Samuel Barber
Samuel Barber | |
---|---|
Born | March 9, 1910 |
Died | January 23, 1981 | (aged 70)
Occupations |
|
Works | List of compositions |
Partner | Gian Carlo Menotti |
Awards | Pulitzer Prize |
Signature | |
Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist,
Barber was adept at both instrumental and vocal music. His works became successful on the international stage and many of his compositions enjoyed rapid adoption into the classical performance canon. In particular, his Adagio for Strings (1936) has earned a permanent place in the orchestral concert repertory, as has that work's adaptation for chorus, Agnus Dei (1967). He received the Pulitzer Prize for Music twice: for his opera Vanessa (1956–57), and for the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1962). Also widely performed is his Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (1947), a setting for soprano and orchestra of a prose text by James Agee. At the time of Barber's death, nearly all of his compositions had been recorded.[2] Many of his compositions were commissioned or first performed by such noted groups and artists as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, Vladimir Horowitz, Eleanor Steber, Raya Garbousova, John Browning, Leontyne Price, Pierre Bernac, Francis Poulenc, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.[2]
While Barber composed a significant body of purely instrumental music, two-thirds of his compositional output was art songs for voice and piano, choral music, and songs for voice and orchestra. Some of his most frequently performed songs include both the solo voice and choral versions of
Barber was in a relationship with the composer Gian Carlo Menotti for more than 40 years. They lived at Capricorn, a house just north of New York City, where they frequently hosted parties with academic and music luminaries. Menotti was Barber's librettist for two of his three operas. When the relationship ended in 1970, they remained close friends until Barber's death from cancer in 1981.
Biography
Childhood (1910–1923)
Barber was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, the son of Marguerite McLeod (née Beatty) and Samuel Le Roy Barber.[4] He was born into a comfortable, educated, social, and distinguished American family. His father was a physician; his mother was a pianist of English-Scottish-Irish descent whose family had lived in the United States since the time of the American Revolutionary War.[5] His maternal aunt, Louise Homer, was a leading contralto at the Metropolitan Opera; his uncle, Sidney Homer, was a composer of American art songs. Louise Homer is known to have influenced Barber's interest in voice. Through his aunt, Barber was introduced to many great singers and songs. Sidney Homer mentored Barber for more than 25 years, and profoundly influenced his compositional aesthetics.[5]
At a very early age, Barber became profoundly interested in music, and it was apparent that he had great musical talent and ability. He began studying the piano at the age of six and at age seven composed his first work, Sadness, a 23-measure solo piano piece in C minor.[2] Despite Barber's interest in music, his family wanted him to become a typical extroverted, athletic American boy. This meant, in particular, they encouraged his playing football. However, Barber was in no way a typical boy, and at the age of nine he wrote to his mother:[6]
Dear Mother: I have written this to tell you my worrying secret. Now don't cry when you read it because it is neither yours nor my fault. I suppose I will have to tell it now without any nonsense. To begin with I was not meant to be an athlet [sic]. I was meant to be a composer, and will be I'm sure. I'll ask you one more thing.—Don't ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football.—Please—Sometimes I've been worrying about this so much that it makes me mad (not very).[7]
At the age of 10, Barber wrote his first operetta, The Rose Tree, to a libretto by the family's cook.[5] At the age of 12, he became an organist at a local church.[2]
Education and early career (1924–1941)
At the age of 14, Barber entered the youth artist program at the
From his early adulthood, Barber wrote a flurry of successful compositions, launching him into the spotlight of the classical music world. According to Walter Simmons, Barber's earlier compositions contain certain characteristics that directly relate to the "childhood" period of his composition, extending to 1942. The use of tonal harmony, unresolved dissonance, moderate chromaticism, and largely diatonic, lyrical melodies are some of the defining features of this period in his compositional career.[10] At the age of 18, he won the Joseph H. Bearns Prize from Columbia University for his violin sonata (now lost or destroyed by the composer).[2] He won the Bearns Prize a second time for his first large-scale orchestral work, an overture to The School for Scandal, which was composed in 1931 when he was 21 years old.[5] It premiered successfully two years later in a performance given by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of conductor Alexander Smallens.[2]
