The Matter of Samuel Barber and The Adagio for Strings…some answers.
It is a pleasure to be able to take a few minutes away from the usual political fare that occupies most of us. Today’s post “It Can’t Happen Here; It Can’t Happen Again? A Sobering Reminder.) elicited an interesting mix of comments and emails.
There were regulars of the “right-on persuasion” those who in polite summary are still ranting and wondering when the American people are going to wake up to what is happening around them…that’s about 95%. That leaves 5% of respondents.
That used to be principally those who totally disagreed with everything I had to say and my right to keep breathing. They seem to have given up fighting with me because I answer them privately and choose not to defile the sites with their droll and verbal lint by posting their comments. Some have suggested this is censorship. I disagree. I’ll deal with anything that contributes to a constructive dialog and none of the self-serving blind Bush advocacy looking for additional print space; anyway they don’t much believe in “free Speech” anyway, only their own; sorry…good bye.
And finally there is the population that finds me either scary, (I can’t do much about that), and those who concerned with the direction that they perceive me to be moving in the days ahead. I appreciate your concerns but I have made my conscious decisions in that regard and I have a few years to make those decisions, and I am prepared to live with those decisions. Enough said.
The interesting queries of the day, however, (interesting to me) concern the selections I made in that posting of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio For Strings”. Another layer of my onion for you; I am a Classical/Orchestral music aficionado, and that composition is one of my all-time favorites. It even bears the label “Made In America”.
Like the Richard Strauss piece, “Also Sprach Zarathustra” known only to most Americans by its opening notes as “2001: A Space Odyssey” or back ground music to some horrible TV commercial, Samuel Barber’s magnificent Adagio is destined forever to be known to most American’s as that haunting melody from the movie “Platoon”.
“Like a number of classical music compositions, Barber’s Adagio is better known not as a singularly great piece of music, but as the hauntingly brooding melancholy back ground music in the movie “Platoon”. - Barbara Heyman-
Adagio for Strings may be heard on many film, TV and video game soundtracks. Notable among these is Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning film Platoon,[5] and David Lynch's 1980 Oscar-nominated film The Elephant Man. It is also used in several episodes of The Simpsons in scenes lampooning sadness and destruction. Likewise, it was used in a similar manner in an episode of Seinfeld in which Frank Costanza reflects on when he served in the Army as a cook in Korea, making the soldiers sick from his food, in a parody of the emotional portrayal of devastation in Platoon. It is also heard in The Pick of Destiny when Kyle gives Jack a guitar and in "Lorenzo's Oil"
The Adagio has a far more interesting and valuable place in American History.
The "Adagio for Strings" was written by American composer Samuel Barber when he was in his 20s. With a tense melodic line and taut harmonies, the composition is considered by many to be the most popular of all 20th-century orchestral works.
"You never are in any doubt about what this piece is about, says music historian Barbara Heyman. "There's a kind of sadness and poetry about it. It has a melodic gesture that reaches an arch, like a big sigh... and then exhales and fades off into nothingness."
Barber's "Adagio for Strings" originated as the second movement in his String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11, composed in 1936. In the original it follows a violently contrasting first movement, and is succeeded by a brief reprise of this music.
In January 1938 Barber sent the piece to Arturo Toscanini. The conductor returned the score without comment, and Barber was annoyed and avoided the conductor. Subsequently Toscanini sent word through a friend that he was planning to perform the piece and had returned it simply because he had already memorized it.[1] It was reported that Toscanini did not look at the music again until the day before the premiere. [2] The work was given its first performance in a radio broadcast by Arturo Toscanini with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on November 5, 1938 in New York.
In 2004, Barber's masterpiece was voted the "saddest classical" work ever by listeners of the BBC's Today program, ahead of "Dido's Lament" from Dido and Æneas by Henry Purcell, the "Adagietto" from Gustav Mahler's 5th symphony, Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss and Gloomy Sunday as sung by Billie Holiday.[4]
The recording of the 1938 world premiere, with Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Orchestra, was selected in 2005 for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry at the United States Library of Congress.[3]
The composer also transcribed the piece in 1967 for eight-part choir, as a setting of the Agnus Dei ("Lamb of God"). It has since become renowned as a masterwork of the modern choral repertory.
The piece was played at the funerals of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Prince Rainier of Monaco. It was also performed in 2001 at a ceremony at the World Trade Center to commemorate the thousands lost there in the September 11, 2001 attacks. Adagio for Strings was also part of the program of the Last Night of the Proms that year, in contrast to the event's usual atmosphere.
