Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 is one of those pieces that remind us of the eternal and mysterious communicative power of music. When we listen to Barber’s Adagio, we all know, intuitively, what the music is saying, even if we can’t put its message into words. For many listeners, the Adagio is filled with mournful lament. Collectively, we have turned to this music in times of national tragedy, from September 11 to …
The opening of Samuel Barber’s First Symphony tells us everything we need to know about the piece that lies ahead. It hits us immediately with an almost overwhelming sense of bigness, as if a force of titanic strength has suddenly been released. Majestic, intensely passionate, yet made up of raw, primal energy, it roars to life with a series of wide open fifths. A soaring theme takes flight, opening boldly with an …
The promise of spring amid the darkest, gloomiest depths of winter…that’s the Christmas metaphor of cyclic rejuvenation found in Laurence “Laurie” Lee’s poem, Twelfth Night. American composer Samuel Barber had fallen into his own personal depths of depression when he created this chilling setting in December 1968. His second opera, Antony and Cleopatra, commissioned for the opening of the Metropolitan Opera house at New York’s brand new Lincoln Center, had been poorly received by critics. …
Legendary violinist, conductor, and teacher Joseph Silverstein passed away yesterday in Boston. He was 83. Born in Detroit, the son of a public school music educator, Silverstein studied with Efrem Zimbalist, William Primrose, Josef Gingold, and Mischa Mischakoff. He served as concertmaster of the Boston Symphony for 22 years, beginning in 1962. In 1971 he was appointed assistant conductor of the BSO. He was music director of the Utah Symphony between 1983 …
Earlier in the week, I had the pleasure of accompanying violinist Anne Akiko Meyers in the Samuel Barber Violin Concerto. Meyers performed with the Williamsburg Symphonia, a chamber orchestra based in Williamburg, Virginia. You can hear her interpretation of the Barber on this recording, released in 2000. (She is accompanied by conductor Christopher Seaman and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Listen to the second movement here). Anne Akiko Meyers’ family joined her in …
From the first, haunting strands of its spine-chilling opening, Christopher Rouse’s Symphony No. 1 inhabits a world of darkness and terror. Its titanic forces rise out of, and then sink back into, an atmosphere of seemingly perpetual gloom. It shows us the strange beauty embodied in brooding darkness, hopelessness and despair, and concludes without delivering the kind of reassurance we would like. Completed in the summer of 1986, the work was written for the …
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between Greek mythology and a modern-day soap opera plot. A perfect example is the story of Medea and Jason, recounted in a play by Euripides from 431 BC. Jason marries Media, but leaves her for Glauce, daughter of Creon, the King of Corinth. Medea gruesomely avenges Jason’s betrayal by killing their children. This story was the subject of American composer Samuel Barber’s 1946 ballet score …