Samuel BARBER (1910-1981)
Historic Première Recordings
Dover Beach
Samuel Barber (baritone) with the Curtis String Quartet
(recorded Camden, New Jersey, 13/5/35)
Overture: The School for
Scandal
The Janssen Symphony of Los Angeles conducted by Werner Janssen
(recorded in Hollywood 11/3/42)
Adagio for Strings (from String
Quartet Op. 11)
The NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini
(recorded Carnegie Hall, New York 19/3/42)
Capricorn Concerto
Julius Baker (flute); Harry Freistadt (trumpet); Martin Miller (oboe)
The Saidenberg Little Symphony conducted by Daniel Saidenberg
(recorded in New York in 1946)
Essay No. 1
Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ornmandy
(recorded 20/10/40 at the Philadelphia Academy of Music)
Sonata for Cello and Piano
Raya Garbousova (cello) Erich Itor Khan (piano)
(recorded in New York in 1947)
Symphony No. 1 (In One Movement)
The Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York conducted by Bruno Walter
(recorded 23/1/45, Carnegie Hall, New York)
PEARL GEMM 0049
[79:37]
Crotchet
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Note: This recording is not a new release It was published in
1999.
Samuel Barber was born in Pennsylvania on 9th March 1910 (As an
aside, another key figure in the development of American music, Aaron Copland
was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1900). Samuel Barber was the only son of
a prosperous doctor and community leader. His early influences were his aunt
and uncle, Louise and Sidney Homer; she was a famous contralto and he was
a composer of songs. Samuel's affinity with the voice showed itself not only
in a large output of vocal music but also in his fine baritone voice. From
1924 to 1932 he studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia taking lessons
in voice and composition. For a while he contemplated a career as a singer
and made a famous and moving recording (included here) of one of his earliest
successes, his setting of Matthew Arnold's poem Dover
Beach for voice and string quartet written in 1931. Similar forces
had been used, for example, by Respighi for Il tramonto, a setting
of Shelley's The Sunset; and by Vaughan Williams for On Wenlock
Edge. On this album we hear Barber, himself, singing the opening of his
own recording made in 1935. Dover Beach expresses the darker side
of Barber's personality, his self-doubts. Even though the recording is none
too clear it is possible to perceive the splendid musical imagery of the
opening "The sea is calm tonight" where the voice and violin float languorously
over a shimmering slow tremolo suggesting gently lapping waves. Interestingly,
Ralph Vaughan Williams attempted several times to set Arnold's bleak poem
to music. He complimented Barber saying "he had really got it!"
In his student days, and earlier, Barber conceived a great passion for European
and especially English literature. He was inspired to write a concert overture
The School for Scandal, a sparkling evocation
of the spirit rather than the action of Sheridan's comedy. Barber evokes
the mischief, comic intrigues and wagging tongues in its vivacious shifting
rhythms. Especially noteworthy is the lovely pastoral theme first announced
on the oboe and then taken up by the strings. The work won the Bearns Prize
of Columbia University in 1933. Commenting on this first recording by Werner
Janssen, Barber said it (lacked something in drive (strangely), in lightness
and elegance (justified even though the sound is rather muffled even for
1942).
After his graduation, Barber won a succession of prizes and awards that helped
him to travel in Europe where he forged important links with Italy. He was
particularly interested in Italian early music - Monteverdi, Gesualdo, Cavalli
and Gabrielli etc. His travelling companion and lifelong friend was fellow
student and composer, Gian Carlo Menotti.
The Cello Sonata, Op. 6, the last of Barber's student works, was begun
in Italy in the summer of 1932 and completed in America under the guidance
of Orlando Cole, the cellist of the Curtis String Quartet. It has a Brahmsian
cast but with contemporary harmonies and complex shifting rhythms. Critics
differed: some praised its poetic beauty; others founded it lacked cohesion
(the central movement does shift disconcertingly between deeply-felt melancholy
lyricism and skittish playfulness). But it is full-blooded and in the popular
Romantic-modern tradition; and it has proved popular with audiences.
Barber was really regarded as a right wing conservative composer and he looked
outward towards Europe and European art rather than inwards to his native
American culture - although there were exceptions. His Symphony No. 1
(In One Movement) was partly composed in a French Alpine village and
premiered in Rome - not too successfully - the Italians were dismayed by
its rather North European chilliness. It was much more successful in America
where it was first played in Cleveland and New York in the winter of 1937.
It was modelled on Sibelius's Seventh Symphony in that it is cast in one
continuous movement. Barber's First Symphony was revised in 1942 and championed
by Bruno Walter. His splendidly atmospheric and vital 1945 recording of the
revised Symphony is included. It followed Walter's premiere of it on 18th
February 1944. It was said then that Walter conducted it "superbly from memory
and con amore".
Arturo Toscanini was another maestro who championed Barber's music. Barber
wrote his Essay No. 1 for him in 1938. Barber was initially
upset when Toscanini returned the scores of the Essay and the Adagio
for Strings without comment, but the maestro broadcast both works over
NBC on 5th November on 5th November 1938. The vibrant
performance of the Essay, here is by Ormandy. The work is short yet
kaleidoscopic embracing sombre introspective sting passages, dancing scampering
woodwind episodes and heroic brass figures. Toscanini gives a moving performance
in the recording on this album of the Adagio for Strings -
probably Barber's best-known, best-loved piece. It has been used in films
and it served as memorial music for United States Presidents from Roosevelt
to Kennedy.
The Capricorn Concerto, of 1944, written while working in Daniel
Saidenberg's Music Department of the Office of war Information, takes its
name from the retreat/sanctuary/studio that Barber shared with Menotti on
Croton Lake, Mount Kisco, New York. It is a sort of concerto grosso for flute,
oboe, trumpet and strings - the same instrumentation as Bach's
Brandenburg Concerto No. 2. It marks a further development in Barber's
musical language -- he was striving for contemporary tonal effects. The rhythms
are vigorous, sometimes syncopated with frequent and sudden shifts. Some
resemblance to both Copland and Stravinsky has been noted. This recording
is by Saidenburg's Little Symphony.
A generously-filled and obligatory album for Barber enthusiasts - particularly
for the chance to hear Barber singing his own Dover Beach and the
Ormandy, Toscanini and Walter recordings are equally compelling.
Ian Lace
