart, are in cyclical form; in both the four divisions are played without pause; both begin with an allegro, followed by a lengthy development without any recapitulation; and in both works there is a dramatic crescendo that leads from the third division to the finale. The juxtaposition was not overlooked by New York Times critic Noel Straus:
27

That Mr. Barbers revised symphony was able to hold its ground and not appear

Subsequently, after the Carnegie Hall performance, Walter made a commercial recording of the symphony which was released by Columbia Records in 1945 and reissued on CD by Sony Classical (SMK 64466) in 1995. Because the recording was made at a time when tempos were dictated by the economics of available space on 78-rpm discs, there are, according to Barbers report, distortions of tempos: Walter loses breadth in the slow part of my symphony to squeeze it on four sides. But he does the beginning and scherzo very well. The recording is a landmark, however, because it is one of the few works by an American composer Walter ever chose to record. The live performance included in this set, however, more accurately reflects Barbers performance intentions. CD 3 Track 10 ADAGIO FOR STRINGS, OP. 11 (H-91) Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra Live - Studio 8H, 5 November 1938

anticlimactic after the Schumann masterpiece spoke worlds in its favor. If it lacked the melodic invention, simplicity and freshness of that opus, it nevertheless was so skilled in its craftsmanship, so knowingly orchestrated and filled with character that it scored heavily with its hearers, even if it was forced to bear comparison with the Schumann creation.

Origin: This arrangement of the second movement of Barbers String Quartet in G minor, Op. 11 (H-88), was begun early in 1938 for Toscanini and completed before
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Scoring: 2 Vln, Vla, 2 Vlc, Cb.

About this recording: This broadcast, which brought Barber nationwide attention, was selected for the Registry of National Historical Recordings in 2006.

summer that same year. It is unquestionably Barbers most famous piece. In August 1933, Barber and Menotti had visited Toscaninis villa on Isola di San Giovanni, Italy, after which the conductor told Barber he was interested in performing one of his works. Advice from Sidney Homer was conveyed in a letter, 15 January 1934:

More than three years would pass before Barber produced a work that he felt was worthy of for the legendary conductors attention. In 1937, after Toscanini heard Rodzinski conduct Barbers Symphony in One Movement at the Salzburg Festival, he was thinking about including a work by an American composer on his winter program for the newly formed NBC Symphony Orchestra created especially for him, and he showed renewed interest in seeing a new short piece by Barber. In the spring of 1938, Barber sent Toscanini two scoresthe Adagio for Strings, the arrangement of the second movement of his earlier string quartet to which he had added a bass part, and the Essay for Orchestra. Shortly before he departed for Italy, the conductor returned the scores to Barber without comment. Unaware that Toscanini had committed them to memory, Barber was annoyed and decided not to visit the conductor that summer,
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The thing now is to write something for Toscanini that expresses the depth and sincerity of your nature. . . . You know as well as I do that the Maestro loves sincere straight-forward stuff, with genuine feeling in it and no artificial pretense and padding.

Arturo Toscanini, 1938

sending Menotti on without him. The meeting was reported by Barber many years later:

The Music: The Adagio for Strings has withstood the test of time and earned permanent stature. Its place in the international repertoire is unchallenged. There are some who may never have heard or recall the name of the composer of the Adagio yet who recognize the music even without knowing its title. On a BBC retrospective broadcast, 23 January 1982, the anniversary of Barbers death, the musicologist Peter Dickinson asked a group of prominent American composers why they thought the Adagio was such a perfect piece of music. They focused, not on technique, but on the emotional response it elicited from listeners. Aaron Copland: Hes not just making it up because he thinks that would sound well. It comes straight from the heart. . . . The sense of continuity, the steadiness of the flow, the satisfaction of the arch . . . from beginning to end. . . . gratifying, satisfying, and it makes you believe in the sincerity which he obviously put into it. William Schuman: You are not aware of any technique at all. . . . It seems quite effortless and natural. . . . It works because it is so precise emotionally. The emotional climate is never left in doubt. It begins, it reaches its climax, it makes its point, and it
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First Performance: 5 November 1938, NBC radio broadcast, Rockefeller Center, New York City; NBC Symphony Orchestra, cond. Arturo Toscanini.

Toscanini said to Menotti, Wheres your friend Barber? Well, hes not feeling very well, said Gian Carlo. . .Toscanini said, I dont believe that. Hes mad at me. Tell him not to be mad. Im not going to play one of his pieces, Im going to play both. (interview by Robert Sherman, WQXR, 30 September 1978)

Kenneth Nott has provided an insightful discussion of the influence of Barbers study of 17th-century music on the Adagio for Strings, in particular Purcells Fantasias.

Virgil Thomson: I think its a love scene . . . a detailed love scene . . . a smooth successful love scene. Not a dramatic one, but a very satisfactory one.

goes away. . . . Im always moved by it.

Critical Reception: Toscaninis selection of Barbers music as representative of American works sparked an intense debate, which took place in a series of letters in the New York Times. The torch was lit by Ashley Pettis: One listened in vain for evidence of youthful vigor, freshness or fire, for use of a contemporary idiom. . . . Mr. Barbers was authentic, dull, serious musicutterly anachronistic as the utterance of a young man of 28, A.D. 1938!

Responses came from advocates of Barbers music, among whom were several composers: Menotti (18 November 1938): Must there be in art one modern idiom? . . . If Mr. Barber dares to defy the servile imitation of that style (which has been called American music) and experiments successfully with melodic line and new form, is he not to be praised for his courage? For years there has been a cultural storm gathering in our land. The old and the
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Roy Harris (27 November 1938):

Sidney Homer put the controversy into perspective for his nephew (letter to SB, 31 January 1939):

new are digging up the time-worn battleaxe again. The old was ever venerablethe new ever vulnerable. . . . And Time, who is no respecter of persons, will call his own court of appraisal to order and render final judgment on what is offered. No amount of wish-thinking on the part of either party will alter the real stature of what we do.

[Y]ou can only listen to the inner voice that is working with you. Stick by yourself and your convictions. . . . That is what every man has had to do who has written anything worthwhile. . . . Opinions are like the wind and blow from all quarters, and even when sincere, can arise from inability to understand.

CD 3, Track 11 ESSAY (No. 1) FOR ORCHESTRA, OP. 12 (H-92) Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra Live - Studio 8H, 5 November 1938

Origin: The work was probably completed spring 1938. Dedication: To C.E. [Carl Engel, head of G. Schirmer, Inc.] A letter to Orlando Cole, January 1938, refers to an orchestra piece Barber was rushing to finish. This was one of two compositions Barber gave to Toscanini the spring of 1938, the other being the Adagio for Strings.

Scoring: 2 Fl; 2 Ob; 2 Cl; 2 Bsn; 4 Hns; 3 Tpt; 3 Trb; Tba; Timp; Pf; Strings

First Performance: 5 November 1938, N.B.C. broadcast; N.B.C. Symphony Orchestra, cond. Arturo Toscanini. At the last rehearsal, on the day of the performance, Toscanini decided that the ending
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The Music: Barbers inspiration from literature had, of course, found voice earlier in the Overture to The School for Scandal and Music for a Scene from Shelley, but unlike these works, in Essay he places little emphasis on orchestral sensuousness. He had earlier explored this literary form as a musical genre as a student in 1926 with Three Essays for Piano. The First Essayas it came to be called after Barber wrote a second one in 1942 is similar but not exactly equivalent to the first movement of a symphony. As its title implies, the substance of the work derives from a single subject, but in this case the discourse unfolds in two contrasting sections: the first, a somber postulation of the principal theme; the second, a scherzo based on a rhythmic diminution of the principal theme and in which the first theme surfaces again to ultimately provide material for a brief coda. This seems to realize to some extent a design Barber described to Menotti: a two-part form, the first section containing two themes (in this case, the second derived from the first), each stated and developed, and a second section in which the two themes are combined. (interview, 11 March 1990)
Barber in 1944, with score of Second Symphony 33

would be improved by the addition of a trumpet to reinforce the strings. His frantic attempts to reach Barber by telephone to secure his permission to make the change were unsuccessful. So confident was he of the validity of his alteration that at the performance, the septuagenarian conductor incorporated the trumpet part anyway, afterward apologizing to Barber for taking liberties with his score. Toscaninis change was not retained in GS 1941, however.

Critical Reception: On 16 December 1938, Barber sent Jean Sibelius copies of Toscaninis recordings of Essay and the Adagio for Strings, writing, Your music means so much to us who are trying once more to compose after the years of post-war experimentation into which we were bornyour example as an artist is so beautiful and encouraging. Sibelius, reportedly responded enthusiastically to Barbers music. The literary analogy of the title sparked one music critic to observe that Essay has a brevity and conciseness, an almost epigrammatic neatness, that might have been derived from Addison and Steele. Barber himself, when asked by Walter Damrosch to recommend a work for performance at the Worlds Fair, replied that The Essay for orchestra seems to me too intimate and tenuous for a program of such character and does not stand alone very well. CD 3, Track 12 SECOND ESSAY, OP. 17 (H-101) 11:08 Orchestral work in one movement Bruno Walter conducting the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra Live - 16 April 1942, Carnegie Hall

Scoring: Picc; 2 Fl; 2 Ob; Eng Hn; 2 Cl, Bass Cl; 2 Bsn; 4 Hn; 3 Tpt; 3 Trb; Tba; Timp, Cym, Side Dr, Bass Dr, Tam-tam; Strings

Origin: A letter to Katherine Garrison Chapin (22 March 1942) gives the date of completion as 15 March 1942. Dedication: To Robert Horan It appears likelygiven that fragments of the work appear in Barbers student sketchbookthat thematic ideas were conceived at least three years, if not more, earlier. In August 1940 Barber was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky for a new piece by October. The advent of World War II delayed its completion for two years; Barber would later say about the Second Essay, Although it has no program, one perhaps hears that it was written in war-time.
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The Music: Like the First Essay, but broader in scope and for a larger orchestra, the work is based on a literary form in which ideasthree themes, in this caseare developed with conciseness of expression. The work could serve as the first movement of a symphony. The angular opening theme notated in F minor, but in the Dorian mode, is presented in an andante tempo by solo flutes against a G-flat pedal in low brasses and a pianissimo bass drum roll. The restless and sweeping lyrical second Bruno Walter, 1941 theme, introduced by the violas, grows organically out of the first and is developed. In this first section, brasses hint at a fragment of the theme that ultimately becomes the full-blown chorale of the coda. A sharp tutti chord ushers a fugue, which is based on a motive of the first theme, played by chattering woodwinds molto allegro ed energetico. One of the most striking aspects of the Second Essay is its sophisticated use of orchestral color: abundant solos for timpani, for brass choirs, and for individual woodwinds are cast vividly againstindeed flow out ofthe contrapuntal texture. Critical Reception: Howard Taubman, in his review of the premiere, declared Barber was not merely flexing his muscles in a bit of harmless exercise but attempting to say
35

First Performance: Ironically, the work was not premiered by Koussevitzky after all. After Essay was completed, Barber showed the work to Bruno Walter, who had asked him for a piece for the centennial of the New York PhilharmonicSymphony Orchestra. Walter conducted the work on 16 April 1942, in Carnegie Hall.

something in a concise form. In a short space he creates and sustains a mood. . . worked out with economy of knowledge and assurance. . . perhaps a shade too solemn, but a composer entitled to his own thesis. Donald Fuller pointed out the Second Essay as Barbers best work to that time; admiring Barbers capacity for real thematic invention and comparing the score to those of Copland and Harris. A West Coast critic labeled Barber a musical American Shelley. CD 3, Track 13 COMMANDO MARCH (H-105) 3:48 Serge Koussevitzky conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra Live - 30 October 1943, Boston Symphony Hall

Origin: Completed February 1943, while Barber was serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces. Barber was inducted into the U.S. Army on 2 September 1942 and reported for service on 16 September. On the eve of his departure he wrote to Serge Koussevitzky, who had told Barber that, in spite of the war, the government wanted such things as the Berkshire Festival to continue: I am a private in the U.S. Army, and leave tomorrow for serviceI have no idea where I will be stationed. . . . It is with the greatest satisfaction that I have followed the success of this summers Berkshire Festival, and
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Scoring: Original band version: Picc; Fl; Ob; Cl (e-flat); 3 Cl (b-flat); Alto Cl; Bass Cl; Bsn; 2 Alto Sax; Tenor Sax; Bar Sax; 3 Cor; 2 Tpt; 4 Hns; 3Trb; Bass Trb; Euphonium; Tba; String Bass; Xyl; Snare Dr; Cym; Kettle Dr; Bass Dr Orchestral version: 3 Fl; Picc; 3 Ob; Eng Hn; 2 Cl (B-flat); E-flat Cl; Bass Cl; 3 Bsn; Contrabsn; 4 Hn; 3 Tpt; 3 Trb and Tba; Snare Dr; Bass Dr; Cym; Tri; Xyl; Timp; Wood Block; and Strings.

potential usefulness and influence.

