Adagio for Strings, Op. 11

• Adagio for Strings (1936) op. 11 is Barber’s arrangement of the 2^nd movement of his string quartet.¹
  • In 1967 he also arranged this work for chorus to text of the Agnus Dei.²
• This piece helped solidify Barber’s international reputation when it was performed and broadcast live in November 1938 by Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra.³
• Toscanini’s 1938 concerts in NYC (including his performance of Adagio for Strings) generated great attention because Toscanini well known for having fled Mussolini’s Italy and Toscanini’s performances seen as statement of opposition to Fascism. This context imbued Adagio with extra pathos for listeners.⁴

• Famous cultural appearances of this piece:
  • It has been played at the funerals of famous Americans, notably Leonard Bernstein.⁵
  • It was broadcast at the announcements of deaths of Franklin D. Roosevelt & John F. Kennedy.⁶
  • It was performed frequently following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.⁷
  • It has appeared in many films including The Elephant Man (1980) and Plattoon (1986)⁸

“It’s a precise piece, emotionally. It begins…it makes its point and then goes away. There’s a kind of sadness and poetry about it. It has a melodic gesture that reaches an arc, like a sigh and an exhale.”

Barber biographer Barbara B. Heyman on Barber’s Adagio for Strings⁹

“Semplice e bella” (“Simple and beautiful”)

Attributed to Toscanini, at the end of the first rehearsal of the Adagio for Strings ¹⁰

“It starts from incredible sadness, builds to an incredible climax of intensity, and thenfinally reaches a kind of serene acceptance, which is completely appropriate for those occasions”

Pianist/commentator Rob Kapilow on the elegiac nature of Adagio for Strings, and its use in funerals.¹¹

1. Barbara B. Heyman, “Barber, Samuel,” Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press (2001), accessed July 18, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000001994.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. “The Impact of Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings,’ National Public Radio (November 6, 2006), accessed July 18, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2006/11/04/6427815/the-impact-of-barbers-adagio-for-strings.
5. “The Impact of Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings,’ National Public Radio (November 6, 2006), accessed July 18, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2006/11/04/6427815/the-impact-of-barbers-adagio-for-strings.
6. Daniel Felsenfeld, Britten and Barber: Their Lives and Their Music (Pompton Plains, NJ: Amadeus Press, 2005) 143.
7. Luke Howard, “The Popular Reception of Samuel Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings,’” American Music 25 no. 1 (2007), 50–80, JSTOR, accessed July 18, 2019, www.jstor.org/stable/40071643.
8. Cary O’Dell, “Adagio for Strings: Arturo Toscanini, Conductor; NBC Symphony (November 5. 1938)” Library of Congress (2005), accessed July 18, 2019, http://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/ADAGIO%20FOR%20STRINGS.pdf.
9. Cary O’Dell, “Adagio for Strings: Arturo Toscanini, Conductor; NBC Symphony (November 5. 1938)” Library of Congress (2005), accessed July 18, 2019, http://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/ADAGIO%20FOR%20STRINGS.pdf.
10. Ibid.
11. “Barber’s ‘Adagio’: Naked Expression of Emotion,” National Public Radio (March 9, 2010), accessed July 18, 2019, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124459453.