Barber in Rome (part 2)

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1936, just one day after the premiere of his Symphony No. 1, the young American composer Samuel Barber attended the first performance of his String Quartet No. 1. Both premieres took place in Rome, where Barber was enjoying the benefits of the Prix de Rome, which included a two-year residency at the American Academy in the “Eternal City.”

Barber found Europe a congenial place to compose, finding inspiration in both the art and the important musical personalities he encountered there. Even so, he found writing a string quartet hard going: “I have started a new quartet,” he writes in one letter, “but how difficult it is. It seems to me that because we have so assiduously forced our personalities on Music—on Music, who never asked for them!—that we have lost elegance, and if we cannot recapture elegance, the quartet form has escaped us forever.”

It’s perhaps debatable whether Barber recaptured “elegance” in his new quartet, but “eloquence” is another matter: The new quartet’s slow “adagio” was described as being “deeply felt and written with economy, resourcefulness and distinction” by one critic after a New York performance the following year. Barber later recast this movement for full string orchestra, and, as Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” it’s become one of the best-loved pieces of modern American music. During the Second World War, it was adopted as a kind of unofficial anthem of mourning, and was played for the funeral of America’s great wartime President, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Music Played in Today's Program

Samuel Barber (1910–1981) String Quartet Op. 11 Tokyo String Quartet RCA/BMG 61387

On This Day

Births

• 1873 - Belgian composer and organist Joseph Jongen, in Liège;

• 1929 - American composer Ron Nelson, in Joliet, Illinois;

Deaths

• 1788 - German composer Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, age 74, in Hamburg;

• 1861 - German opera composer Heinrich Marschner, age 66, in Hanover;

Premieres

• 1918 - Puccini: one-act opera trilogy "Il Trittico" ("Il Tabarro," "Suor Angelico," and "Gianni Schicchi") at the Metropolitan Opera in New York;

• 1924 - Respighi: tone poem, "The Pines of Rome," in Rome, at the Augusteo, Bernardo Molinari conducting;

• 1925 - Berg: opera, "Wozzeck," in Berlin, at the Staatsoper, with Erich Kleiber conducting;

• 1936 - Barber: String Quartet, Op. 11, at the Villa Aurelia in Rome (Italy), by the Pro Arte Quartet;

• 1969 - Ligeti: String Quartet No. 2, in Baden-Baden, Germany, by the LaSalle Quartet;

• 1975 - Ruth Crawford Seeger: Suite for Piano and Woodwind Quintet, in Cambridge, Mass.;

• 1983 - George Perle: Serenade No. 3 for Piano and Chamber Orchestra,in New York City, by Richard Goode and the Music Today Ensemble conducted by Gerard Schwarz;

• 1997 - Morten Lauridsen: “Ave Maria” for a cappella chorus, by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Paul Salamunovich conducting;

• 1997 - Joan Tower: "Rain Waves," at the Frick Museum in New York, by the Verdehr Trio;