Serge Koussevitzky

A letter to the poet Katherine Garrison Chapin (22 March 1942), at the time his career was ascending internationally, suggests that Barbers low appetite for military duty was not for lack of patriotism but rather out of a desire to continue writing music: It is strange that they do not use us composers more than they do for propaganda, or perhaps I overestimate our

I have admired your courage and your conviction in carrying it through. Such things are so important in times like these, and there are few people who, like you, think so clearly and so actively. . . . My next piece will be for you, dear Maestro. (letter to Koussevitzky, 14 September 1942)

He wrote to the conductor William Strickland, sometime after Feb. 1943:

Ive finished a march for band and think I shall ask Thor Johnson to try it out for me. I wonder how his band is. It must be played in this Service Command first. It was a nuisance to scoremillions of euphoniums, alto clarinets and D-flat piccolos to encumber my score page.
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First Performance: 23 May 1943 by the Symphonic Band of the Army Air Forces Technical Training Command (comprising the 28th and 29th Air Force Bands), Convention Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey; cond. Chief Warrant Officer Robert L. Landers. Subsequent performances: 8 July 1943, cond. Goldman; 2021 July 1943, cond. Barber; Edwin Franko Goldman Band, Central Park, New York City. Recorded for the Office of War Information, cond. Barber. After this performance, Barber wrote to Serge Koussevitzky, 16 August 1943: Due to your encouragement, my debut as a band conductor was quite successful and I had a re-engagement in Central Park! I orchestrated Commando March and will send it to you as soon as it is copied.

First performance of orchestral version: 29 October 1943, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Hall, Boston; cond. Serge Koussevitzky. After this performance, Barber suggested changes in the trumpets entrance and the trombone part: If you play the little march again, I have a couple of changes to suggest and ask you to be so kind as to tell the players and Dr. K. They are very small: 1. When the five trumpets come in, in the measure just before the recapitulation, they play flutter-tongue on a written c. I dont like this and would prefer the following (no double tonguing) . . . 2. on the last note of the trombones glissando, both times, please add a sf for the bass drum. . . . Many thanks for bothering with this.

The Music: The march has all the characteristics necessary to its function: jaunty rhythms, plentiful woodwind and percussion flourishes, and an easily remembered theme that incorporated a triplet figure from the introduction. The music was viewed as representative of a new kind of soldier, one who did not march in straight lines across parade grounds but struck in stealth with speed, disappearing as quickly as he came, inspiring a different kind of music that departed from tradition.
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Critical reception: The music critic Fredric V. Grunfeld described Commando March as an old-fashioned quickstep sporting a crew cut. The march was played frequently during World War II and gained a permanent place in the band repertory after its publication by G. Schirmer in 1943. A review in Modern Music declared the Koussevitzky performance of the new orchestral arrangement lavish, but quite appropriate, good and fast-spirited as a march should be. CD 4 SYMPHONY NO. 2 (FLIGHT SYMPHONY), Op. 19 (H-107) Original version Tracks 13 Revised version, Tracks 46 Revised version rehearsal, Track 7

Symphony No. 2 (Flight Symphony), Op. 19 (original version) (H-107) Serge Koussevitzky conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra Live - 4 March 1944, Boston Symphony Hall 1. I. Allegro ma non troppo 11:23 2. II. Andante, un poco mosso 8:17 3. III. Presto 6:57

Symphony No. 2, Op. 19 (revised version, 1947) (H-107) Samuel Barber conducting the New Symphony Orchestra of London From Decca LX-3050 Recorded 13 December 1950, Kingsway Hall, London 4. I. Allegro ma non troppo 10:28 5. II. Andante, un poco mosso 7:35 6. III. Presto, senza battuta - Poco sostenuto - Allegro risoluto - Allegro molto 8:47
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Scoring: 1943 version: Picc, 2 Fl, 2 Ob, Eng Hn, 2 Cl (E-flat and A), Bass Cl (B-flat), 2 Bsn, Contra Bsn, 4 Fr Hn (F), 3 Tpt (C), 3 Trb, Tba; Timp, Wood Blocks, Tom-tom, Bass Dr, Cym, Pf; Strings; electrical tone-generator (constructed by Bell Telephone Laboratories, New York; designated in score as Radio-B). Revised, GS 1950: In II, an E-flat clarinet replaces the tone generator; and a tenor tuba ad lib is added.

Symphony No. 2, Op. 19 (revised version) (H-107): Rehearsal Samuel Barber conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra Live in prep. for 67 April 1951 performances, Boston, Symphony Hall From delayed broadcast of 23 June 1951 7. Rehearsal 25:37

Origin: Commissioned by and dedicated to the United States Army Air Forces, the symphony was completed on 3 February 1944. Letters to Sidney Homer document that the work was begun about 11 September 1943, in Mount Kisco; the sketch of the first two movements was completed and the third movement begun by September 27. The symphony was revised in 1947. Shortly after his induction into the army, Barber thought of composing a symphonic work about flyers for the air corps: This subject is of great fascination to the public and is being celebrated in all the arts, he wrote to Sidney Homer on 11 September 1943. In preparation for composition, Barber wanted to experience first-hand the sensation of flying under adverse conditions. After submitting a brief proposal of his project, he was transferred to the army air corps 30 August 1943 and sent to the Forth Worth, Texas, air force headquarters for the entire country. After two days of frustrating, aimless wandering aroundno one had the faintest idea why I was there, he saidhe got up before dawn on the third day and found a crew that allowed him to join them on a six-hour training flight:
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We took off with two young pilots, nervous and sweating, and a gruff instructor. . . . We banked, we twisted, and twisted and turned, dived, then the young plots, who seemed almost too young and small for the huge machinethey were only twenty-fiveflew blindfolded. It was exciting to be up front with them Serge Koussevitzky and roam around the bomber at will. . . . I had been to the Psychopathic Ward to talk to flyers back from combat, and about their various mental problems and fears. . . . Many pilots talked about the sensation of flying, the lack of musical climax in flying, the unrelieved tension, the crescendo of decent rather than mounting, and the discovery of a new dimension. How to put this in music, I do not know. . . . In some way I will try to express some of their emotions.

Barber told General Barton K. Yount about his preparations for the symphony, who took the matter with such seriousness he assigned the composer to West Point and allowed him to work on the symphony at home in Mount Kisco. He was given four months or longer, if necessary, to write the symphony. The army would receive royalties forever. When the colonel in charge was presented with the completed symphony, he said, Well, Corporal, its not quite what we expected from you. Since the Air Force
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First Performance: 3 March 1944, Symphony Hall, Boston. Boston Symphony Orchestra, cond. Serge Koussevitzky. Revised version: 5 January 1949, Philadelphia Academy of Music, Curtis Institute of Music Symphony Orchestra, cond. Alexander Hilsberg, 21 January 1949, Philadelphia Orchestra, cond. Alexander Hilsberg.

To accommodate the colonels request, Barber used an electronic tone generator built by Bell Telephone laboratories to simulate the sound of a radio beam in the second movement, which later took on an independent life as the tone poem Night Flight.

uses all sorts of the most modern devices, Id hoped youd write this symphony in quarter-tones. But do what you can. . . (CBS broadcast, 19 June 1949)

The Music: Although Barber did not want the symphony to be considered program music in the conventional sense, a letter to Sidney Homer (27 September 1943) strongly suggests that he did at least have an emotional program in mind: The first movement tries to express the dynamism and excitement of flyingand ends way up 50,000 feet! The second is a lonely sort of folk-song melody for English horn, against backgrounds of string-clouds. It might be called solo flight at night. Otherwise there is no program.

The Second Symphony marks a departure from Barbers earlier style, for in this work there is an emotional climate of greater tension and energy. This is accomplished by use of persistent ostinato dotted rhythms, more dissonant intervals, and angular lines: the first few measures of the symphony, for example, concentrate on sevenths and clusters of seconds, which in their linear form combine to become the jagged first theme. The thematic material of the symphony, stated Barber, was designed to express the sensation of flying. The last movement begins very fast with no bar lines. Barber is reported to have wanted to express a spiral, believing the way to accomplish this was to have the music flow very freely with no accents.
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Epilogue: In 1964, infrequent performances and Barbers general dissatisfaction with the work led him to tear up all parts and score in the Schirmer Library with his publisher, Hans Heinsheimer, as a witness. Although the score was still available in libraries after it was withdrawn, the lack of parts discouraged performance. In spite of Barbers dissatisfaction with the symphony, he never quite put to rest the first movement, for its opening themes, in particular the turn motive, were incorporated in works composed toward the later part of his careerthe opera Antony and Cleopatra (H-134), and Fadograph of a Yestern Scene (H-142). Some twenty years after Barber withdrew the symphony, a set of parts that turned up in a London warehouse resuscitated the symphony and led to performances, a recording by Andrew Schenck and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in 1989, and a new printing by G. Schirmer. CD 5, Track 1 DIE NATALI, Op. 37 (H-131) 19:38 For orchestra Charles Munch conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra Live - 23 December 1960, Symphony Hall, Boston

The Revised Version: Revisions consisted of redistribution of woodwind partsto clarify melodic lines and reduce the muddiness of the orchestration of the early version and of shortening the score by condensing passages to fewer measures. A major change is made in the scoring of the second movement, where an E-flat clarinet replaces Radio-B. (electronic tone-generator) for the last 22 mm. of the movement. This, of course, is to remove from the symphony any traces of programmatic intent and, in particular, association with war.

About the recording: This live performance followed the premiere by one day.
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The Music: Die Natali comprises a sequence of chorale preludes based on familiar Christmas carolsO come, O come, Emmanuel; Lo, how a rose eer blooming; We three Kings of Orient are (with separate preludes for each of the Magi); God rest you merry, gentlemen; Good King Wenceslas, Silent night, and Adeste fideles. Barber composed an ingenious fabric of harmonically colored contrapuntal variations, employing such devices as canon, double canon, augmentation, and diminution. In 1979, dissatisfied with the beginning, Barber made some revisions in anticipation for a performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra. He advised the conductor Eugene Ormandy: This is a piece which has both good and bad places, and I am sure you will doctor up the bad ones to my advantage . . . . The beginning, for instance, simply doesnt come off. I wanted very distant string harmonics, like an echo, but Im afraid it is a bad key for harmonics. Perhaps if you just play it sordina and forget the harmonics, it will solve the problem; or maybe you have a better idea. The rest goes along quite well and I particularly like the variations on Silent Night.
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First Performance: 22 December 1960, Boston; Boston Symphony Orchestra, cond. Charles Munch.

