The Saddest Music Ever Written

The Saddest Music Ever Written PDF Author: Thomas Larson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1605982008
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Get Book Here

Book Description
An exploration of the cultural impact of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, the Pieta of music, and its enigmatic composer. "Whenever the American dream suffers a catastrophic setback, Barber’s Adagio plays on the radio.” —Alex Ross, author of The Rest is Noise In the first book ever to explore Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, music and literary critic Thomas Larson tells the story of the prodigal composer and his seminal masterpiece: from its composition in 1936, when Barber was just twenty-six, to its orchestral premiere two years later, led by the great Arturo Toscanini, and its fascinating history as America’s secular hymn for grieving our dead. Older Americans know Adagio from the funerals and memorials for Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy, Albert Einstein, and Grace Kelly. Younger Americans recall the work as the antiwar theme of the movie Platoon. Still others treasure the piece in its choral version under the name Agnus Dei. More recently, mourners heard Adagio played as a memorial to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. Barber’s Adagio is truly the saddest music ever written, enrapturing listeners with its lyric beauty as few laments have. The Adagio’s sonorous intensity also speaks of the turbulent inner life of its composer, Samuel Barber (1910-1981), a melancholic who, in later years, descended into alcoholism and severe depression. Part biography, part cultural history, part memoir, The Saddest Music ever Written captures the deep emotion Barber’s great elegy has stirred throughout the world during its seventy-five-year history, becoming an icon of our national soul.

The Saddest Music Ever Written

The Saddest Music Ever Written PDF Author: Thomas Larson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1605982008
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Get Book Here

Book Description
An exploration of the cultural impact of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, the Pieta of music, and its enigmatic composer. "Whenever the American dream suffers a catastrophic setback, Barber’s Adagio plays on the radio.” —Alex Ross, author of The Rest is Noise In the first book ever to explore Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, music and literary critic Thomas Larson tells the story of the prodigal composer and his seminal masterpiece: from its composition in 1936, when Barber was just twenty-six, to its orchestral premiere two years later, led by the great Arturo Toscanini, and its fascinating history as America’s secular hymn for grieving our dead. Older Americans know Adagio from the funerals and memorials for Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy, Albert Einstein, and Grace Kelly. Younger Americans recall the work as the antiwar theme of the movie Platoon. Still others treasure the piece in its choral version under the name Agnus Dei. More recently, mourners heard Adagio played as a memorial to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. Barber’s Adagio is truly the saddest music ever written, enrapturing listeners with its lyric beauty as few laments have. The Adagio’s sonorous intensity also speaks of the turbulent inner life of its composer, Samuel Barber (1910-1981), a melancholic who, in later years, descended into alcoholism and severe depression. Part biography, part cultural history, part memoir, The Saddest Music ever Written captures the deep emotion Barber’s great elegy has stirred throughout the world during its seventy-five-year history, becoming an icon of our national soul.

The Adagio of Samuel Barber

The Adagio of Samuel Barber PDF Author: Wayne Clifford Wentzel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781881913627
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 644

Get Book Here

Book Description
It is probably safe to contend that the reception history of Adagio for Strings (1934) by American composer Samuel Barber (1910-1981) is unmatched. It has, of course, achieved canonical status in the three versions prepared by its composer--for string quartet, string orchestra, and mixed chorus. In addition, its broad appeal to classical music lovers as well as to members of the general public has resulted in an array of transcriptions and arrangements. But what becomes ultimately compelling is the spectrum of social contexts where this music is heard and been enthusiastically embraced: in the discotheque and on the modern dance stage, at the movie theater and on television, during memorial services and demonstrations of patriotism, at rock concerts and the circus, in therapy sessions and scientific research, at figure-skating competitions and other sporting events, at weddings and funerals, and on the Internet. In 2011 over 29,000 hits for Adagio for Strings could be found on YouTube alone. There are fascinating connections to poetry and fiction, paintings and sculpture, ring tones and crossword puzzles. Wayne Wentzel's study of this beloved work represents the most exhaustive consideration to date. He not only provides a well documented account of its birth and infancy but its adolescence--when it moved beyond the expected concert setting--and its maturity--when it became a pervasive feature of Western culture in both its cultivated and popular realms. Musical analysis and references to a host of testimonials and assessments are bolstered by discographical and bibliographical reports. Professor Wentzel concludes the volume with thoughtful speculation on the meaning of Barber's masterpiece and wrestles with inevitable and yet controversial questions: Is it American? Is it sad? Is it gay? And, after more that seventy-five years, is it trite?--Publisher description.

Adagio for string orchestra

Adagio for string orchestra PDF Author: Samuel Barber
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : String orchestra music
Languages : en
Pages : 20

Get Book Here

Book Description


String Quartet, Op. 11

String Quartet, Op. 11 PDF Author: Samuel Barber
Publisher: G Schirmer, Incorporated
ISBN: 9780793555604
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 20

Get Book Here

Book Description
Study Score

Sure on This Shining Night

Sure on This Shining Night PDF Author: Samuel Barber
Publisher: G Schirmer, Incorporated
ISBN: 9780634058103
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The classic artsong by Samuel Barber is now available in an easy choral edition. Ideal for developing ensembles in middle and high school. Available for: SATB and SA.

