"Adagio for Strings" for string ensemble, Op. 11a, by American composer Samuel Barber. (March 9, 1910 - January 23, 1981) (dedicated to his aunt and uncle, Louis and Sidney Homer -- year piece composed 1936)
Adagio for Strings is a work by Samuel Barber, arguably his most well known, arranged for string orchestra from the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11. Barber finished the arrangement in 1936, the same year that he wrote the quartet. It was performed for the first time in 1938, in a radio broadcast from a New York studio attended by an invited audience, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, who also took the piece on tour to Europe and South America. Its reception was generally positive, with Alexander J. Morin writing that Adagio for Strings is "full of pathos and cathartic passion" and that it "rarely leaves a dry eye." The music is the setting for Barber's 1967 choral arrangement of Agnus Dei. Adagio for Strings can be heard in many TV shows and movies.
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." Many recordings of the piece have a duration of about eight minutes.
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, 6/4, 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."
(Wikipedia)
Please take note that the audio AND the sheet music ARE NOT mine. Change the quality to 480p if the video is blurry.
Performance by: Los Angeles Symphonic Orchestra (?), conducted by Leonard Bernstein
(original audio: • Samuel Barber - Adagio... )