Happy birthday to Samuel Barbers Adagio for Strings! It was premiered on 5 November 1938, by the NBC Symphony Orchestra, in a radio broadcast conducted by Toscanini. You can hear the original broadcast here: youtube/watch?v=hrTIJ3S9DLQ The piece didnt start out as an orchestral work, though: it was originally the slow movement of a string quartet. Barber was a 26 when he wrote it; he had met Toscanini a few years earlier and the two hit it off straight away, singing songs together after dinner... In 1937, Toscanini asked Barber to send him something for his new orchestra to play (the NBC Orchestra had just been formed, for him to conduct - which he would do for 16 years). Barber sent two pieces, an orchestrated version of the Adagio, and also a piece called Essay for Orchestra. Toscanini returned both scores without comment; Barber was most offended but it turned out that the conductor had already memorised the scores, and was planning to perform both pieces! Which he duly did. Barber lived to be 70, and won two Pulitzer Prizes, but the success of the Adagio eclipsed everything else.I wish youd hear some new ones, he said, when an interviewer praised him for the Adagio. Everyone always plays that. And a very happy birthday also to Australian composer (and ABC Classic FM producer!) Stephen Adams: Music is the space where contradictions resolve or are suspended in magical irresolution, says Adams, where the shaping of time and sounding of voices strengthen our grip on experience, our sense of being in the world and of lifes beautiful strangeness.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 19:35:00 +0000