Origin: Commissioned in celebration of the 75th season of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, music director. Dedication: To the memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky. Although the piece was commissioned in 1954 by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Barber did not begin work on the composition until July 1960. He completed it in Santa Cristina, Italy, on 3 September 1960.

Scoring: Picc (fl III), 2 Fl; 2 Ob; Eng Hn; 2 Cl (B-flat); Cl in A ad lib; Bass Cl; 2 Bsn; 4 Hn (F); 3 Tpt (C); 3 Trb; Tba; Timp; Perc (Tenor Drum, Bass Drum, Cym, Antique Cym, Tam-tam, Triangle, Xyl, Bells); Harp; Strings.

CD 5, Tracks 25 Prayers of Kierkegaard, Op. 30 (H-122) Charles Munch conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra & the Boston Cecilia Society Chorus; Leontyne Price, soprano; Jean Kraft, mezzo-soprano; Edward Munro, tenor Live - 3 December 1954, Symphony Hall, Boston

About the Recording: As noted below, Barber was critical of this premiere performance, attributing the flaws to an under-rehearsed chorus. 2. O Thou Who art unchangeable 5:05 3. Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered all life long 2:59 4. Father in Heaven, well we know that it is Thou 4:58 5. Father in Heaven! hold not our sins up against us 5:26

Male chorus: O Thou who art unchangeable, whom nothing changes, May we find our rest and remain at rest in Thee unchanging. Thou art moved and moved in infinite love by all things: the need of a sparrow, even this moves Thee and what we scarcely see, a human sigh, this moves Thee, O infinite Love!
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Text: For the text Barber drew from selections of prayers interpolated through the writings and sermons of Sren Kierkegaard (18131855), written between 1847 and 1855 in his journals; one from Christian Discourses; and one on which Kierkegaard gave his last sermon, The Unchangeableness of God. Barber arranged the prayers in reverse chronological order and took liberties in fashioning the text to his musical needs: reordering the sequence of lines, excising internal phrases, and substituting his own translation for specific words.

For Mixed Chorus, Soprano Solo, and Orchestra, with incidental Tenor Solo and Alto Solo ad libitum. Orch: Picc, 2 Fl , 2 Ob, 2 Cl, Bass Cl, 4 Hn, 3 Tpt, 3 Trb, Tba, Timp, Perc, Xyl, 2 Bells (in E; but C and G for premiere), Hp, Pf, Str.

SATB: But nothing changes Thee, O Thou unchanging. May we find rest and remain at rest. Thou art moved and moved in infinite love for all things; the need of a sparrow; Even this moves Thee and what we scarcely see, a human sigh, This moves Thee, O infinite Love! But nothing changes Thee, O Thou unchanging!

First Performance: 3 December 1954, Symphony Hall, Boston; Boston Symphony Orchestra, cond. Charles Munch; Cecilia Society Chorus, dir. Hugh Ross; soloists: Leontyne Price, sop; Jean Kraft, contralto; Edward Monroe, tenor. After this performance, Barber made many corrections in the score.
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Concluding Chorus: Father in Heaven! Hold our sins up against us but hold us up against our sins, so that the thought of Thee should not remind us, of what we have committed, but of what Thou didst forgive; Not how we went astray, but how Thou didst save us!

Double chorus: Father in Heaven, when Thou art near to summon us that we also in prayer might stay near Thee, when Thou, in the longing, offer us the highest good Oh, that we might hold it fast!

Tenor solo and tenors: But when longing lays hold of us, O that we might lay hold of the longing when it would carry us away, that we also might give ourselves up.

Chorus: Father in Heaven, well we know that it is Thou that giveth both to will and to do, that also longingwhen it leads us to renew the fellowship with our Saviour and Redeemeris from Thee. Father in Heaven, Longing is Thy gift.

Soprano solo: Lord, Jesus Christ who sufferd all life long that I, too, might be saved And whose suffring still knows no end, This, too, wilt Thou endure saving and redeeming me, this patient suffring of me whom thou hast to do, who so often goes astray Lord Jesus Christ!

He considered definitive a subsequent performance at an international festival in Vienna in May 1955, conducted by Massimo Freccia, with Hilde Gueden, sop. In his Travel Log, Barber describes the effect on him: All the rest was such a wonderful experience for me that I even hesitate to report it. . . . such fervor and impact, . . . the solo with such purity and perfection of style, her voice soaring and disembodied . . . unearthly. . . . moved me very deeply. . . and Freccia . . . succeeded in creating a mystical and at the same time passionate atmosphere. . . . Here at last was my work as I meant it to be, the chorus dominating, shattering, moving: not stodgy and oratorio-like. The deep German basses and altos and the sopranos with body, like trumpets . . . . I think I had never heard a work of mine in a foreign language before and that too encouraged me with a sense of power.

Origin of the composition: Commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in 1942. Gregorian chant, a preoccupation with monastic solitude, the approaching death of his uncle Sidney Homer, and perhaps questioning his own religious faith were all on Barbers mind as he began work on Prayers in May of 1953. The work was completed in January 1954. Barber wrote the soprano solo with Leontyne Prices voice in mind. Barber viewed the Danish theologian as a major literary figure and an exciting but enigmatic intellectual force. (Barber, quoted in program notes of Boston Symphony premiere). The Music: The work is in four contrasting but musically continuous sections that could be called movements. Barber has fused his neo-Romantic perspective with elements of twentieth-century, Baroque, and medieval practice. Prayers opens with an incantationa chant of Barbers inventionin the Dorian mode by male chorus, a capella and in unison, the tempo grave and remote, thus establishing a liturgical mood in accord with Barbers conviction that Gregorian chant should be sung without accompaniment:
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Barber was presumably unaware of the dodecaphony in the passage but when longing lays hold of us, in which the solo tenor theme is based on a ten-tone scale and simultaneously sung in augmented rhythm by the tenor sections. The concluding chorale is also of Barbers invention. Barbers concerns about the bells and incidental alto and tenor solos were expressed in a letter (undated, autumn 1954) to Leonard Burkat, then artistic administrator of the Boston Symphony Orchestra: I have two messages for M. Mnch: I have worked with Leontyne on the solo and she does it beautifully. Tell him please that I hope the alto and tenor soloists are more than adequate; they come at a strategic place in the score and theoretically should have just as fine voices as Leontyne; so I hope that you have found two first-rate church soloist voices which can be fine in Boston, and have not promoted a tenor eunuch or contralto Amazon from the ranks of the chorus! Ditto for New York. . . . Mnch mentioned the wonderful bells used for the Berlioz to me. Although they are in C and G (if I recall) instead of E as in my score, I would like to suggest that we try them, placing the lower one well off stage with an assistant conductor. It would be wonderful to have a really distant effect, like a monastery bell, an effect only approximated by tubular bells, I feel.
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I got up early this morning and went alone to Mass at St. Anselmos. . . The whole Aventine hill was very quiet in the morning mist, a few birds singing and the sun coming up over snowy hills. Only a few nuns were there, one of whom showed me the text to follow, but there must have been 80 monks in the chorus and the Gregorian sounded better than ever. For me it is the only religious music possible. . .I think; only I wish they wouldnt use organ at all! (Letter to Charles Turner, spring, 1953, from Rome)

The bells to which he referred were real bells of cast iron that Mnch had had built especially for his first Boston performance of Symphonie Fantastique in 1950. In order to use these bells, Barber transposed the score of Prayers of Kierkegaard. Later, for a planned performance which was to be conducted by William Strickland, he instructed: [On the words Father in Heaven] we used two real bells, not tubulars (weight 250 lbs. each, any pitch will do), the lower in pitch should be off stage and the effect is wonderful if it can be off-stage to the opposite side of the on-stage bell (possible in Boston, but not Carnegie). (Letter, January 1955)

Critical Reception: Olin Downes:

Paul Henry Lang, of the New York Herald Tribune, found the cantata a serious, moving and convincing piece and extolled Barbers impeccable craftsmanship, taste, good judgment, and adeptness at avoiding obvious climaxes by landing on points of quiescence with stunning surprise. His reservations about the performance itselfthe choral diction was often cloudy, the orchestra a bit raw, and the soloists, with the exception of Leontyne Price, timidechoed Barbers unhappiness about the performance. Munch, too, was disgusted with the chorus, inadequately rehearsed,
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The thoughts of the poetry, the attempt . . .of the music, is so far from dogma, so elemental, so Blake-like in its conception and tonal design, that one wonders whether the pages of the score are symbolic rather than expressive of what cannot be communicated. . . . Free-metered recitation in carefully shaped recitative has the flavor of plainchant, reshaped, freely recast in forms of our own modern consciousness. Sometimes the music becomes nearly barbaric and intensely dramatic in its effect. Polytonality is used freely, logically, with destination. (New York Times, 9 December 1954)

both in Boston and New York. (Letter from Barber to Strickland, January 1955) After these performances, Barber made numerous corrections, many of which have been incorporated in the published edition. CD 5, Tracks 68 CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA, OP. 14 (H-94) original version Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra Albert Spalding - Violin Live - 7 February 1941, The Academy of Music, Philadelphia 6. I. Allegro 10:15 7. II. Andante 8:01 8. III. Presto in moto perpetuo 4:19

Origin: In May 1939 Samuel Fels, the Philadelphia soap manufacturer and philanthropist, offered Barber a commission of $1,000 to compose a violin piece for his foster son Iso Briselli, a former classmate of Barbers and an accomplished virtuoso violinist. The work, for violin and orchestra, was to be of fifteen minutes duration or longer. At that time, Fels gave Barber a check for $500, one-half of the commission, the remainder to be turned over on completion of the finished score on 1
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Scoring: 2 Fl; 2 Ob; 2 Cl; 2 Bsn; 2 Hn; 2 Tpt; Timp; Tamburo Militaire; Pf; Strings; and Solo Violin.

About the Recording: This is a recording of the first performance.