While a student at Curtis, Barber also pursued other music development opportunities as well as personal interests through travels in Europe; mainly in the summer months when school was not in session but also sometimes for longer periods. His first European trip began in the summer of 1928 in which he visited Paris, Brittany, and Italy with cellist and composer David Freed.[11] He continued to travel in Europe in the fall of 1928 without Freed to other European cities in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria; during which time he first visited the city of Vienna which would later become an important city in his musical development. During this first stay in Vienna in 1928 he formed a friendship with composer George Antheil.[12]
Barber returned to Italy in the summer of 1929 using funds he received upon winning the Bearns Prize; this time with Menotti as his travel companion. He returned to Paris in the summer of 1930, and in the summers of 1931 and 1933 both Barber and Menotti studied composition with
After graduating from Curtis in the spring of 1934, Barber pursued further studies in conducting and singing with John Braun in Vienna in the summers of 1935 and 1936 through the aid of a Pulitzer traveling scholarship.[5][2] He soon after was awarded the Rome Prize which enabled him to pursue further studies at the American Academy in Rome from 1935–1937.[5] He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1946 and also studied conducting privately with George Szell.[2][5]
In his early career Barber had a brief career as a professional baritone, performing on the NBC Music Guild concert series and earning a weekly contract on NBC radio in 1935. Musicologist Barbara Heyman wrote that Barber's recording of his own setting of Arnold's Dover Beach was hailed as having "singular charm and beauty, intelligently sung by a naturally beautiful voice".[3] First-hand experience as a singer and an intuitive empathy with the voice would find expression in the large legacy of songs that occupy some two-thirds of his output.[5]
Barber's first orchestral work to receive international attention was his Symphony in One Movement which he wrote while studying composition in Rome. The work was premiered by the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome under the baton of Bernardino Molinari in December 1936, and was soon after programmed by symphony orchestras in New York City and Cleveland. The work was the first symphonic composition created by an American to appear at the Salzburg Festival, where it was performed in 1937.[5]
In 1938, when Barber was 28, his Adagio for Strings was performed by the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Arturo Toscanini, along with his first Essay for Orchestra. The Adagio had been arranged from the slow movement of Barber's String Quartet, Op. 11. Toscanini had rarely performed music by American composers before (an exception was Howard Hanson's Symphony No. 2, which he conducted in 1933).[15] At the end of the first rehearsal of the piece, Toscanini remarked, "Semplice e bella" (simple and beautiful). From 1939 to 1942, Barber taught composition at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.[5]
During this time, there was a major turning point in Barber’s music. In 1940, he wrote a choral piece using Stephen Spender’s war poem, "A Stopwatch and an Ordnance Map". From this point forward, World War II caused his second phase of composing. This new phase was greatly influenced by other composers such as Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartók, and genres such as jazz. His new era of composition would feature a greater involvement in American literature and culture.[16]
Mid career (1942–1966)
In 1942, after the US entered World War II, Barber joined the Army Air Corps where he remained in service through 1945. Barber's first work after his military induction was the "Commando March" (1943), which was his only work for a concert band. It was premièred by the Army Air Forces Technical Training Command Band in Atlantic City on May 23, 1943. Sergei Koussevitzky commissioned an orchestral version for performance by the Boston Symphony that same year.[17]
While in the Army Air Corps Barber was commissioned to write other several works for the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), including his Cello Concerto for Raya Garbousova and his Second Symphony, a work he later suppressed.[5][18] Composed in 1943, the symphony was originally titled Symphony Dedicated to the Air Forces and was premiered in early 1944 by Serge Koussevitzky and the BSO. Barber revised the symphony in 1947 and it was subsequently published by G. Schirmer in 1950[19] and recorded the following year by the New Symphony Orchestra of London, conducted by Barber himself.[18] According to some sources, Barber destroyed the score in 1964.[20] Hans Heinsheimer was an eyewitness, and reported that he accompanied Barber to the publisher's office where they collected all the music from the library, and Barber "tore up all these beautifully and expensively copied materials with his own hands".[21] Doubt has been cast on this story, however, on grounds that Heinsheimer, as an executive at G. Schirmer, would have been unlikely to have allowed Barber into the Schirmer offices to watch him rip apart the music that his company had invested money in publishing.[22] The score was later reconstructed from the instrumental parts,[23] and released in a Vox Box "Stradivari Classics" recording by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Schenck in 1988.[24]