In fact the piece has become an “unofficial” American anthem of mourning, played after the deaths of Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy. When Roosevelt died the Adagio was played within minutes of the announcement on New York radios stations, repeatedly. I would have no difficulty with the Congress, having addressed all other matters of import, declaring the Adagio the “Official” American anthem of mourning.
Several modern artists have arranged the work for the Electronic dance music genre, such as William Orbit, Ferry Corsten and Tiësto.
The version of the piece performed by London Symphony Orchestra was, for a time, the highest selling classical piece on iTunes.[6] There are truly competent recordings available today, and don’t get me wrong; “competent” does not infer either “common place or mediocre”, rather there are definitive recorded interpretation that will addressed later in this writing. I own most recordings and there is not a poor one in the collection. Some are just special because of interpretation or their placement in history.
The Toscanini recording has the benefit of being the first historically, first in two ways. It was the American debut of the Adagio with the under the legendary Toscanini baton and the first American composition conducted by the Italian maestro.
Celebrated for its fragile simplicity and emotion, the "Adagio" might have seemed an odd match for Toscanini, known for his power and drama as a conductor. But according to Mortimer Frank, author of Arturo Toscanini: The NBC Years, despite the director's force and intensity, he was capable of "wonderful delicacy and tenderness and gentleness."
Toscanni could wring the last blood of blood out of a composition or coax the last drop of gentle nectar from a score, but as with all men and women of legend writers, historians tend to emphasize the dramatic or aggressive side of historical figures. And conductors had long been depicted as demonic dictatorial beings, not always without more than a grain of truth; there have been few that have been truly one dimensional however.
The year 1938 was a time of tumult. America was still recovering from the Depression and Hitler's Germany was pushing the world towards war. Toscanini himself had only recently settled in America after fleeing fascist Italy. The importance of the broadcast performance during this time is noted by Joe Horowitz, author of Understanding Toscanini: "Toscanini's concerts in New York... once he was so closely identified with the opposition to Mussolini, the opposition to Hitler -- these were the peak public performances in the history of classical music in America. I don't think any concerts before or since excited such an intense emotional response, and I don't think any concerts before or since evoked such an intense sense of moral mission."
The mastery that I find in 'Adagio for Strings' is a perfect song. It's such a beautiful musical contradiction. It at once seems simple, blunt, with the almost pop music sensibility of repeated themes, and yet it's sharp and cuts deep, it seems profoundly insightful; it expresses the heights and depths of the human experience in just over 7 minutes. Unfortunately it's become a bit of a cliché. People should be forced to listen to the piece outside of the context of a movie." -- Listener Greg Carl
From NPR (Listen) though two addition presentations of the Adagio will appear here in audio and visual format; the Toscanini performance is available in historically preserved audio form.
All Things Considered, November 4, 2006 - In November 1938, conductor Arturo Toscanini led the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the premiere performance of Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings." The concert was broadcast from New York to a radio audience of millions across America. Toscanini and the NBC Symphony gave a flawless rendition and we have Barber’s evaluation to that effect.
The Adagio evokes a wide palette of musical emotions. It can be rendered with the most somber solemnity and sorrowful manner we are most accustomed to when it is associated with such occasions as funeral processions, or it can be rendered, conducted , faithfully in that regard while reaching to the ragged edge of anguish as is accomplished brilliantly below. Listen carefully.
Leonard Slatkin Conducts the BBC Orchestra... Leonard Slatkin Conducts the BBC Orchestra on September 15 2001 in honor of those who lost their lives a few days prior. Visuals from BBC's 'Last Night of the Proms' and ABC's 'Report from ground zero'. AUVIEX edit.
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I find nothing wrong in the earlier London Symphony recording. It is faithful; solemn where it needs to be and sinewy and strong at the high point, but my all around everyday favorite, the recording against which all other is compared the Leonard Bernstein Los Angeles Philharmonic combination. I have several copies but the Deutsche Grammophon album “Shadows and Light” is always on this desk. It is cut number one.
Barber Adagio for strings Scenery:Scotland Conductor:Leonard Bernstein
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The sound track from Platoon cannot be overlooked as it too has established its place in history and was applied convincingly in making a majot point in that historic film.
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And finally the Samuel Barber: Agnus Dei (Adagio for strings) Version
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Thank You to all who raised the questions, indicated your interest and curiosity. This was not an expected outcome of today’s earlier post which was more akin to an old stereo test recording called “Music To Care hell Out Of Your Neighbors”.
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