Albert Spalding

October 1939. Barber agreed to give Briselli sole playing rights for a year of the completion of the score. G. Schirmer waived all performance fees for five pairs of concerts. Barber composed the first two movements of the concertino, as he called it, during the summer of 1939 in Sils Maria, Switzerland. At the end of August, when Americans were warned to leave Europe because of the impending invasion of Poland by the Nazis, Barber reEugene Ormandy turned to the U.S. A recently located letter from Barber to Fels, reveals what transpired with regard to the third movement and the commission: My dear Mr. Fels: As you may have already heard, after several weeks of consideration, Iso has decided that the concertino I wrote for him is not exactly what he wanted, and has given it back to me. I am left in a quandary as to what to do about the $500 you already sent me, and which I spent on my expenses of the last three months, while completing this work. I am writing to ask whether you wish me to return the money. At the same time I hope you will allow me to present my side of the picture. I was, as you know, held up in Europe at the outbreak of the war, but immediately upon landing September 1st went to the mountains to work [the family cottage, Hermit, in the Poconos]. I must confess I was surprised to
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see on landing that the first performance was already announced for January: neither Iso nor Ormandy had told me this had been decided. The middle of October I gave Iso the completed first two movements (about 15 minutes of music). At that time he seemed disappointed that they were not of virtuoso character, a bit too easy. I asked him what type of brilliant technique best suited him; he told me he had no preference. At that time he did not apparently dislike the idea of a perpetual motion for the last movement. During my fathers illness I worked very hard in far from ideal circumstances and finished the last movement, the violin part of which I sent to Iso about two months before the scheduled Philadelphia Orchestra premiere. It is difficult, but only lasts four minutes. At the same time I had a violinist from the Curtis [Herbert Baumel] play it for me to see that it was practical and playable. My friends [among whom were Mary Bok, Edith Braun, Menotti, and Vladimir Sokoloff] heard it and liked it, so did I. But Iso did not. His reasons were: 1st, he could not safely learn it for January; 2nd, it was not violinistic; 3rd, it did not suit musically the other two movements, it seemed rather inconsequential. He wished another movement written. But, I could not destroy a movement in which I have complete confidence, out of artistic sincerity to myself. So we decided to abandon the project, with no hard feelings on either side. I am sorry not to have given Iso what he hoped for. While it is Isos complete right not to accept a work he finds unsuitable, I ask myself if the composer who has given four months time entirely to this work , and who has done his best in submitting a work for which he makes no apologyshould not be paid something. I believe this is generally the case when a commissioned work is not accepted by the commissioner. I count on your understanding and generosity, and thank you for consideration of this matter. With kindest regards, Sam Barber
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This letter presents a view contrary to that previously presented by Barbers publisher, Nathan Broder. It documents that Barber arranged a trial run-through of the movement, before Briselli expressed his unhappiness with it, not afterward. There is no evidence that Barber received the balance of the commission, but Briselli and Barber remained friends long after they agreed to abandon the commission. The concerto was completed in July, 1940, at Pocono Lake Preserve, Pennsylvania. First Performances: 7 February l941, Philadelphia. Albert Spalding, vln; Philadelphia Orchestra, cond. Eugene Ormandy. Premiere of the revised version: January 1949, Boston. Ruth Posselt, vln; Boston Symphony Orchestra, cond. Serge Koussevitzky. European premiere: 21 February 1951, Berlin. Charles Turner, vln; Rias-Symphonie-Orchester; cond. Samuel Barber.

The Music: Barber described the concerto in the program notes for the premiere performance:

The vitality of the concerto lies in the spare but poignant lyricism of the first movement and the poetry of the second movement, those very qualities that are intrinsic to Barbers strength as a composer. Though predominantly diatonic music, more stringent harmonies are introduced to heighten expressiveness or dramatic tension. The concerto is likely to be played by a performer who aims to display the idiomatic lyrical attributes of the violin rather than virtuosic brilliance. For despite the perpetual
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The work is lyric and rather intimate in character. . . .The first movementallegro molto moderatobegins with a lyrical first subject announced at once by the solo violin, without any orchestral introduction. The movement as a whole has perhaps more the character of a sonata than a concerto form. The second movementandante sostenuto is introduced by an extended oboe solo. The violin enters with a contrasting and rhapsodic theme, after which it repeats the oboe melody of the beginning. The last movement, a perpetual motion, exploits the more brilliant and virtuoso characteristic of the violin.

motion last movement, there are no major technical challenges that an experienced violinist would find difficult to execute. Even the conventional virtuoso cadenza is absent from the first and last movements, as Barber was reported to have an aversion to cadenzas. Thus the unaccompanied passages in the first movement at m. 181 and at the end of the last movement are more akin to vocal ornaments than bona fide cadenzas. The controversial perpetual-motion third movement has a rondo theme that rarely returns verbatim, more often digressing into virtuosic excursions. It is one of the virtually nonstop concerto movements in the violin literature (the solo instrument plays for 110 measures without interruption). The rondo theme, played by the violin at so breathless a tempo it almost resembles a technical etude, is supported merely by terse orchestral chords. The movement abruptly climaxes in the penultimate measure with two polychordal arpeggios that seem to foreshadow Barbers tendency towards bolder dissonant harmonies, which increasingly mark his works in the following decade. Barber told the violinist Louis Kaufman, who made the first commercial recording of the concerto, that he preferred a livelier tempo for the first movement than what Koussevitzky directed. However, Kaufmans tempo was still below the metronome mark in the score. Barbers continuing concern about the tempo of this movement was apparent from a comment he made to John Ardoin (Samuel Barber at Capricorn, Musical America, March, l960, p. 5): I wish there might be a good version of my Violin Concerto in which the first movement is not taken too slowly. Critical Reception: Newspaper accounts of the premiere report that the concerto scored an exceptional popular success, with a storm of applause showered on both soloist and composer. Philadelphia critics concurred that Spaldings performance on his 1755 Guarnerius was brilliant and sympathetic, and they gave recognition to Barbers strength in composing with unfaltering facility a concerto refreshingly free from arbitrary tricks and musical mannerisms, a work in which straight-forwardness and sincerity are among its most engaging qualities. On the other hand, the conservative critic Henry Pleasants faulted the concerto on the texture of the orchestration as insufficiently contrasted to the violin tone; he
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viewed Barbers aesthetic is a nineteenth-century one, in which the solo instrument is an integral part of the whole. About the last movement, opinion was divided, one critic finding it most effective, another, thin and not too brilliantly orchestrated. . . the only weak movement. After the New York premiere, on 11 February 1941,Virgil Thomson wrote that although the concerto cannot fail to charm by its gracious lyrical plenitude and its complete absence of tawdry swank. . . the only reason Barber can get away with elementary musical methods it that his heart is pure. He continued: Barber cannot legitimately be considered a neo-romantic composer, as that term has been understood to represent the dominant Parisian school of the past ten years. . . . His abstention from ostentatious dissonance and his cult of the poetic are based on no. . .penetrative esthetic reelection. . . . He is simply an academic. . . . not the storming, dissonance-mongering, fancily orchestrating academic we have been used to for some years . . but the gentle sweet-singing sort . . we used to have in Edward MacDowell and his brothers Nevin.

1. I. Allegro 10:30 2. II. Andante 9:37 3. III. Presto in moto perpetuo 4:04

CD6, Tracks 13 Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 14 (H-94) (revised version) Serge Koussevitzky conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra Ruth Posselt - Violin Live - 7 January 1949, Boston, Symphony Hall

About the Recording: This recording is of the first performance of the revised concerto.
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The Revised Version: To remedy what Barber considered the weakness of the concertoan unsatisfactory climax in the adagio and some muddy orchestration in the finalein November 1948 he began revisions in anticipation of the forthcoming performance by Ruth Posselt and the Boston Symphony. Few alterations were made to the first movement and none involved the violin part. Subtle changes were made to the orchestration in the interest of clarifying the texture and tightening the formal structure, A brief cadenza replaced the original florid ossia passage for solo violin. In the second movement, changes were made to achieve a more transparent orchestral texture. The solo violin underwent minor changes that elicit a brighter sound . To achieve a more satisfactory climax, Barber rewrote the last 20 mm., transferring material from the solo violin to the first violins in the orchestra and deleting woodwind doublings, thus freeing the solo instrument to pay a counterpoint against strings. The passage culmiRuth Posselt & Serge Koussevitzky nates in a new, short lyrical cadenzaa cascade of descending triplets that close the movement. In the third movement, small changes were made in the balance of instrumentation; and ten bars of solo violin were cut. A noticeable reworking of the piano part in the second half of the movement preserves its role as a percussion instrument. Toward the end of the movement a glissando is added for the piano, flute and piccolo, which enhances the brilliance of the orchestration and prepares for the final climax.
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CD 6, Tracks 46 CAPRICORN CONCERTO, Op. 21 [H-109] Samuel Barber conducting the CBS Orchestra Julius Baker - Flute, Mitchell Miller - Oboe, Harry Freistadt - Trumpet Live 2 May 1945, WABC Invitation to Music program [Source: Broadcast transcription discs of the 20 June 1945 rebroadcast] 4. I. Allegro ma non troppo 6:35 5. II. Allegretto 2:50 6. III. Allegro con brio 4:31

Origin: Completed 8 September 1944. After the success of the Second Symphony, Barber was able to realize his goal of continuing to compose without restriction during his military service. He had approached Daniel Saidenberg, then head of the Music Department of the Office of War Information (O.W.I.), Barber during WWII which produced musical recordings into which propaganda material was later inserted. In an effort to show the Allied, neutral, and enemy nations that the United States was not lacking in culture, Saidenberg selected and recorded live performances of concert music to be broadcast overseas and thought it important to have a world famous composer on the staff (authors interview with
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Scoring: Solo Flute, Oboe, and Trumpet (in C; alternately, a B-flat Tpt may be used, and is indispensable in the 2nd movt); Strings

Saidenberg, 7 June 1985). Walter Damrosch, too, advocated on behalf of Barber to General Matthew Arnold:

On 21 March 1944, Barber expressed his appreciation to Damrosch:

I consider Barber one of the most gifted American composers. I hope he may be permitted by Army authorities to continue his creative work.

First Performance: 8 October 1944, New York, Town Hall, John Wummer, Fl; Mitchell Miller, Ob; Harry Freistadt, Tpt; Saidenberg Little Symphony, cond. Daniel Saidenberg.
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Barbers assignment to OWI was confirmed on 1 May 1944, one month before the Anglo-American invasion of Western Europe. As he was the only composer employed by the officeand even though he was not required to punch a time clock and could retreat to Mount Kisco most of the time to write musichis correspondence to William Strickland documents that he was kept busy with recording sessions for overseas broadcasts. Capricorn Concerto was composed for Saidenberg and as a tribute to Barbers and Menottis home in Mount Kisco, New York, which Mary Curtis Bok had helped them purchase in 1943. The house, a modern chalet, was designed earlier by the Swiss architect William Lescaze and met the requirements of the two composersa studio apiece, each large enough for a grand piano, and far enough away from each other so that they would not be hearing double when both were at work. Named Capricorn because it received sun year round, the house overlooked Croton Lake and far hills and provided a refuge for Barber, who admittedly needed the absolute silence of the country to compose.

I am awaiting their decision, having suggested to them an assignment to the Music Department of OWI in New York. I feel that I would be of some help there and a job is open: at the same time I should be allowed to continue some composing of my own. It seems to me Im just getting into stride as a composer and I dont want to slip.

In December 1945, three months after the war had ended, Barber sent the score and parts of Capricorn Concerto to the cultural attach of the American Embassy in Paris, in case anyone there would like to perform it. Six months later he was invited to a meeting of international musicians in Prague; while there he conducted the Czech Radio Orchestra in Capricorn Concerto and the suite from Medea. He wrote to his publisher, Gustave Schirmer, on 11 June 1946: It was a good idea to go there. The best Russian, French, and English musicians had come, the first real meeting of artists since the war. . . . This was the first time the Russian musicians had met an American composer indeed, any foreign composerand we had three weeks together . . . without supervision. . . . They are crazy to know about American music, want more of it, and I found their reactions to Bernsteins American concert quite interesting.

The Music: The first movement, in rondo form, has five shifts of tempo between allegro and andante con moto. Like in earlier works, material from the introduction dominates the progress of the movement, including a slow-moving, lyrical three-voice fugue. In the second movement, oboe and trumpet, or flute and oboe, cheerfully march along in dotted rhythms over a pizzicato viola continuo. A trumpet fanfare in the third movement surely alludes to Bachs Brandenburg Concerto No. 2. Barbers note to Henry-Louis de La Grange (5 December 1945) provides a perspective on the style of Capricorn Concerto: Its hard to explain, and you may find this music rather new for me, but it is in a sense decorative, slightly baroque la Brandenburg Concerto, less romantic. Sidney Homer described the concerto as an abstract conversation of angels, who seem to understand each other. Their tonal language is contemporarythe use of chords with added tones and other coloristic devices (polychords, for example) often obscures the harmony at any given moment. Rhythmically, too, the piece represents a new direction for Barber. Seldom does any regularity of the underlying meter continue for long: frequent and sudden shifts from divisions of 2 to 3 and between 8, 12, 5, and 9 provide rhythmic vigor,
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Critical Reception: Lou Harrisons review of the premiere, in Modern Music, presents a promising appraisal of Barber at midcareer:

suggesting the nervous dance-generated syncopations of Coplands orchestral music. One cannot fail to take in the strong influence of Stravinsky in this work, especially with regard to timbres and textures, rhythmic freedom, and treatment of solo woodwinds. The third movement most certainly evokes the spirit of the trumpet march in Stravinskys LHistoire du Soldat. In fact, in 1966, Leonard Bernstein included Capricorn Concerto on the opening concerts of a Stravinsky festival program titled Stravinsky and American Music.

