Originally appeared March 6, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.
IF WE HAD TO NAME one American composer whose music is sure to be played for the next hundred or two hundred years, it would have to be Samuel Barber (1910-1981), whose 92 birthday anniversary we celebrate on March 9.
From his earliest compositions Barber showed that he was able to write in his own recognizable melodic style while preserving a linkage to European romantic musical tradition. Without using jazz or folk tunes or experimental techniques, he managed to sound identifiably American simply by being himself.
"My aim," he once explained, "is to write good music that will be comprehensible to as many people as possible, instead of music heard only by small, snobbish musical societies in the large cities."
Even people who care little about classical music have probably heard Barber's most famous piece, the seven minute "Adagio for Strings." It was used in the film "Platoon," in a perfume advertisement and even as part of a rock album. There are almost 40 performances on CD.
When he finished the original string quartet version in 1936, Barber realized that he had written something remarkable. He wrote to a friend, "I have just finished the slow movement of my quartet today--it is a knockout!"
Because of its unhurried pace, the Adagio is sometimes played at memorial services. But it is far from a lament. It is abstract music, a careful interweaving of melodic lines that slowly rise to a high pitch of emotional intensity followed by a return to calm.
Composer and critic Virgil Thomson once insisted, "I think it's a love scene ... a detailed love scene ... a smooth, successful love scene. Not a dramatic one, but a very satisfactory one." Thomson may be on to something.
Barber did not publish much music, fewer than 50 works. He was a painstaking craftsman, waiting for inspiration, prone to making repeated revisions. But a higher proportion of his works probably deserve to be called "great" than is true for almost any other modern composer.
He wrote one piano concerto, one violin concerto, one cello concerto, one piano sonata, two short ballets, two symphonies, two major operas. Many have become part of the standard repertoire and most deserve to be recognized as among the best works in the last century.
Barber is particularly interesting, of course, because of his long relationship with fellow composer Gian-Carlo Menotti after they met in 1928 as students at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music.
People who say a composer's sexuality has no influence on his music are wrong. By conditioning whom he has relationships and friendships with, a composer's sexual orientation can influence the kinds of pieces he writes, the texts he sets to music, the instrumentation, even the musical style itself.
Menotti and Barber interacted constantly, encouraging each other, offering suggestions on each other's work. Barber dedicated his first symphony (1936) to Menotti. Menotti wrote one opera text for Barber and helped revise another. The undulating beginning of Barber's "Knoxville" (1948) is reminiscent of Menotti, as is some of his ballet "Medea" (1947). Or vice versa.
Then too, the beautiful slow movement of Barber's piano concerto (1962) started as a piece for a young flute player Barber had a brief affair and long friendship with. Another man Barber had a relationship with introduced him to Pablo Neruda's love poems which Barber used for his orchestral song-cycle "The Lovers" (1971).
There is no space to discuss many of Barber's works. But three deserve mention.
Symphony No. 1 (1936), a condensed, 20-minute symphony, is Barber's first obvious great work and one of the first important American symphonies. It has enough flash and dissonance to be recognizably modern, but is romantic at its core, especially in the beautiful, sad-sounding theme in the slow section.
The Violin Concerto (1939) is Barber's most lyrical, romantic work, full of warm melodies and rich harmonies. By contrast, and this became typical for Barber, the last section is a tumultuous, fiendishly difficult "perpetual motion," a challenge for violinists but exciting to listen to.
Although the concerto fell into disfavor during the 1960s, and '70s when many academic composers and critics promoted intentionally dissonant styles, the "New Romanticism" of the 1980s and '90s led to its revival and there are now at least ten recordings.
The Piano Concerto (1962) is certainly the best American piano concerto, and probably the best in America or Europe in the latter half of the 20th century. Many critics think it is Barber's finest, most important single work. It is hard to disagree.
Listening again to these and other Barber pieces before writing this column reminded me once again what a great composer Barber was and how lucky we are that he refused to be unduly influenced by transitory fads in contemporary music.
Late in life, Barber commented that some composers "feel they must have a new style every year. This, in my case, would be hopeless. ... I just go on doing, as they say, 'my thing.' I believe this takes a certain courage."