Barber offers two for the price of one

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1938, two works by American composer Samuel Barber received their very high-profile premiere performances on a live, coast-to-coast broadcast by the NBC Symphony conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

Toscanini was impressed by Barber’s Symphony No. 1, which was performed at the 1937 Salzburg Festival, so Toscanini asked the 25-year old composer for a short orchestral piece, which Toscanini might perform with the newly-formed NBC Symphony.

Barber offered Toscanini his pick of two short pieces, and must have been surprised when he agreed to perform both of them: a newly-composed Essay for Orchestra and Barber’s arrangement for full string orchestra of a movement from a String Quartet he had written in 1936. Retitled Adagio for Strings, it was destined to become his best-known work.

Barber’s Adagio acquired a special resonance during World War Two, as a threnody for America’s war dead. It was also performed at the funeral of wartime President Franklin D. Roosevelt. More recently, Barber’s Adagio has been used to great effect in several successful films, including The Elephant Man and Platoon.

In a memorial tribute to Barber, American composer Ned Rorem wrote, “If Barber [25 years old when the Adagio was completed] later aimed higher, he never reached deeper into the heart.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Samuel Barber (1910-1981): First Essay for Orchestra; Detroit Symphony; Neeme Järvi, conductor; Chandos 9053

Samuel Barber (1910-1981): Adagio for Strings; Berlin Philharmonic; Semyon Bychkov, conductor; Philips 434 108

On This Day

Births

• 1494 - German poet and songwriter (“Master Singer”) Hans Sachs, in Nuremberg. He is the subject of German Romantic operas by Lortzig (Hans Sachs, 1840) and Wagner (Die Meistersinger, 1868).

• 1935 - British composer Nicholas Maw, in Grantham, Lincolnshire

Deaths

• 1942 - American songwriter and vaudevillian George M. Cohan, 64, in New York City. He won the Congressional Medal for his patriotic song, “Over There” (recorded by Enrico Caruso among others).

• 1956 - American jazz pianist and improviser Art Tatum, 47, in Los Angeles

Premieres

• 1724 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 115 (Mache Dich, mein Geist, Bereit) performed on the 22nd Sunday after Trinity as part of Bach’s second annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1724/25)

• 1846 - R. Schumann: Symphony No. 2, by Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn

• 1876 - Tchaikovsky: Marche Slav in Moscow (Gregorian date: Nov. 17)

• 1888 - Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5, in St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: Nov. 17)

• 1895 - R. Strauss: tone-poem Till Eulenspiegels Merry Pranks, in Cologne, conducted by Franz Wüllner;

• 1926 - de Falla: Harpsichord Concerto, with Wanda Landowska as soloist with the composer conducting

• 1927 - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 2 (To October), by the Leningrad Philharmonic and Academic Choir, Nikolai Malko conducting

• 1938 - Barber: Adagio for Strings and Essay for Orchestra No. 1, on a broadcast concert by the NBC Symphony, Arturo Toscanini conducting

• 1943 - Martinu: Concerto for Two Pianos, with Luboshutz and Nemenoff Duo, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting

• 1987 - Broadway premiere of Sondheim: musical Into the Woods

Others

• 1903 - First concert by a 50-member Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (the current Minnesota Orchestra), conducted by Emil Oberhoffer, with Metropolitan Opera soprano Marcella Sembrich as guest soloist

• 1955 - Karl Böhm conducts a performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio at the gala re-opening of Vienna Opera House (damaged by Allied bombs on March 12, 1945). During the rebuilding of the Opera House, performances had continued in two nearby Viennese halls: the Theatre and der Wien and the Volksoper.