In Chicago, Capricorn Concerto was an unqualified success. The critic Cecil M. Smith wrote:

Samuel Barbers new Capricorn Concerto is a brilliant work, and takes the cake for orchestration this month. The charming combinations he achieves with the wind concertino are very telling indeed and produce a bubbling opalescence. The music is well-worked, although very Stravinskian, and makes intentional use of that old academic bugaboo, the general pause, Actually Barber has done an obvious but seldom thought of thing. When he comes to the end of a section of material, instead of making the fluid and highly professional transition into the next idea, he simply stops. Dead silence for a fraction of a second, and then everything begins at once with the new material already in full action. The device is effective and frank. . . . Barber has tremendous technical grasp and an essential urge to expression.. . . .If he ever catches up with himself , he certainly will be a composer of power and interest.

While there can be no doubt that Barber has observed what Stravinsky had to show younger composers, he nevertheless invents his own themes, maintains them with his own special kind of rhythmic urgency, and orchestrates them with his own pointed economy. More than most of his contemporaries, Barber
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understands the difference between beginning, middle, and end. He evolves movements out of new material, which are reasonable, consecutive, and emulative, and he does not distain to be friendly or communicative along the way. CD 6, Tracks 79 CONCERTO FOR VIOLONCELLO AND ORCHESTRA, OP. 22 (H-112) Zara Nelsova - Violoncello Samuel Barber conducting the New Symphony Orchestra of London From London Decca LPS 332 Recorded 11 December 1950, Kingsway Hall, London 7. I. Allegro moderato 11:30 8. II. Andante sostenuto 6:51 9. III. Molto allegro e appassionato 9:07

Scoring: 2 Fl; Ob; Eng Hn; 2 Cl (B-flat, A); Bass Cl; 2 Bsn; 2 Fr Hn; 3 Tpt; Timp, Snare Dr; Strings; solo Vlc. Origin: Commissioned by John Nicholas Brown for Raya Garbousova for a fee of $1,000. Dedication: To John and Anne Brown. Completed at Capricorn 27 November l945. Letters to Sidney Homer (17 March 1945 and 17 December 1945) document that the concerto was begun in March l945, while Barber was working at OWI; it was completed three weeks prior to 17 December l945.
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An amateur cellist himself, Brown was the first non-Bostonian trustee of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. A longtime patron and friend of Garbousova, he gave her one of the great Stradivarius violoncellos, the Archinto (1689). Originally, Koussevitzky suggested that Garbousova commission a work from Bohuslav Martin, but Brown preferred Barber for the commission: Of all the composers I considered asking to write a cello concerto, I feel sure that you are the one most fitted for the task, he wrote to Barber in November 1945. First Performance: 5 April 1946, Symphony Hall, Boston. Raya Garbousova, vlc; Boston Symphony Orchestra, cond. Serge Koussevitzky.

The Music: Before embarking on composition of the concerto, Barber had Garbousova play through her entire repertoryincluding etudes, caprices, and other works that explored the whole range of the fingerboardin order to demonstrate her particular technical resources and the potential of the instrument. Their collaboration established a pattern that Barber would repeat with other musicians, so that he might write to their predilections and use the complete resources of their particular instrument. Garbousova had a reputation for enjoying the high registers of the cello, departing from the notion that, in her words, the only way to break somebodys heart was to vibrate on the C string. The Cello Concerto is acknowledged as one of the most challenging works in contemporary cello literature. Leonard Rose believed it was the most difficult concerto he ever played. Astonishing ascents to the extreme registers of the instrument, sudden wide descending leaps, sweeping runs and arpeggios interspersed with pizzicato and harmonics, multiple stops, and complicated rhythmic patterns contribute to the technical demands of the work. The concerto is in three movements: Allegro, Andante, and Allegro. The first movement is a loosely structured sonata form with a double exposition, but divisions between sections are diffused because of a continuous developmental texture. With the succinctness that is characteristic of Barber, within the first twenty-five measures
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First performance of revised version: December 1950, Kingsway Hall, London; Zara Nelsova, vlc; New Symphony Orchestra, cond. Samuel Barber. 2931 January 1959.

all the material that forms the basis for the movement is presented by the orchestra. The solo cello enters with a cadenzalike solo discoursea warm-up soliloquy as it were based on a triplet motive from the earlier orchestral introduction. This cadenza, placed so early in the movement, may seem out of character with Barbers professed aversion to cadenzas, but here it serves a musical function rather than merely providing a display of virtuosity for the soloist. In this sense it foreshadows the opening soliloquy of Barbers Piano Concerto, written two decades later. The second movement spins a sad and romantically tender siciliana in canon between the cello and orchestra in a set of free variations. A long, descending cantilena is cast against the siciliana theme; both themes are worked out imitatively by cello and orchestra. The third movement, a kind of rondo-fantasy, has a restless theme characterized by a persistently reiterated descending semitone and an arpeggiated seventh chord. There are many discursive cello passages based on thematic or, in some cases, new material. Twice the mood is contrasted by interpolations of a sombre, dirgelike theme over a ground bass. The dramatic tension of the finale is accentuated by the argumentative nature of the dialogue between the solo instrument and orchestra. Critical Reception: Although Boston review of premiere were tepiddescribing the work as nervous and jittery, one critic saw a triumph for Barber in the brilliant and probably idiomatic treatment of the solo instrument. This comment confirms that Barbers method of working with Garbousova was effective. The cellists performance was declared unanimously brilliant. One critic commended her style as a distaff version of Piatigorsky, with emotional fervidity, pure tone and wonderful technique. In New York, Virgil Thomson generously praised the work:

It is full of thought about musical expression. . . . full of ingenious orchestral devices for accompanying the instrument without drowning it. And full of reasonably good tunes. . . .The working up of these into a richly romantic, wellsustained structure is musical, masterful, thoughtful, and not without a certain Brahms-like grandeur.
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Olin Downes commended Barbers directness and confidence of manner, especially showering praise on the middle movement: It grows in melodic interest and in intensity of mood, and for its coda, a young American composer dares to express himself poetically. . . .The last movement is remarkable for its structure, even tragical.

Barber was awarded the Fifth Annual Award of the Music Critics Circle for the concerto as exceptional among orchestra compositions performed for the first time in New York City during the concert season. The following year, however, on a second listening of the concerto conducted by Mitropoulos, Downes found the concerto overlong for its contents, with many good melodic ideas but not enough physiognomy. Barber brooded over this reviewIt is such a difficult problem to balance the solo cello (with all of its limitations of sonority) and orchestra and ultimately made revisions that achieve greater transparency in the orchestral score, thus producing a leaner texture and lessening the competition between the solo cello and the orchestra, especially in the first movement. The revised score was published in 1950 and recorded by Zara Nelsova that same year (CD#6, tracks 7,8,9) with Barber conducting (see below, The Decca FFRR Recordings). He was pleased with the revision, and felt they made the concerto an altogether different work. After hearing Nelsova, he commented, for the first time. . . I heard the first movement fast enough. (Letter to Sidney Homer) The Decca Recordings: The composer as conductor In order to meet the challenge of conducting his own music for the London FFRR (Decca) recordings of the Cello Concerto, the Second Symphony, and the Orchestral Suite Medea, Op. 23, Barber took a series of lessons with the Danish conductor Nicolai Malko, beginning with a week in New York and then continuing in Copenhagen early 1951. Malko had hired musicians from the Danish Opera for Barbers practice sessions. Barbers goal was to be secure in the three works but not go over budget. Because
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In London, he had two days of piano rehearsals with Nelsova and was optimistic: She did what I wanted and played it beautifully indeed, with imposing tone and better intonation than Raya. Two days of rehearsals were held with the Decca recording orchestra, and a third day of three sessions at Kingsway Hall where they would make the recordsa very old wooden auditorium, now used as a sort of mission home, but they still consider it the finest hall from the point of view of acoustics and for recording, he wrote to Homer. As Barbers works were totally unknown to the orchestra and had to be learned technically from scratch, it was nerve-wracking work to Barber rehearsing the Second Symphony (revised version)
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he knew there was not enough time in Denmark to work out some of the more difficult passages, he engaged Malko to come to the London recording sessions and continue coaching him for a fee of $25 a lesson per day. He had been engaged to conduct the same works in Berlin and Frankfurt after the first of the year, where he would be on his own. In Denmark he found his interest in Malkos lessons unflagging: I consider him a teacher in the great line of Scalero and Vengerova, he wrote to Sidney Homer. With the exception of two frightfully difficult places in Medea, he said he felt happy conducting them; occasionally even conducting, that is making music as opposed to mere time-beating. After one rehearsal, spent entirely on the Second Symphony, Malko congratulated him. Barber wrote, He said that for every minute of the rehearsal I knew exactly what I wanted and so did the orchestra.

record all three works in four days. He reported his experience to his uncle:

Nevertheless, Barber wrote:

I went out on the stage with that queasy feeling which every artist knows so well. . . .but my fears were soon dispelled by the excellence and malleability of the orchestra, carefully chosen for the recording. I was told that many of the men did not regularly play in symphonies but were chamber music players of high caliber. Only the brass and pianistespecially the latterand I had repeatedly warned them from Americaleft something to be desired.

The results of the recording sessions were beyond all Barbers expectations. He wrote to his family:

The English engineers, who are supposed to be the finest in their profession and were hidden with their machines in a room somewhere behind the organ pipes, managed to give a sense of calm which one does not feel making records in America. A calm British voice saying, Carry on does much to assuage the terror engendered by that little red light which means the tapes or disks are turning. A telephone on my music desk would give me private instructions from the engineer, and as soon as we made a record, we would go behind stage, have a sort of Salvation Army tea, and discuss the merits or demerits of the playbacks.

I am absolutely delighted about the whole venture. Acoustically they are superb. As you may know, London FFRR has the highest technical standard of record-making extant today, and they told me they are using a new improvement for the first time on my records in order to improve them further; and that after each session the same engineers go back to the studio and work until midnight improving my recordings. When I went to hear the records they seemed enthusiastic and as delighted
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The final word came from Barbers coach, Nicolai Malko: The hall is very cold, but Barber makes the orchestra not only very hot, but even warm, which is much more difficult. CD 7 Tracks 14 SONATA FOR VIOLONCELLO AND PIANO, OP. 6 (H-65) Orlando Cole - Violoncello Vladimir Sokoloff - Piano Live - Curtis Hall, The Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia 28 January 1973 1. Spoken introduction by Orlando Cole 0:57 2. I. Allegro ma non troppo 8:48 3. II. Adagio 4:04 4. III. Allegro appassionato 5:58

as I was. Mr. Olaf, the head musical director, says I am the only composer he knowsand he knows them allwho can conduct his own music and wishes me to do further work for them.

Origin: Completed 9 December 1932 (Source A).

Dedication: To my teacher, Rosario Scalero. Begun in Cadegliano, summer 1932, the sonata is the last work Barber composed under Rosario Scaleros tutelage. Within two weeks, having completed the first movement and working on the scherzo section of the second, Barber wrote to his parents:

Maestro looked over my cello sonata and thinks I am always making progress. I wrote it entirely without piano, and next Sunday Domenico is bringing the
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First Performance: 5 March 1933, League of Composers concert, New York City, French Institute. Orlando Cole, vlc; Samuel Barber, pf.