In 1943, Barber and Menotti purchased 'Capricorn', a house north of Manhattan in suburban Mount Kisco, New York. The home served as their artistic retreat up until 1972, and it was at this house that Barber had his most productive years as a composer during the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s.[25][5] Here he wrote ballet suite Medea (1946) for Martha Graham and the symphonic work Knoxville: Summer of 1915 for soprano and orchestra for opera singer Eleanor Steber who premiered the work with the BSO in 1948. In 1946 he was selected by the United States Department of State to be a member of the American delegation to the first Prague Spring International Music Festival where his music was showcased alongside other prominent American composers such as Leonard Bernstein.[5] In 1949 he achieved a major critical success with his Piano Sonata which was premiered by Vladimir Horowitz and commissioned by Irving Berlin and Richard Rodgers to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the League of Composers. Popularized in concerts internationally by Horowitz and other prominent pianists, the work earned an enduring place in the performance canon.[5]
In the 1950s Barber was engaged to conduct his own works with several symphony orchestras internationally for performances and recordings, including the BSO, the
In 1958 Barber won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his first opera Vanessa which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in January 1958 with a cast that included opera stars Eleanor Steber, Rosalind Elias, Regina Resnik, Nicolai Gedda, and Giorgio Tozzi. The Met took the production to the Salzburg Festival later that year, becoming the first American opera to be performed at that festival.[5] Menotti wrote the libretto for both Vanessa, and Barber's second opera A Hand of Bridge. This latter work premiered at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy in 1959 with a cast that included Patricia Neway and William Lewis.[5]
In 1962 Barber became the first American composer to attend the biennial
Later years (1966–1981)
After the harsh rejection of his third opera
Barber was hospitalized on and off between 1978 and 1981 while undergoing treatment for cancer.[5] He died of that disease on January 23, 1981, at his 907 Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan at the age of 70.[30] The funeral was held at the First Presbyterian Church of West Chester three days later[2] and he was buried in the Oaklands Cemetery there.[31] His final composition, Canzone for oboe and string orchestra (1981), was published after his death. Initially intended to be a fully developed oboe concerto, Barber only completed the second movement of that work.[5]
Achievements and awards
At the time of Barber's death in 1981, Pulitzer Prize winning music critic Donal Henahan wrote in The New York Times about Barber that "probably no other American composer has ever enjoyed such early, such persistent and such long-lasting acclaim".[2]
Barber received numerous awards and prizes, including the Rome Prize, two Pulitzer Prizes, the Henry Hadley Medal (1958), and the Gold Medal for Music at the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1976).[32] He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and, as a Fellow, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1961.[33]
Barber was awarded the
In addition to composing, Barber was active in organizations that sought to help musicians and promote music. He was president of the International Music Council of
Music
Orchestral
Through the success of his Overture to The School for Scandal (1931), Music for a Scene from Shelley (1933), .
Among his works are four concertos, one each for violin (1939), cello (1945) and piano (1962), and the neoclassical Capricorn Concerto for flute, oboe, trumpet and string orchestra (1944). He also wrote a concertante work for organ and orchestra entitled Toccata Festiva (1960).
Barber's final opus was the Canzonetta for oboe and string orchestra (1977–78), Op. 48, originally intended as the second movement of an oboe concerto.[5]
Piano
Barber's most important and most played works for the piano include his Excursions, Op. 20, which emulate four styles of classic American idioms, including the boogie-woogie and blues, and the Piano Sonata in E-flat minor, Op. 26. The Nocturne (Homage to John Field), Op. 33, is another respected piece which he composed for the instrument.
Opera
Menotti supplied the libretto for Barber's opera Vanessa.[38] (Menotti also contributed the libretto for Barber's chamber opera A Hand of Bridge.) In 1956, using his vocal training, Barber played and sang the score of Vanessa for the Metropolitan Opera's General Manager, Rudolf Bing, who accepted the work. It premiered in January 1958. Vanessa won the 1958 Pulitzer Prize and gained acclaim as the first American grand opera.
