Howard Harold Hanson was an American composer, conductor, educator, music theorist, and champion of American classical music. As director for 40 years of the Eastman School of Music, he built a high-quality school and provided opportunities for commissioning and performing American music. In 1944, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his Symphony No. 4, and received numerous other awards including the George Foster Peabody Award for Outstanding Entertainment in Music in 1946.
Adagio for Strings is a work by Samuel Barber, arguably his best known, arranged for string orchestra from the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11.
John Harris Harbison is an American composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works.
Gian Francesco Malipiero was an Italian composer, musicologist, music teacher and editor.
Vittorio Giannini was a neoromantic American composer of operas, songs, symphonies, and band works.
The Piano Concerto, Op. 38, by Samuel Barber was commissioned by the music publishing company G. Schirmer Inc. in honor of the centenary of their founding. The work's premiere was on September 24, 1962, in the opening festivities of Philharmonic Hall, now David Geffen Hall, the first hall built at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Manhattan, with John Browning as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf.
The Sonata for Violoncello and Piano, Opus 6, by Samuel Barber is a sonata for cello and piano. It is in the key of C minor.
Samuel Barber's Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra in A minor, Op. 22, completed on 27 November 1945, was the second of his three concertos. Barber was commissioned to write his cello concerto for Raya Garbousova, an expatriate Russian cellist, by Serge Koussevitzky on behalf of Garbusova and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Funds for the commission were supplied, however, by John Nicholas Brown, an amateur cellist and a trustee of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The score is dedicated to John and Anne Brown. Barber was still on active duty with the U. S. Army at the time he received the commission, and before beginning work asked Garbousova to play through her repertoire for him so that he could understand her particular performing style and the resources of the instrument. Garbousova premiered it with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Symphony Hall, Boston, on 5 April 1946, followed by New York performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on 12 and 13 April. The concerto won Barber the New York Music Critics' Circle Award in 1947.
Agnus Dei is a choral composition in one movement by Samuel Barber, his own arrangement of his Adagio for Strings (1936). In 1967, he set the Latin words of the liturgical Agnus Dei, a part of the Mass, for mixed chorus with optional organ or piano accompaniment. The music, in B-flat minor, has a duration of about eight minutes.
Antony and Cleopatra, Op. 40, is an opera in three acts by American composer Samuel Barber. The libretto was prepared by Franco Zeffirelli. It was based on the play Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare and made use of Shakespeare's language exclusively.
Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24, is a 1947 work for voice and orchestra by Samuel Barber, with text from a 1938 short prose piece by James Agee. The work was commissioned by soprano Eleanor Steber, who premiered it in 1948 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky. Although the piece is traditionally sung by a soprano, it may also be sung by tenor. The text is in the persona of a male child.
Capricorn Concerto, Op. 21, is a composition for flute, oboe, trumpet and strings by Samuel Barber, completed on September 8, 1944. A typical performance lasts approximately 14 minutes.
Samuel Barber's Symphony in One Movement, was completed 24 February 1936. It was premiered by Rome's Philharmonic Augusteo Orchestra under the baton of Bernardino Molinari 13 December 1936. It lasts around 21 minutes. The title given in the printed score of the work is First Symphony , and the uniform title is Symphonies, no. 1, op. 9.
Samuel Barber's Essay for Orchestra, Op. 12, completed in the first half of 1938, is an orchestral work in one movement. It was given its first performance by Arturo Toscanini with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on November 5, 1938 in New York in a radio broadcast concert in which the composer's Adagio for Strings saw its first performance. It lasts around 8 minutes and is dedicated "To C.E." The essay is now known as the First Essay for Orchestra after Barber wrote his Second Essay for Orchestra in 1942. He also wrote a Third Essay in 1978.
Summer Music, Op. 31, is a classical composition for wind quintet by Samuel Barber.
Excursions, Op. 20, is the first published solo piano piece by Samuel Barber. Barber himself explains:
These are ‘Excursions’ in small classical forms into regional American idioms. Their rhythmic characteristics, as well as their source in folk material and their scoring, reminiscent of local instruments are easily recognized.
Symphony No. 2, Op. 19 is a three-movement work for orchestra by American composer Samuel Barber. The 25-minute work was originally written in 1944. The work underwent many revisions and was finally published in 1950. The original manuscript was withdrawn by Barber in 1964. He ordered that G. Schirmer destroy the original manuscript and all scores in their library. The work remained unpublished for many years until 1984 when a set of parts turned up in a warehouse in England. Renewed interest in Barber's work led to a 1990 reprint of the 1950 edition.
The Curtis String Quartet was an American string quartet based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Third Essay, Op. 47, is a short orchestral work composed by Samuel Barber in 1978. The score is dedicated to Audrey Sheldon.
