Barber's Cello Concerto

Synopsis

In a 1964 essay, American composer Samuel Barber wrote, “I want my music to be of use to people, to please them, to enhance their lives … I do not write for posterity.” And in a 1979 interview, he said, “I write for the present, and I write for myself … I think that most music that is really good will be appreciated by the audience — ultimately.”

Barber was 35 when he composed his Cello Concerto in 1945, finishing the work around the same time he was discharged from the U.S. Army Air Corps. The concerto was written for cellist Raya Garbousova, who gave the premiere performance of the work with the Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitzky on today’s date in 1946.

The new concerto was warmly received in Boston, and even won an award from New York music critics. Oddly enough, soon after its premiere, Barber’s Cello Concerto was pretty much ignored for several decades, and to date has yet to catch on with performers or audiences to the same degree as his earlier Violin Concerto — another work that took quite a while to become popular.

Still, in recent years both performers and audiences seem more than willing to revisit all of Barber’s scores, including his Cello Concerto, and a major reappraisal of Barber seems well underway, and, to paraphrase the composer himself, we think most of Barber’s music that is really good will be appreciated by audiences — ultimately.

Music Played in Today's Program

Samuel Barber (1910-1981): Cello Concerto; Yo Yo Ma, cello; Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, conductor; CBS/Sony 44900

On This Day

Births

• 1784 - German composer, violinist and conductor Ludwig Spohr, in Brunswick

• 1869 - French composer Albert Roussel, in Tourcoing

• 1917 - American composer Richard Yardumian, in Philadelphia

Deaths

• 1946 - American composer Vincent Youmans, 47, in Denver

Premieres

• 1803 - Beethoven: oratorio Christus am Ölberg (Christ on the Mount of Olives), Piano Concerto No. 3 and Symphony No. 2 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, with composer conducting and as piano soloist

• 1874 - Jh. Strauss, Jr.: operetta Die Fledermaus (The Bat), in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien

• 1902 - Ravel: Jeux d’eau (Fountains) for piano, in Paris, by Ravel’s friend Ricardo Viñes

• 1914 - First concert performance of Stravinsky’s ballet score, The Rite of Spring, in Paris, conducted by Pierre Monteux (who also conducted the world premiere of the staged version of the ballet with Diaghilev's Ballet Russe on May 29, 1913)

• 1939 - Gretchaninoff: Symphony No. 5, by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting

• 1944 - Cage: The Perilous Night, for prepared piano, in New York

• 1946 - Barber: Cello Concerto, by the Boston Symphony with Serge Koussevitzky conducting and Raya Garbousova the soloist

• 1946 - Ives: Symphony No. 3, at the smaller concert room at Carnegie Hall by the Little Orchestra, conducted by Lou Harrison. This work was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music that year

• 1951 - Hindemith: Symphony for Concert Band, in Washington, D.C., with the composer conducting;

• 1958 - R. Strauss: Duet-Concertino for clarinet, bassoon and strings, by the Swiss Italian Radio

• 1980 - Christopher Rouse: Mitternachtslieder (Midnight Songs), for bass-baritone solo and ensemble, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, by the Contemporary Directions Ensemble conducted by Stephen Osmond, with vocal soloist Leslie Guinn

Others

• 1877 - First documented American performance of Handel’s Largo (from the opera Xerxes) as a concert piece (in the arrangement by Joseph Hellmesberger for solo violin and ensemble), at New York’s Steinway Hall, by the Theodore Thomas Orchestra, with Simon E. Jacobsohn the violin soloists.