Barber's Antony and Cleopatra was commissioned for the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, and premiered at the opening of Opera House on September 16, 1966. The elaborate production, designed by Franco Zeffirelli, was plagued with technical disasters; it also overwhelmed and obscured Barber's music, which most critics derided as uncharacteristically weak and unoriginal. The critical rejection of music that Barber considered to be among his best sent him into a deep depression. In recent years, a revised version of Antony and Cleopatra, for which Menotti provided collaborative assistance, has enjoyed some success.[25][39]
Violin
In 1939 Philadelphia industrialist Samuel Simeon Fels commissioned Barber to write a violin concerto for Fels's ward, Iso Briselli, a 1934 graduate from the Curtis Institute of Music (as Barber was).[40] The Barber biographies written by Nathan Broder (1954) and Barbara B. Heyman (1992) discuss the genesis of the concerto during the period of the violin concerto's commission and subsequent year leading up to the first performance. Heyman interviewed Briselli and others familiar with the history for her book. In late 2010, previously unpublished letters written by Fels, Barber, and Albert Meiff (Briselli's violin coach in that period), from the Samuel Simeon Fels Papers archived at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, became available to the public.[41]
Notable compositions
- Dover Beach (medium voice and string quartet) (Op. 3, 1931)
- The School for Scandal (overture) (Op. 5, 1931)
- Cello Sonata (Op. 6, 1932)
- Music for a Scene from Shelley (Op. 7, 1933)
- (First) Symphony in One Movement (Op. 9, 1936)
- Adagio for Strings (1936 arr. of second movement of the String Quartet, Op. 11, 1936)
- Essay for Orchestra (Op. 12, 1938)
- Violin Concerto (Op. 14, 1939)
- Reincarnations for mixed chorus, (Op. 16, 1939–1940); words by Antoine Ó Raifteiri in translation by James Stephens
- Second Essay for Orchestra (Op. 17, 1942)
- Excursions (Op. 20, 1942–44)
- Capricorn Concerto (Op. 21, 1944)
- Cello Concerto (Op. 22, 1945)
- Medea (ballet) (Op. 23, 1946)
- Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (soprano and orchestra) (Op. 24, 1948)
- Sonata for Piano (Op. 26, 1949)
- Hermit Songs (Op. 29, 1953)
- Prayers of Kierkegaard (soprano, choir and orchestra) (Op. 30, 1954)
- Summer Music (wind quintet) (Op. 31, 1956)
- Vanessa (opera) (Op. 32, 1957)
- Nocturne (Homage to John Field) (piano) (Op. 33, 1959)
- A Hand of Bridge (chamber opera) (Op. 35, 1959)
- Toccata Festiva (organ and orchestra) (Op. 36, 1960)
- Piano Concerto (Op. 38, 1962)
- Antony and Cleopatra(Op. 40, opera, 1966, rev. 1974)
Notes
- ^ Heyman 2001: "One of the most honoured and most frequently performed American composers in Europe and the Americas during the mid-20th century, Barber pursued, throughout his career, a path marked by a vocally inspired lyricism and a commitment to the tonal language and many of the forms of late 19th-century music. Almost all of his published works – including at least one composition in nearly every genre – entered the repertory soon after he wrote them and many continue to be widely performed today."
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Donal Henahan (January 24, 1981). "Samuel Barber, Composer, Dead: Twice Winner of Pulitzer Prize". The New York Times.
- ^ a b Available in a multi-disk CD set "Samuel Barber Historical Recordings 1935-1960", Disk 8 Track 1.
- ^ Broder 1985, pp. 9–10.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak Heyman 2001.
- ISBN 9781587653452.
- ^ Heyman 1992, p. 7.
- ^ Michelle Vincent (Spring 2005). "Samuel Barber". Pennsylvania Center for the Book. Pennsylvania State University.
- ^ Ted Libby (March 5, 2010). "The Life and Music of Samuel Barber". NPR.
- ^ Simmons 2004, p. 219.
- ^ Heyman 1992, p. 58.
- ^ a b c Pollack 2023, Ch 4: "Other Formative Experiences"
- ^ a b Heyman 1992, p. 110
- ^ Broder 1985, p. 26.
- ^ Heyman 1992, p. 164.
- JSTOR 742563.
- ^ United States Marine Band Program Notes, Wednesday, July 15, 2015
- ^ a b Samuel Barber: Symphony no. 2, op. 19, LP recording, 10-inch, London LPS 334 (New York and London: London Records, 1951); reissued as Samuel Barber: Symphony no. 2, op. 19; Medea Ballet Suite, op. 23, LP recording, 12-inch, London LL 1328 (London: London Records, 1956); reissued in this same pairing on 12-inch LP recording, Everest SDBR 3282 (Los Angeles: Everest Records, 1970); reissued as Samuel Barber: Symphony no. 2, op. 19; Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra, op. 22; Media, op. 23: Orchestral Suite from the Music to the Ballet Cave of the Heart, with Zara Nelsova (cello), CD recording, Pearl GEM 1051 (Wadhurst, E. Sussex, England: Pearl, 2001).
- ^ Samuel Barber, Second Symphony, op. 19, G. Schirmer's Edition of Study Scores of Orchestral Works & Chamber Music, no. 55 (New York: G. Schirmer, 1950; reprinted 1990).
- ^ Schenck 1988.
- ^ Heinsheimer 1968.
- ^ Wright 2010, p. 95.
- ^ Vox Records liner notes[full citation needed]
- ^ ISBN 9780199744640.
- ^ a b c d e Smith 2002, citing Heyman 1992 as a general reference.
- JSTOR 1214445.
- ^ Giordano, Diego. "Samuel Barber: Kierkegaard, From a Musical Point of View". In Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources (Series), Jon Stewart (ed.), Vol. 12, Kierkegaard's Influence on Literature, Criticism, and Art, Tome IV, The Anglophone World
- ISBN 9781611688542.