The cellist Orlando Coles edition bears the inscription: To Orlando, physician at the birth of this sonata in appreciation of his help and interest, Samuel Barber, seven years late. This suggests the importance of the relationship between the composer and Cole, which established a pattern that would repeat throughout Barbers careerthat of enlisting the cooperation of the performer in order to familiarize himself with idioms and scope of virtuosic possibilities of a particular instrument. When Barber returned to school in the fall, he showed the partially completed sonata to Cole, and as he continued working on the piece the two met weekly to go over new material, with Cole playing and offering suggestions, usually about notation, that were incorporated in to the score. The title page on a holograph score at the Library of Congress bears the inscription: Sonata for Violoncello and Piano / Samuel Barber to be considered for Pulitzer scholarship or Bearns prize.

first cellist of La Scala Orchestra to Cadegliano to play it (30 July 1932).

The Music: The thematic material in the first movement, especially the turbulent opening and the lyrical second theme, betrays the influence of Brahms, with whose cello sonatas Barber was thoroughly familiar. Yet Barbers personal style is not by any

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Vladimir Sokoloff & Orlando Cole in 1976. Photo: Jules Schick; courtesy The Curtis Institute of Music, Collection: Photographs

Critical Reception: A review in Musical America noted that The composer places to his credit that he never forgets that the instrument he is writing for was intended to sing and he gives it ample opportunity to do so, Cole himself, some fifty years after the work was composed, said: It takes advantage of the best qualities of the instrument. Another critic (unnamed) found that the sonata revealed an individual approach throughout without any of the intellectual striving after originality which is characteristic of most of the efforts of our younger moderns. CD7 Tracks 57 STRING QUARTET IN B MINOR, OP. 11 (H-88), original version The Curtis Quartet: Jascha Brodsky and Charles Jaffe - Violins Max Aronoff Viola; Orlando Cole - Cello Live -14 March 1938, Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia 5. I. Molto allegro e appassionato 9:06 6. II. Adagio 7:06 7. III. Molto adagio-Presto 4:55

means submerged. While the sonata is Romantic in spirit, it is generally viewed as having some contemporary features, especially with regard to its complex rhythmic structures and the dynamic balance of key relationships. The presto section of the second movement is challenging to the performer because there are many shifts between duple and triple meter as well as conflicting rhythms between the piano and cello that occur at brutally rapid tempos.

About the Recording: This recording of the Quartet in B minor, Op. 11, preceded by one day the first public performance of the original version of the complete quartet at Town Hall, New York.
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Origin: Begun in May 1936 at the American Academy in Rome. Dedication: To Louise and Sidney Homer In May 1936, while on a fellowship in Europe, Barber wrote to the cellist Orlando Cole:

Scoring: 2 Vln, Vla, Vlc.

From May to November, Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti lived in a game-wardens cottage in the little village of St. Wolfgang, high up in the mountains near a forest overlooking a lake. That summer was described by Barber as perfection and by Menotti as the kind of summer when you have to stop in the middle of the day and say to yourself, This is too wonderful! Barber had hoped to finish the quartet in time for the Curtis String Quartet to play it on their European tour. But progress on the work was slow, perhaps partly because Barber was haunted by ghosts of past mastersat that time he was particularly enamored with the instrumentation of Wagners Siegfried Idyll. He wrote to his teacher Rosario Scalero, How beautiful the instrumentation of The Idyll is! And of course I
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I have vague quartettish rumblings in my innards, and need a bit of celestial Ex Lax The Curtis String Quartet ca. 1938. Courtesy The Curtis Institute of Music; to restore my equilibCollection: Photographs rium; there is nothing to do but get at it, and I will send the excrements to you by registered mail by mid-August.

In September, with uncanny prescience about a work that in its orchestral arrangementthe Adagio for Stringswould be considered one of the sublime masterpieces of the twentieth century, Barber wrote again to Cole, I have just finished the slow movement of my quartet todayits a knockout! Now for a finale. Although the third movement was completed by the end of October 1936, Barbers effort to give the first performance to the Curtis group failed. The Pro Arte Quartet had been engaged to play it at the American Academy and were already rehearsing the first two movements. Barber was so uneasy about the third movement that he withdrew it immediately after the concert for revision. Further work on the movement was delayed when Barber returned to the States to attend the premiere of his first symphony. Prodding him further about the quartet, Sidney Homer urged his nephew not to let anything stop his work in this form: You make the four instruments sound gigantic, he wrote, I also want from you the greatest intimacy in spirit. If Mozart could trust and love his listener, so can you. Subsequently, the Curtis Quartet performed only the first two movements at a private concert at the Institute on 7 March 1937 in honor of Barbers birthday. The two movements of the unfinished quartet were viewed by a Philadelphia critic as unduly pretentious. . . . in the opening allegro, Mr. Barber seemed to be seeking effects better suited to orchestral expression. The slow movement succeeded in evoking mood, but suffered from repetitiousness.

am composing. . . I have started a string quartet: but how difficult it is! It seems to me that because we have so assiduously forced our personalities on Musicon Music, who never asked for them!we have lost elegance; and if we cannot recapture elegance, the quartet form has escaped us forever. It is a struggle.

Ironically, it was of course the second movement that ultimately achieved the greatest recognition.
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The Music The quartet opens with an energetic unison presentation of the primary theme that seems to evoke the spiritif not the shapeof Beethovens Op. 18, No. 1, or of Op. 95. A second, choralelike theme is followed by a more lyrical section. The development is continuous, pervading the movement. The musicologist Kenneth Nott observes that the second movement of the quartet (as well as its arrangement for string orchestra, Adagio for Strings)was influenced by Barbers encounter with seventeenth-century music in Vienna during the winter of 1934. He notes the similarities between Barbers works and Purcells Fantasias for strings in their reliance on suspensions and cross relations. Barbers use of these two expressive devices conforms to Baroque and Renaissance practices. The harmony of the Adagio for Strings occupies a territory somewhere between modality and tonality. The original third movement, on this recording, was eventually discarded. It centers on a cheerful rondo in F# major, introduced by an andante mosso, un poco agitato passage in B minor. Sprightly in character and more than four times as long as the revised version that we know today, this original version seems an unbalanced conclusion to the dramatically taut first movement and the elegiac second. The revisions, probably completed probably by the end of 1938, provide a cohesiveness and integrity of design that strengthen the work. The new third movement indicated in the G. Schirmer 1943 edition as molto allegro (come prima)contains material taken from the ending of the original first movement, thus creating a cyclical form. It follows without pause the Adagio.
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First Performances: Premiere: 14 December 1936, Villa Aurelia, American Academy, Rome; Pro Arte Quartet. First performance in U.S.: 20 April 1937, Washington, D.C., for the Friends of Music in the Library of Congress, the Gordon Quartet. First public performance in U.S.: 15 March 1938, New York, Town Hall; Curtis String Quartet: Jascha Brodsky, Charles Jaffe, vlns; Max Aronoff, vla; Orlando Cole, vlc.

Critical Reception: After hearing the Curtis Quartet play the three movements on March 15, 1938, Howard Taubman remarked that the work combines sincerity of purpose, freshness of feeling, and a capacity to realize ones ideas, the first movement in particular displaying virility and dramatic impact and the second movement, the finest of the work, being deeply felt and written with economy, resourcefulness, and distinction. Like Barber, he believed the shortcomings were in the last movement, a scrappy working out of unexciting ideas. Perhaps it was the lackluster appraisal of this movement that convinced Barber to withdraw the finale once more and rewrite it altogether. CD 7, tracks 811 FOUR EXCURSIONS, OP. 20 [H-108] Rudolf Firkusny - Piano From Columbia LP ML-2174 Recorded 17 November 1950, Columbia 30th Street Studios, New York 8. 9. 10. 11. I. Un poco allegro 2:47 II. In slow blues tempo 3:33 III. Allegretto 2:23 IV. Exuberant and joyous barn dance 1:51

About the Recording: Barbers enthusiasm about Firkusnys performance of these pieces is expressed in a letter to his Uncle Sidney Homer (see Critical Reception, below).

Origin: I, completed June 1942; II and IV, completed 16 June 1944; III, completed September, 1944. In the years surrounding World War II there was a trend among American composers to write piano music reflecting popular influence. Barber once remarked lightly that he wrote Excursions just to prove he could write American music. The work was prompted by his classmate and longtime friend, the pianist Jeanne Behrend, who promoted American
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First Performances: I: May 1944, Jeanne Behrend, pf, WQXR. I, II, and IV: 4 January 1945, Vladimir Horowitz, pf, Academy of Music, Philadelphia; 28 March New York, Carnegie Hall. (An article in the West Chester Daily Local News states that Horowitz first played the pieces in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Washington, D.C., before the Philadelphia performance.) The blues movement had a tepid reception by one critic, which may have been due to the Russian pianists unfamiliarity with American genres. Earlier, Barber had written to Behrend (22 July 1944): I had Schirmers send [Horowitz] a copy [of the score] . . . . He says he cant figure out how to play the blues. Prefers the last one.

music on her recitals throughout the United and States and Latin America.

Rudolf Firkusny, 1946

I, II, and IV: 18 January 1946, Rudolf Firkusny, pf, New York.

I, II, III, IV: 21 November 1947, Nadia Reisenberg, Carnegie Hall. 22 December 1948, Jeanne Behrend, pf, New York Times Hall, Concert of American Piano Music, a benefit for the purchase of manuscripts of Louis Moreau Gottschalk for the American Music Collection in the New York Public Library. The Music: Barbers introduction to the G. Schirmer 1945 edition reads:
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No. 1: A boogie-woogie rhythm is established through the repeated walking bass figurations in 8-bar phrases, interrupted by measures of irregular beats, blue notes, syncopations, and unexpected dissonances (crushed notes) polite discords, as it were, compared to the real thing. No. 2: In slow blues tempo. The relation to the blues style is reinforced by typical harmonic progressions and melodic features. No. 3: Allegretto. This set of variations over an ostinato bass, with a theme similar to the cowboy song The Streets of Laredo, bears rhythmic similarities to Latin American popular music, especially dance music. No. 4: Opening block chords and exclusive use of tonic and sub-dominant harmonies suggest those of the harmonica with melodic patterns indigenous to fiddle-playing in a barn dance. Critical Reception: After hearing Rudolf Firkusny play Excursions, six months after the end of W.W. II, at an international meeting of musicians in Prague, Barber wrote to his publisher, Rudolf Schirmer: After Firkusny played my Excursions at his piano concert I could have sold a hundred copies on the spot! Of course they all want the Schirmer agency. (letter, 11 June 1946)
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The words classical forms and rhythmic characteristics that are reminiscent illuminate Barbers intentions. For, rather than parody, he seems to have had in mind stylized concert pieces, refined and elaborated versions that compare to their sources in much the same way Stravinskys Piano-Rag-Music does to popular prototypes.

