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Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings (1936) is a slow, lyrical orchestral piece adapted from the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11. Premiering in 1938 under Arturo Toscanini with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, it features a simple, ascending melodic line that builds through intensifying harmonies and dynamics, peaking in anguished dissonance before resolving into quiet resignation.

In Western classical music, the “Adagio” represents the pinnacle of 20th-century American romanticism amid modernism’s rise. Barber rejected avant-garde experimentation (e.g., serialism by Schoenberg), drawing instead from Bach, Brahms, and Sibelius for tonal accessibility and emotional directness.

Michigan Central | Oakland University School of Music, Theater and Dance

Barber’s Other Works:

Evensong “Knoxville: Summer of 1915”