Barber: Symphonies Nos. 1 And 2 / Essay For Orchestra No. 1

Description

Samuel Barber (1910-1981) Orchestral WorksVolume 1Samuel Barberquickly established his reputation as a composer in the romantic vein. A nativeof Westchester. Pennsylvania, he entered Philadelphia's Curtis Institute in1924, studying piano and composition. His setting of Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach won the praise of no less thanVaughan Williams, while his concert overture TheSchool for Scandal, a sparkling evocation of Sheridan's comedy, wonthe Beams Prize of Columbia University in 1933.Stabbing brasschords lead to a capricious string theme. A brief climax leads to a ruminativeoboe melody of great beauty, taken up by the strings. A bucolic clarinet motifincites greater animation, leading to the work's central climax; cascadingstrings and pounding brass presage the full-blown return of the main theme. Theoboe melody duly reappears, before a short fugato passage leads to a syncopatedcoda and final triumphant flourish.The overture'spremi?¿re by the Philadelphia Orchestra established Barber's nationalreputation, consolidated by the American launch of his Symphony No.1 by Arthur Rodzinsky and theCleveland Orchestra in 1937. Its succinct and cohesive one-movement designoffers full scope to Barber's expressively intense musical language.The openingsection, Allegro ma non troppo, featuresa Sibelian theme on strings, punctuated by brass. Cellos introduce a moreintrospective idea, repeated majestically on full brass, before the momentumspills over into the scherzo section,marked Allegro molto, whosestrong rhythmic impetus remains constant, climaxing in an abrasive rhythmicunison. Solo woodwind tail off into the Andantetranquillo section, a plaintive oboe melody over rapt strings.Violas and cellos develop the mood, before the theme reaches a climax in thewhole orchestra. A restrained yet purposeful idea now emerges, over which thefinal Con moto section grows in asteadily intensifying passacaglia Chiming brass usher in the final statementand, with its opening gesture recalled, the symphony comes full circle in apowerfully rhetorical coda.The symphony washeard at Salzburg in 1937, attracting the praise of no less than ArturoToscanini, who commissioned Barber to write for his newly?¡ formed NBC SymphonyOrchestra. The resulting Essay for Orchestra,the first of three such pieces, was first performed in New York in1938.The openingimmediately establishes a fatalistic mood, with richly-divided strings in agrave threnody, gradually becoming more impassioned. Brass cap a briefCopland-like climax, before a return to the pensive opening. The mood changesabruptly as an animated sequence begins on upper strings and woodwind.Considerable momentum is built up, leading to the climactic restatement of theopening theme, after which the texture thins out, leaving the violins aloft intheir questioning response.Barber'sconscription into the US Air Force in 1943 led directly to the commissioning ofhis Second Symphony, firstperformed the following year by Serge Koussevitzky and the