The rite of spring

The rite of spring PDF Author: Igor Stravinsky
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486411745
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Get Book Here

Book Description
With this brilliant and uncompromising work perhaps the most famous musical work of the twentieth century Stravinsky changed the course of modern music forever. Discarding conventional harmonies for bizarrely dissonant chords, and uniform metrics for harshly jarring beat patterns, he created a sensational theater piece that, at the work's 1931 premier, caused the music world's most talked-about riot. "Every law of musical syntax, every canon of harmony seems to have been violated, every limit of rhythmic perversity and eccentricity of orchestration exceeded in this tumultuous cataclysm of sound," says "Grove's"; "yet with all its deliberate crudity and violence the 'Rite' is a clearly planned and perfectly controlled and coordinated piece of music [that] has long been accepted universally as a masterpiece and is in the repertory of every large symphony orchestra." Reproduced here from an authoritative edition, the score is ideal for study in the classroom, at home, or in the concert hall. This affordable, durable, and portable volume will be the edition of choice for music students and music lovers alike."

Samuel Barber

Samuel Barber PDF Author: Barbara B. Heyman
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190863730
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 665

Get Book Here

Book Description
Samuel Barber (1910-1981) is one of the most admired and honored American composers of the twentieth century. An unabashed Romantic, largely independent of worldwide trends and the avant-garde, he infused his works with poetic lyricism and gave tonal language and forms new vitality. His rich legacy includes every genre, including the famous Adagio for Strings, Knoxville: Summer of 1915, three concertos, a plethora of songs, and two operas, the Pulitzer prize-winning Vanessa, and Antony and Cleopatra, the commissioned work that opened the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in 1966. Generously documented by letter, sketches, autograph manuscripts, and interviews with friends, colleagues, and performers with whom he worked, this ASCAP-Award winning book is still unquestionably the most authoritative biography on Barber, covering his entire career and interweaving the events of his life with his compositional process. This second edition benefits from many new discoveries, including a Violin Sonata recovered from an artist's estate, a diary Barber kept his seventeenth year, a trove of letters and manuscripts that were recovered from a suitcase found in a dumpster, documentation that dispels earlier myths about the composition of Barber's Violin Concerto, and research of scholars that was stimulated by Heyman's work. Barber's intimate relations are discussed when they bear on his creativity. A testament to the lasting significance of Romanticism, Samuel Barber stands as a model biography of an important musical figure.

The Violin Conspiracy

The Violin Conspiracy PDF Author: Brendan Slocumb
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 059331543X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK! • Ray McMillian is a Black classical musician on the rise—undeterred by the pressure and prejudice of the classical music world—when a shocking theft sends him on a desperate quest to recover his great-great-grandfather’s heirloom violin on the eve of the most prestigious musical competition in the world. “I loved The Violin Conspiracy for exactly the same reasons I loved The Queen’s Gambit: a surprising, beautifully rendered underdog hero I cared about deeply and a fascinating, cutthroat world I knew nothing about—in this case, classical music.” —Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant and Hour of the Witch Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. But Ray has a gift and a dream—he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music. When he discovers that his beat-up, family fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach, and together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition—the Olympics of classical music—the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place. Without it, Ray feels like he's lost a piece of himself. As the competition approaches, Ray must not only reclaim his precious violin, but prove to himself—and the world—that no matter the outcome, there has always been a truly great musician within him.

Solos for the Double-Bass Player

Solos for the Double-Bass Player PDF Author: Hal Leonard Corp.
Publisher: G. Schirmer, Incorporated
ISBN: 9781540028181
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 80

Get Book Here

Book Description
(String Solo). Contents: Bourre (Bach) * Grave (Abaco) * Concerto (Vivaldi) * Prelude and Allegro (d'Andrieu) * Sonata in C Minor (Handel) * Sonatina and Minuet (Beethoven) * Elegy and Andante (Bottesini) * Aria from Rigoletto (Verdi) * Adagio (Geissel) * Vocalise (Rachmaninoff) * Romance (Prokofiev) * Introduction and Tarentelle (Franchi) * Serenade (Beveridge) * Chaconne (Russell).

YEAR OF WONDER: Classical Music for Every Day

YEAR OF WONDER: Classical Music for Every Day PDF Author: Clemency Burton-Hill
Publisher: Headline Home
ISBN: 1472251830
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 448

Get Book Here

Book Description
As featured in the Telegraph and on Radio 4's Today programme. 'A magnificent treasury . . . a fascinating tour de force.' Observer 'Year of Wonder is an absolute treat - the most enlightening way to be guided through the year.' Eddie Redmayne Classical music for everyone - an inspirational piece of music for every day of the year, celebrating composers from the medieval era to the present day, written by award-winning violinist and BBC Radio 3 presenter Clemency Burton-Hill. Have you ever heard a piece of music so beautiful it stops you in your tracks? Or wanted to discover more about classical music but had no idea where to begin? Year of Wonder is a unique celebration of classical music by an author who wants to share its diverse wonders with others and to encourage a love for this genre in all readers, whether complete novices or lifetime enthusiasts. Clemency chooses one piece of music for each day of the year, with a short explanation about the composer to put it into context, and brings the music alive in a modern and playful way, while also extolling the positive mindfulness element of giving yourself some time every day to listen to something uplifting or beautiful. Thoughtfully curated and expertly researched, this is a book of classical music to keep you company: whoever you are, wherever you're from. 'The only requirements for enjoying classical music are open ears and an open mind.' Clemency Burton-Hill Playlists are available on most streaming music platforms including Apple Music.