These are Excursions in small classical forms into regional American idioms. Their rhythmic characteristics, as well as their source in folk material and their scoring, reminiscent of local instruments, are easily recognized.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

CD 7 tracks 1217 SOUVENIRS, Op. 28 (H-119) Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, Duo Pianos From Columbia LP ML-4855 Recorded 15 August 1952 Tempo di waltz 3:39 Schottisch 2:09 Adagio 4:17 Two-Step 1:40 Hesitation Tango 3:06 Galop 2:09

Origin: Written in 1952, for Barber and Charles Turner to play together, piano-four hands. In 1950 Turner was introduced to Barber by Gore Vidal at the Palm Court of the Plaza Hotel in 1950. One of Turners and Barbers favorite haunts was the Blue Angel Club, where they would often listen to a two-piano team, Edie and Rack, play sophisticated arrangements of popular and Broadway show music. Encouraged by Turner to write something in a similarly light vein, Barber wrote the 4-hands version of Souvenirs, which they often played at parties. The genesis of the orchestral version was described by Barber himself in the preface to the miniature orchestra score, 1954: In 1952 I was writing some duets for one piano to play with a friend [Charles Turner], and Lincoln Kirstein suggested that I orchestrate them for a ballet. Commissioned by the Ballet Society, the suite consists of a
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Scoring: Originally for piano four-hands. Arrangements: Two-pianos; piano solo; orchestral suite, for concert hall and as a ballet.

Arthur Gold & Robert Fizdale

The Music: Barber arranged this two-piano version, but it was edited by Gold and Fizdale, and, like its predecessor, is in 6 movements. Although the original version for four hands put more emphasis on the primo part, in this version both pianists share the dominant musical themes and virtuosity. Moreover, the ending has been extended several measures and displays more bravura. Barbers attitude toward these pieces is suggested by this letter he wrote to Sidney Homer while he was working on the orchestration for the ballet: I have taken your advice to do something enjoyable and have finished a ballet score for Balanchine (the best choreographer) which gave me great pleasure to compose. Very light. A waltz, schottische, galoppe,
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First Performances: Four-hand version: Private performances by Charles Turner and Samuel Barber. Two-piano version: 11 March 1953, Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Orchestral Suite: 12 November 1953, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, cond. Fritz Reiner. Ballet: 15 November 1955, New York City Ballet; chor. Todd Bolender; design, Rouben Ter-Artounian; dancers, Todd Bolender, Jillana, Herbert Bliss, Roy Tobias, Irene Larsson (vamp); Carolyn George, Jonathan Watt, John Madia, and Robert Barnett. Television premiere as ballet with two-pianos: 12 January 1959, NBC-TV, Bell Telephone Hour, Adventures in Music, New York City Ballet; Janet Reed, vamp; Jonathan Watts and Marian Horosko, tea-dancing couple; Roy Tobias and Roland Vasquez, menabout-town; Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, pianists.

waltz, schottische, pas de deux, two-step, hesitation tango, and gallop. One might imagine a divertissement in a setting reminiscent of the Palm Court of the Hotel Plaza in New York, the year about 1914, epoch of the first tangos; Souvenirs remembered with affection, not in irony or with tongue in cheek, but in amused tenderness. / S.B.

Even before he finished the ballet score, he spent time with dancers who would eventually perform Souvenirs: Balanchine, Nora Kaye, Jerome Robbins, and Tanaquil LeClercq. After the conclusion of the IMC meetings, he worked on the score in Ireland at Castle Glenveagh, as a guest of Henry McIlhenny: There are two towers in the castle, six drawing rooms, with fires always burning; so I confiscated one at once and messed it up p.d.q. with orchestration, paper, and pencils, et al, announcing that I would see no one until lunch time; and I worked very well every day and almost finished two numbers of the ballet; lots of fun working on it. (SB to his family, 4 July 1952)

tango, pas de deux, and two-step. Think of that coming out of your seriousminded West Chester Presbyterian nephew. . . .It will be for the whole company. . . . and will be done by the City Center Ballet next season. It will take place circa 1910, but neither story nor title is set yet. I shall do the scoring in Europe, for that is something that can be done in hotels.

Critical Reception: Reviews of the recording of Gold and Fizdale suggest that Souvenirs was recognized as salon music: an exceedingly lightweight score. . .but it never resorts to the cute: it is almost a pure recreation of the past with the crudities and vulgarities lost in a happy sentimental haze. The six sections of the new Barber work . . . show no lack of inventiveness; airy gracious, inventive and lighthearted; and a facile trifle. As a ballet the work was greeted as one of the funniest and most perceptive ballets of the season.

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CD 8, Track 1 DOVER BEACH, OP. 3 (H-63) 7:50 Samuel Barber - Baritone The Curtis String Quartet Jascha Brodsky & Charles Jaffe - Violins Max Aronoff Viola; Orlando Cole - Cello From Victor-8998. Recorded 13 May 1935

Text: Matthew Arnold (18221888), Dover Beach, The sea is calm tonight, The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits;on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night air!

Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-branched land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in. Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought,

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Origin: Completed 7 May 1931. Composed during winter 1931, Dover Beach foreshadows the restlessness and distraction the young composer experienced during his Italian summer of 1931, when he wrestled with selfdoubts about previously unquestioned career goals. The song may well have represented a personal statement about his vulnerability as he emerged from the protective cocoon of his childhood into the adult world. The dark side of Barbers personality, in contrast to the charming affability known to his friends at Curtis, finds eloquent expression in Dover Beach.
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Scoring: Medium voice and string quartet.

Ah, love, let us be true To one another! For the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light. Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.

The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earths shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

First Performances: 12 May 1932, Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia. Rose Bampton, mezzo-sop; James Bloom and Frances Weiner, vlns; Arthur Granick, vla; Samuel Geschichter, vlc. First public performance: 5 March 1933, French Institute, League of Composers concert, New York. Rose Bampton, contralto, New York Art Quartet.

About this recording: On 4 February 1935, Barber had made his nationwide debut as a singer on the NBC Music Guild series. Charles OConnell, of RCA Victor Record Company, hearing the broadcast, asked Barber to do the recording of Dover Beach himself. I am secretly delighted to be able to do my own interpretation, Barber wrote to Cole, March 1935.
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The Music: Perhaps no other work of Barbers student years more eloquently expresses the sensitive and penetrating design of melancholy so characteristic of Barbers musical style than does his setting of Victorian poet Matthew Arnolds Dover Beach. Many years later, in 1978, after having endured personal and professional disappointments, Barber professed that the poem still held validity for him: Its extremely pessimistic he said, the emotions seem contemporary. A striking feature of the song is the use of especially effective musical imagery. Barber establishes time and place immediately in the miraculous setting of the opening words, The sea is calm tonight. Here, the voice and first violin float languorously over a shimmering, slow tremolo of bare open fifths and fourths, suggesting gently lapping waves. In the central section the mood of restlessness that is expressed in the words is heightened musically through abrupt chromatic and enharmonic modulations to keys remote from the D-minor tonality. So thoroughly had Barbers rigorous studies in counterpoint with Scalero been absorbed that the expressive nuance of the poem is conveyed spontaneously and unselfconsciously, with surprising maturity for a composer of twenty-one. His interest in 16th-century Italian vocal music, Gesualdo, among others seems to find a voice in this work: the relationship between voice and instruments, points of imitation that coincide with beginnings of text lines, alternating homophonic and contrapuntal fabric all suggest a quasi-motet style.

Nevertheless, he found the recording session nerve-wracking. As it was recorded on 78-rpm discs and the whole song had to fit on two sides, if someone made a mistake, the performers had to go back to the beginning. Barber recalled: I ran out of voice after the third time. When we finally got a good performance, the second violinist hit his music stand with his bow. So you hear this little ting, like a triangle. But I wasnt about to sing the piece again, so that clink is still on the record. (Kozinn, Samuel Barber: The Last Interview and the Legacy, High Fidelity, July 1981).

Regarding performance practice, some fifty years later, Barber said, The difficulty with Dover Beach is that nobody is bossnot the singer, not the string quartet. Its chamber music. (quoted in the G. Schirmer edition, 1936).

Critical Reception: The song gained high praise from Ralph Vaughan Williams when Barber sang it for him privately at Bryn Mawr College in 1932: I tried several times to set Dover Beach, but you really got it! said the older composer.
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The Curtis String Quartet with Samuel Barber, Rome, 1936. Courtesy The Curtis Institute of Music Collection: Photographs

CD 8, Track 2 KNOXVILLE: SUMMER OF 1915, OP. 24 (H-114), original version 16:55 Bernard Herrmann conducting the CBS Symphony Orchestra Eileen Farrell, soprano First Broadcast Performance, 19 June 1949 CD 8, Track 3 Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24 (H-114) 15:24 Eleanor Steber - Soprano Edward Biltcliffe - Piano Live, Carnegie Hall, October 1958 Courtesy VAI [from VAI Audio CD-1005] This Eleanor Steber performance, recorded live from Carnegie Hall, was issued under the title Eleanor Steber in Concert. Scoring: Originally written in 1947 for mezzo soprano and symphony orchestra, Knoxville was revised in 1950 for voice and chamber orchestra.

Text: James Agee (19091955). The prose-poem Knoxville: Summer of 1915 first appeared in print in the Partisan Review: A Literary Monthly, vol. 5, no. 3 (August-September, l938), pp. 2225, which was probably Barbers first reading of the text. It was reprinted in The Partisan Reader (Dial Press, l946), which was the source of the words for Barbers composition. In 1957, the text was inserted, by Agees publishers, as a prologue to his posthumously published autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family (New York: McDowell and Obolensky, 1957).
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Original version, 1947: 3 Fl; Picc; 2 Ob; Eng Hn; 2 Cl, Bass Cl; 2 Bsn; 2 Hn; 2 Tpt; 2 Trb; Timp; Trgl; Harp; Strings.

When interviewed by James Fasset, CBS broadcast, 19 June 1949, Barber said:

Eleanor Steber Origin: Completed 4 April l947. Knoxville: Summer of 1925, for soprano and orchestra, was commissioned by Eleanor Steber at the suggestion of Serge Koussevitzky, then conductor of the Boston Symphony. Barber had already begun work on the piece before Steber agreed to the commission. It was the first time an American singer had ever commissioned a work for voice. Barbers setting of Knoxville represents a spiritual return to West Chester, Pennsylvania. The work immortalizes his native city as Everymans hometown. Thus, he transcends the specificity of the subject, giving it universality. Barber had been moved deeply by Agees memoir because it resonated strongly with his own memories. His nostalgia was heightened by the fact that, at the time he read the text, his fathers health was deteriorating and his beloved aunt Louise Homer, the celebrated contralto, was gravely ill. The dedication of KnoxvilleIn memory of my fathercommemorates Roy Barber, 84

I have always admired Mr. Agees writing, and this prose-poem particularly struck me because the summer evening he describes in his native southern town reminded me so much of similar evenings when I was a child at home. I found out, after setting this, that Mr. Agee and I are the same age, and the year he described was 1915 when we were both five. You see it expresses a childs feeling of loneliness, wonder, and lack of identity in that marginal world between twilight and sleep.

who died on 12 August 1947. Louise Homer died 6 May that same year. A letter from Barber to Sidney Homer, 11 February l947, reveals his mindset as he began this work: We have been through some difficult times in West Chester. . . . I enclose the text of a new work, just finished, for lyric soprano and orchestra. The text moved me very much. It is by the same man who did Sure on this Shining Night,James Agee. He also did a wonderful book on Southern share-croppers, with whom he lived in a spirit of humility and compassion (not the usual spirit of social investigator); it was called Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. I met him last week and admired him. This was actually prose, but I put it into lines to make the rhythmic pattern clear. It reminded me so much of summer evenings in West Chester, now very far away, and all of you are in it! Eleanor Steber will probably do it with Koussevitzky, if she likes it.

First Performances: 9 April l948, Boston. Eleanor Steber, sop.; Boston Symphony Orchestra, cond. Serge Koussevitzky. After the premiere, because Barber believed the work deserved a more intimate setting, he reduced the score for chamber orchestra, which is the version we are familiar with today. First performance of chamber version: 1 April l950, Dumbarton Oaks, Eleanor Steber, sop; Dumbarton Oaks Chamber Orch., cond. William Strickland. The Text: Barber rearranged Agees prose into lines that make the rhythmic patterns clear. The score begins with an epigraph: We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville Tennessee in the time that I lived
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Choreographed: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, 27 November 1960.

there so successfully disguised to myself as a child. Vocal text: It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees, of birds hung havens, hangars.