- ^ David Patrick Stearns (May 4, 2017). "Documentary sheds new light on fascinating West Chester composer Samuel Barber". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
- S2CID 143645870.
- ^ Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3rd ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 2498). McFarland & Company. Kindle Edition.
- ^ Rodger, Liam; Bakewell, Joan (2011). "Barber, Samuel". Credo Reference. Retrieved May 20, 2018.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved May 17, 2011.
- ^ "Sonny Rollins Named 2010 Edward MacDowell Medalist – JazzTimes". JazzTimes. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 23, 2017.
- ^ "MacDowell Medal winners 1960–2011". The Daily Telegraph. London. April 13, 2011. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2017.
- ^ "Barber, Samuel". Classical Music Walk of Fame. Retrieved April 30, 2024.
- ^ "Samuel Barber – Long Biography – Music Sales Classical". www.musicsalesclassical.com. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 23, 2017.
- ISBN 978-0-300-10440-0.
- ^ Heyman 1992, pp. 455–458, citing Henahan 1975 and Valente 1983.
- ^ "Curtis Institute of Music : Full Alumni Listing". Archived from the original on December 10, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2014.
- ^ Mostovoy 2010.
Sources
- Broder, Nathan (1985) [1954]. Samuel Barber. Westport, Connecticut: ISBN 978-0-313-24984-6, reprint of Schirmer, New York (1954).
- Heinsheimer, Hans W. (1968). "The Composing Composer: Samuel Barber". ASCAP Today (2): 4–7.
- Henahan, Donal (February 8, 1975). "Juilliard Rehabilitating Antony and Cleopatra". The New York Times.
- Heyman, Barbara B. (1992). Samuel Barber: The Composer and His Music. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509058-1.
- Heyman, Barbara B. (2001). "Barber, Samuel (Osmond)". In Stanley Sadie; John Tyrrell (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan.
- Mostovoy, Marc (2010). "Iso Briselli, Samuel Barber, and the Violin Concerto, Op. 14: Facts and Fiction". Iso Briselli. Retrieved December 6, 2010.
- ISBN 978-0-252-04490-8.
- Schenck, Andrew. 1988. Booklet notes. Samuel Barber: Symphony No. 2; Music for a Scene from Shelley; Overture to The School for Scandal; First Essay; Adagio for Strings. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Schenck, cond. CD recording. Stradivari Classics SCD 8012. Hackensack, New Jersey: Special Music Company.
- Simmons, Walter (2004). Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-5728-6.
- Smith, Patricia Juliana (2002). "Barber, Samuel (1910–1981)". In Claude J. Summers (ed.). glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. Chicago: glbtq, Inc. Archived from the original on April 11, 2005.
- Valente, Erasmo (June 27, 1983). "A Spoleto rinasce Cleopatra". l'Unità (in Italian).
- Wright, Jeffrey Marsh II (2010). The Enlisted Composer: Samuel Barber's Career 1942–1945 (PhD diss). University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Further reading
- Brévignon, Pierre. 2011. Samuel Barber, un nostalgique entre deux mondes. Paris: Editions Hermann. ISBN 978-2-7056-8186-9.
- ISBN 978-1-900541-00-8(pbk).
- Lee, Douglas A. 2002. Masterworks of 20th-Century Music: The Modern Repertory Of The Symphony Orchestra. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-93846-5
- Staubrand, Jens. 2009. Kierkegaard International Bibliography: Music Works and Plays: Appendix: About The Seducers Diary and the Illness and Death of Søren Kierkegaard, new edition. Copenhagen: Eget Forlag; i kommission hos Forlaget Underskoven. ISBN 978-87-92259-91-2.
- Wade, Graham. 2003. A Concise Guide to Understanding Music. Pacific, Missouri: Mel Bay Publications. ISBN 978-0-7866-4981-5.
- ISBN 0-19-869164-5
External links
Biographies
- Homepage of Capricorn, the French Samuel Barber Society. (In English and French)
- Article "Barber, A Composer Between Two Worlds", by the Capricorn Society on American Center France
- "Samuel Barber (biography, works, resources)" (in French and English). IRCAM.
- Samuel Barber at Find a Grave
Audio and video
- Barber Violin Concerto (video) on (2006)
- Art of the States: Samuel Barber
- In the BBC Discovering Music: Listening Library
- Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty – feature-length documentary film about the composer by H. Paul Moon
- Samuel Barber (in German) from the archive of the Österreichische Mediathek
Archival collections
- Samuel Barber collection, 1852–2000 at the Library of Congress
- Samuel Barber digital collection at the Library of Congress