aworks :: "new" american classical music

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /warhorse orgy/

 

Notable orgies on WHRB this month (all times PST PDT):

• Sunday, May 6 12pm: The Warhorse Orgy e.g. Adagio for Strings
• Tuesday, May 8 2am thru Friday: The Sergei Prokofiev Orgy
• Sunday May 13 930am: Musikpolitik Orgy e.g. On the Transmigration of Souls and Fanfare for the Common Man
• Tuesday May 15 2am The Modern Epic Orgy i.e. epic poetry
• Wednesday May 16 2am The Jazz Piano Orgy
• Friday May 18 9am The Ton Koopman Orgy
• Saturday May 19 10am From Here to Timbuktu: The Mali Orgy
• Monday May 21 7am An Ethiopian Groove Orgy

And the Harvard Commencement broadcast on Thursday, May 24th at 6am. 

• Photo credit Wikipedia
• Pawn orgy (karolpingvinsplayground.wordpress.com)
• Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /adapted from the string quartet/ (rgable.typepad.com)
• aworks unordered list :: getclicky searches edition (rgable.typepad.com)

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /adapted from the string quartet/

(Wikipedia)

James Oestreich reviews the New Century Chamber Orchestra in NY:

Arriving next at Barber’s Adagio for Strings (adapted from the String Quartet), they appeared to have settled into smoother phrasing and a more homogeneous sonority.

My first thought was that the parenthetical explanation was superfluous but maybe it's relevant, given NCCO is a string ensemble, not a full orchestra nor a quartet.

Related articles

• Music Review: Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and New Century Chamber Orchestra - Review (nytimes.com)
• November 5 - Barber's Adagio (drelectromix.wordpress.com)
• New Century Chamber Orchestra with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg @ Massry Center, 11/12/11 (timesunion.com)

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /fresh sounding/

Image via Wikipedia

I have to say that the Oregon Mandolin Orchestra's version of Barber's Adagio is fresh sounding for such an over-played work, if a bit undramatic.

Note: this work is available on emusic but not rdio, youtube, nor spotify.

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catalog depth test: emusic 1, rdio 0, youtube 0, spotify 0

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /is it live or is it memorex?/

The Guardian has an article about the Vienna Symphonic Library, comprising 1.5 million sound samples from 100 instruments. A synthetic version of Adagio was compared with a traditional recording and quickly found wanting:

'It's the texture. The attack of the bow on the string. The computer version is almost too perfect. It's impressive, but you don't have the right sort of phrasing.'

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /friday random ten/

Friday's random ten, inspired by fredosphere's timelessness posts (and just where do I find a working 8-track player, anyway?):

• Adagio for Strings. Charlie Haden and the Liberation Music Orchestra. I had high hopes for this jazz arrangement but despite the additional color, it doesn't begin to have the impact of a good quartet version.
• Adagio for Strings. Tiesto. youtube via aworks.
• Adagio for Strings. Isaac Stern.
• Adagio for Strings. Families of Freedom Fund.
• Adagio for Strings. Leonard Bernstein.
• Adagio for Strings. aworks. This is an old aworks Adagio post digitized by talkr (talkr quit working for me soon after. ???). mp3
• Adagio for Strings. William Orbit.
• String Quartet Op. 11. Emerson String Quartet.
• Adagio for Strings. Platoon soundtrack.
• Adagio for Strings. Exile on Classical Street. Michael Stipe's selection for a classical CD assembled by rockers.

And it's not that I dislike the piece; it's just over-exposure to what may be American classical music's most "beautiful" composition.

napster: 97 adagio for string tracks charlie haden wikipedia: michael stipe charlie haden charlie sheen 8-track cartridge swicki: frequent barber-related search query youtube: alternate tiesto adagio video

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /the elephant man/

David Lynch raves about Adagio for Strings among other topics:

It washed over me. It was just so unbelievable beautiful and so perfect for the ending of the film...How and when the clarinet emerges, what it does and how it dies away. Cinema is like that. And time can be your friend, but it can also be your enemy. And if things aren’t working and you are with the audience, you die the death.

napster: adagio, andre previn conducting not quite 50 adagio tracks

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /d.j. tiesto youtube video/

I think this is exactly how Samuel Barber envisioned his music being performed...

other barber adagio videos: william orbit ferry corsten bus uncle
other composer adagio videos: albinoni albinioni bach beethoven beethoven handel rodrigo
aworks: adagio for strings samuel barber
wikipedia: tempo samuel barber adagio for strings

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /organ music/

In an interview, Erik Wm. Suter thinks Adagio and Sousa work well on the organ, but he wouldn't want try the music of Miles Davis.

Suter is the organist at the Washington National Cathedral.

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /itunes #1/

via del.icio.us/thestandingroom, the Guardian reports the number one classical music download  on iTunes is Barber's Adagio for Strings. I suppose I'm not surprised as maybe 5% of all aworks traffic is Adagio-related. This includes people searching for:

• the identity of the music from Platoon
• the identify of the music played at FDR's funeral
• a free MP3 of the work, either a traditional version or the numerous dance remixes (try this search)
• a musical analysis of the work
• the reason why Barber wrote it
• how it is "arch" form
• whether or not Philip Glass wrote it

Speaking of Adagio's use in Platoon, Barbara Heyman says that Barber's partner Gian Carlo Menotti "believes Barber would not have been amused by its success in this film and might not have even allowed the Adagio to be used." She also quotes the composer Virgil Thomson as saying that it's about "a detailed love scene."

Daniel Felsenfeld writes of Adagio:

To quickly take in the piece's structure is to peek behind the curtain at the composer's technique; the work makes three attempts to the top before finally pushing through the ceiling.

Wikipedia has the definitive list of its use in popular culture including Adagio being featured in, egad, South Park.

aworks on adagio: cumulative as in "24" suitable for marching band? at a cure concert flute version at emusic troy cady essay blog quotes midi version the word whisperer more quotes beethoven and barber in warwickshire acj's peace at the Olympics similar to autechre which sheen? as a memorial

Adagio for Strings (1936). Samuel Barber /24/

In a review of 24 from this week's New Yorker, Nancy Franklin comments:

(By the way, judging by the soundtrack of "24," when a nuclear bomb does go off the accompanying music will sound something like Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. Good because Pachelbel's Canon is so 1990).

Yikes.