Adagio for Strings

History

Barber's Adagio for Strings began as the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11, composed in 1936 while he was spending a summer in Europe with his partner Gian Carlo Menotti, an Italian composer who was a fellow student at the Curtis Institute of Music. The inspiration came from Virgil's Georgics. In the quartet the Adagio follows a violently contrasting first movement (Molto allegro e appassionato) and is succeeded by music which opens with a brief reprise of the music from the first movement (marked Molto allegro (come prima) – Presto).

In January 1938 Barber sent an orchestrated version of the Adagio for Strings to Arturo Toscanini. The conductor returned the score without comment, which annoyed Barber. Toscanini then sent word through Menotti that he was planning to perform the piece and had returned it simply because he had already memorized it. It was reported that Toscanini did not look at the music again until the day before the premiere. On November 5, 1938, a selected audience was invited to Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center to watch Toscanini conduct the first performance, a radio broadcast which was recorded for posterity. Initially, the critical reception was positive, as seen in the review by The New York Times's Olin Downes. Downes praised the piece, but he was reproached by other critics who claimed that he overrated the piece.

Toscanini took Adagio for Strings on tour to South America and Europe, the first performances of the work on both continents. Over April 16–19, 1942, the piece had public performances by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy at Carnegie Hall. Like the original 1938 performance, these were broadcast on radio and recorded.

Adagio for Strings begins softly with a B-flat played by the first violins. The lower strings come in two beats after the violins, which, as Johanna Keller from The New York Times put it, creates "an uneasy, shifting suspension as the melody begins a stepwise motion, like the hesitant climbing of stairs." NPR Music said that "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." Thomas Larson remarked that the piece "evokes a deep sadness in those who hear it". Many recordings of the piece have a duration of about eight minutes. The work is largely in the key of B-flat minor.

The Adagio is an example of arch form and builds on a melody that first ascends, then descends in stepwise fashion. Barber subtly manipulates the basic pulse throughout the work by constantly changing time signatures including 4/2, 5/2, 6/2, and 3/2. After four climactic chords and a long pause, the piece presents the opening theme again, and fades away on an unresolved dominant chord.

Music critic Olin Downes wrote that the piece is very simple at climaxes, but reasoned that the simple chords create significance for the piece. Downes went on to say: "That is because we have here honest music, by an honest musician, not striving for pretentious effect, not behaving as a writer would who, having a clear, short, popular word handy for his purpose, got the dictionary and fished out a long one."

Critical reception

Alexander J. Morin, author of Classical Music: The Listener's Companion, said that the piece was "full of pathos and cathartic passion" and that it "rarely leaves a dry eye." In 1938, Olin Downes noted that with the piece, Barber "achieved something as perfect in mass and detail as his craftsmanship permits."

In an edition of A conductor's analysis of selected works, John William Mueller devoted over 20 pages to Adagio for Strings. Wayne Clifford Wentzel, author of Samuel Barber: A Research and Information Guide (Composer Resource Manuals), said that it was a piece usually selected for a closing act because it was moderately famous. Roy Brewer, writer for AllMusic, stated that it was one of the most recognizable pieces of American concert music.

Arrangements

G. Schirmer has published several alternate arrangements for Adagio for Strings. They include:

Strickland, while assistant organist at St Bartholomew's Church in New York, had been impressed by Toscanini's recording of the work and had submitted his own arrangement for organ to Schirmers. After making contact with Barber at a musical soirée in 1939, his transcription received a lukewarm response from the composer. Strickland, subsequently appointed wartime director of music at Fort Myer in Virginia, became a champion of Barber's new compositions and remained in correspondence. In 1945 Barber wrote to Strickland, expressing his dissatisfaction with previously proposed organ arrangements; he encouraged him to discuss and prepare his own version for publication.

Schirmers have had several organ arrangements submitted of my "Adagio for Strings" and many inquiries as to whether it exists for organ. I have always turned them down, as, I know little about the organ, I am sure your arrangement would be best. Have you got the one you did before, if not, would you be willing to make it anew? If so, will you ever be in N.Y. on leave, so I could discuss it with you and hear it? If it is done at all, I should like it done as well as possible, and this by you. They would pay you a flat fee for the arrangement, although I don't suppose it will be very much. However, that is their affair. Let me know what you think about it.

Strickland, having kept the piece, sent his organ arrangement to G. Schirmer, who eventually published it in 1949.

Legacy

The recording of the world premiere in 1938, with Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra, was selected in 2005 for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry at the United States Library of Congress. Since the 1938 recording, the Adagio for Strings has frequently been heard throughout the world, and was one of the few American pieces to be played in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The Adagio for Strings has been performed on many public occasions, especially during times of mourning. It was:

Adagio for Strings is the final song on the 2010 Peter, Paul and Mary compilation album Peter Paul and Mary, With Symphony Orchestra. Mary Travers had requested that Adagio for Strings be played at her memorial service.

The Adagio for Strings was one of John F. Kennedy's favorite pieces of music. Jackie Kennedy arranged a concert the Monday after his death with the National Symphony Orchestra and they played to an empty hall. The concert went out on radio. Barber knew about these memorial occasions. He did a radio interview about it with WQXR and said, "They always play that piece. I wish they'd play some of my other pieces."

In 2004, listeners of the BBC's Today program voted Adagio for Strings the "saddest classical" work ever, ahead of "Dido's Lament" from Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell, the Adagietto from Gustav Mahler's 5th symphony, Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss, and Gloomy Sunday as sung by Billie Holiday.

In 2006 a recorded performance by the London Symphony Orchestra was the highest-selling classical piece on iTunes.

The musicologist Bill McGlaughlin compares its role in American music to the role that Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations: Variation IX "Nimrod" holds for the British.

Film/TV and video game soundtracks

Adagio for Strings can be heard on many film and game soundtracks:

Adaptations

Barber's choral setting, Agnus Dei, can be heard in the soundtrack to the PC video game Homeworld, released in 1999.

The work is extremely popular in the electronic dance music genre, notably in trance. Artists who have covered it include William Orbit, Ferry Corsten, Armin van Buuren, Tiësto, Mark Sixma, Bastille and Arnej.

eRa included this song in their album Classics.