Eileen Farrell

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People go by; things go by. A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt; a loud auto; a quiet auto; people in pairs, not in a hurry, scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually, the taste hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard and starched milk,

Bernard Herrmann

the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber. A streetcar raising its iron moan; stopping; belling and starting, stertorous; rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past, the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks; the iron whine rises on rising speed; still risen, faints; halts; the faint stinging bell; rises again, still fainter; fainting, lifting, lifts, faints foregone: forgotten. Now is the night one blue dew. Now is the night one blue dew, my father has drained, he has coiled the hose. Low on the length of lawns, a frailing of fire who breathes. Parents on porches; rock and rock. From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces. The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums. On the rough wet grass of the back yard my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt,
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First we were sitting up, then one of us lay down, and then we all lay down, on our stomachs, our on our sides, or on our backs, and they have kept on talking.

and I too am lying there.

They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very clear [sic]. All my people are larger bodies than mine, quiet, with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds.

and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night.
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One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home. One is my mother who is good to me. One is my father who is good to me. By some chance, here they are, all on this earth;

May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away. After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her; and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am.

The Music: Describing Knoxville as a lyric rhapsody in a letter to his former teacher Rosario Scalero, Barber wrote that he viewed the new work as perhaps in some ways going back to the old days of Dover Beach, although he hoped it was better. While Knoxville is completely lyrical and displays the same predilection for instrumental tone painting, it is a mature expression of Barbers artistry in setting text, bringing into focus his strongest creative powers as a musical poet and master of orchestral color. James Agees prose poem is at once contemplative and anguished. Barbers music mirrors these affects. From the very first measures, Barber establishes a quasi-pastoral mood through meditative chords and a gentle arpeggiated introduction against which the voice is set in a declamatory stylesuggesting both the narrow range and swinging rhythms that haunt the chants of childhood, a lullabyand at the same timeas a nod to the adult world the gentle motion of rocking chairs. Throughout Knoxville, Barber uses tone painting techniques to make vivid the images of the summer evening. Stunning examples: Now is the night one blue dew here, the vocal line soars upward and floats above the orchestra to a high b-flat, dissolving into an exquisitely mysterious, impressionistic passageeach section of strings, muted and divided in four, reaching to the highest register by means of harmonics, then poising and hanging motionless, as dew.
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With the passage The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums, Barber paints a veiled, gauzy image that rivals, in my opinion, the so-called night music of Bla Bartok. The work is in one movement, moving naturally through three major tempo changes without abrupt breaksadagio ma non troppo, allegro agitato, and tempo primo. It is in a rondo-like form with a thrice recurring refrain. The music is characterized by shifting major-minor modes and hints of blues (especially in the use of the bluesy flatted-seventh with the second and third recurrence of the refrain). Barber worked closely with Steber in preparation for the premiere performance. At her suggestion, one of the most difficult passagesNow is the night one blue dew and the substantial passage at the end, beginning May God bless my people, were moved to a higher register to allow the voice to be heard over the orchestra.

Critical Reception: Knoxville is considered to be the most American of Barbers works, not only because of the textwherein Agees nostalgic reflections identify with the folklore of growing up in small-town Americabut also because the music so accurately evokes the emotions of these reflections. This is confirmed over and over again by performers who sing it. Eleanor Steber and Leontyne Price, for example, speak of the perfect correspondence between Barbers music, Agees introspection, and their own experience: That was exactly my childhood, declared Steber, who grew up in Wheeling, West Virginia. (interview with the author, 2 September 1983); As a southerner, it expresses everything I know about my. . . home town. . . . You can smell the South in it, said Price (interviewed by Robert Sherman, WQXR, 30 September 1978). David Diamond, another American composer, regarded Barbers setting of the quintessentially American text as clear and original and American as anything yet written. . . the pinnacle beyond which many a composer will find it impossible to go. (Notes, March 1950)
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Origin: During the winter of 1949, while attending a rehearsal of the broadcast by Eileen Farrell and the CBS Orchestra (on this recording), Barber and William Strickland discussed the possibility of a chamber orchestra version of Knoxville for an all-Barber concert Strickland was planning to
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Scoring: Fl, Ob, Eng Hn, Cl, Bsn, 2 Hn, Tpt, Harp, Strings Reorchestration involved several obvious changesreduction in number of flutes and oboes to primo voices only, each alternating respectively with piccolo and English Horn; using one bassoon instead of two; one trumpet instead of two; timpani and bass clarinet were removed altogether. The horn part, on the other hand, was increased to two. Triangle, harp, and strings remain intact. Reorchestration for smaller ensemble has, for the most part, preserved all the voices of the original version. Ten measures were cut at m. 147, at First we were sitting up. . . . The cut is unapparent because the musical transition is seamless, the text maintaining logical continuity as well.

CD 8, Track 4 KNOXVILLE: SUMMER OF 1915, OP. 24 (H-114), revised for chamber orchestra (1950) 14:38 Thomas Schippers conducting the New York Philharmonic Leontyne Price, soprano Live, Carnegie Hall 15 November 1959 14:38

Thomas Schippers

conduct at Dumbarton Oaks. In a letter to Sidney Homer, 9 January 1949, Barber wrote:

About this recording: The Leontyne Price performance of the chamber orchestra version included on this CD was recorded live in 1959. A studio recording was made by Price and Schippers with the New Philharmonia Orchestra and released in 1968 on an RCA LP, reissued on CD by BMG Classics. Barber was very enthusiastic about Leontyne Leontyne Price Prices voice from their earliest collaboration in 1953 on the premiere of Hermit Songs. He composed two other works with her voice specifically in mind: the opera Antony and Cleopatra (1966) and the song cycle Despite and Still, Op. 41 (1971). First performance of chamber version: 1 April l950, Dumbarton Oaks, Eleanor Steber, sop; Dumbarton Oaks Chamber Orch., cond. William Strickland.

As so few singers sing with symphony orchestra these days, I am thinking of making an arrangement of Knoxville for small orchestra (say 10 or 12 players) which could be used all over; they tell me there is great activity in the colleges for this sort of thing.

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CD 8, Track 5 SURE ON THIS SHINING NIGHT, Op. 13, No. 3 [H-093c] 2:10 Sure on this shining night Of star-made shadows round, Kindness must watch for me This side is ground. The late year lies down the north. All is healed, all is health. High summer holds the earth. Hearts all whole.

Jennie Tourel

This recording: This recording is of the premiere performance of Barbers orchestral arrangements of these songs, which were published by G. Schirmer as Four Orchestral Songs. The fourth song, not included here, is Monks and Raisins, Op. 18, No. 2.

CD 8, Tracks 57 [FOUR] ORCHESTRATED SONGS Sure on this shining night, Nocturne, and I hear an army Jennie Tourel, mezzo-soprano Samuel Barber conducting the CBS Orchestra Live 2 May 1945, WABC Invitation to Music program [Source: Broadcast transcription discs of the 20 June 1945 rebroadcast]

Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wandring far alone Of shadows on the stars.
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Text: From James Agee (19091955), Description of Elysium, in Permit Me Voyage, 1934 (Agees first published volume of poems). Although the two artists eventually formed a lasting friendship, they did not meet until after Barber composed Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (H-114). Of the twelve quatrains of Agees poem, Barber used only three (the sixth, seventh, and eighth).

First Performance: 4 April 1941; Barbara Troxell, sop; Eugene Bossart, pf; Curtis Institute of Music. First performance with orchestra: 2 May 1945, CBS Radio Broadcast; Jennie Tourel, mezzo-sop; CBS Symphony Orch., cond. Barber. The Music: The setting is modeled after the songs of Schumann and Brahms, suggested not only by the long lyrical melodic line and by the two-voice canonwhere first the voice leads, then the orchestrabut more specifically in similarities between Barbers pulsating chordal-style accompaniment and that of Schumanns Ich grolle nicht or Liebestrau. It is one of the most frequently programmed of Barbers songs in the United States and Europe. CD 8, Track 6 NOCTURNE, Op. 13, No. 4, [H-93d] 3:37 Close my darling both your eyes, Let your arms lie still at last. Calm the lake of falsehood lies And wind of lust has passed, Waves across these hopeless sands

Scoring: Voice, Oboe, Clarinet; Bassoon; 2 Horns; Strings

Origin: The song was completed September 1938. Dedication: To Sara [Barbers sister]. It was orchestrated by Barber, ca. 194344, as Four Orchestrated Songs, No. 2.

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Text: Frederic Prokosch (19061989), Nocturne, in The Carnival (Harper & Brothers, 1938). Of the five verses published, Barber set only the four that are most unified in their focus on the theme of love, omitting the middle one. It is likely he set this somewhat enigmatic poem because the poet was a friend. Barber confessed of another poet, Katherine Garrison Chapin, that he was not very keen about the text, but the music just popped out for it. Scoring: Fl; Ob; Cl; Bass Cl; 2 Bsn; 3 Hn; 2 Tpt; 2 Trb; Timp; Hp; Strings Origin: The song was completed February 11, 1940 Orchestral version completed ca. 194344 as Four Orchestrated Songs, No. 1.

Even the human pyramids Blaze with such a longing now: Close, my love, your trembling lids, Let the midnight heal your brow. Northward flames Orions horn, Westward the Egyptian light. None to watch us, none to warn But the blind eternal night.

Fill my heart and end my day, Underneath your moving hands All my aching flows away.

First performance with orchestra: 2 May 1945, CBS Radio Broadcast; Jennie Tourel, mezzo-sop; CBS Symphony Orch., cond. Barber.
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First Performance as a cycle: April 4, 1941, Philadelphia, Curtis Institute of Music Historical Series, Modern American Music; Barbara Troxell, sop; Eugene Bossart, pf.

CD 8, Track 7 I HEAR AN ARMY, Op. 10, No. 3 [H-81c] 2:28 I hear an army charging upon the land, And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees: Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand, Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the charioteers. They cry unto the night their battle-name: I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter. They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame, Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil. They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair: They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore. My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair? My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?

Origin: This anguished song was completed 13 July 1936 in St. Wolfgang, Austria, the same idyllic summer that Barber composed his string quartet in G minor. The song is the last of three songs on texts by Joyce published as Op. 10. (The other two, Rain has fallen, Op 10, No 1, and Sleep now, Op. 10, No. 2, were written in November 1935, while Barber was in residence at the American Academy in Rome.) First Performances: This song was first performed on 7 March 1937 in Philadelphia at
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Scoring: Voice; Flute; Oboe; Clarinet; 2 Bassoons; 3 Horn; 2 Trumpets; 2 Trombones; Timpani; Strings

Text: James Joyce (18821941), Chamber Music, No. XXXVI (New York: B.W. Heubsch, 1918, 1923). Reprinted in Collected Poems (New York, Viking Press, 1957), p. 44.

the Curtis Institute of Music, by Rose Bampton, mezzo-soprano, with Barber at the piano. First performance with orchestra: 5 May 1945, CBS Radio Broadcast; Jennie Tourel, mezzo-sop; CBS Symphony Orch., cond. Barber. CD 8, Track 8 Statement by Gian Carlo Menotti Samuel Barbers 70th Birthday celebration, Curtis Institute concert, Philadelphia, 9 March 1980 5:58 CD 8, Track 9 Interview with Samuel Barber by James Fassett, New York Philharmonic concert intermission, 16 March 1958 9:48 Barbara B. Heyman, 2011

Gian Carlo Menotti

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