Samuel Barber's greatest hit was his Adagio for Strings. It began its life as the slow movement of a string quartet, heard on yesterday's show. Today, it occupies a special place in our consciousness. Used at state funerals and solemn occasions. When he wrote it, it's unlikely the 26-year-old Barber could have imagined it would take on such a life of its own. The Barber Adagio, in several different arrangements, today on PT.
Episode Playlist
Hour 1
Samuel Barber: Canzone for Flute and Piano, Op. 38a
Flutist Jeanne Baxtresser and pianist Israela Margalit
Hugo Wolf: Silent Love
Baritone Randall Scarlata and pianist Melvin Chen
Skaneateles Music Festival, Skaneateles, New York
Hugo Wolf: Italian Serenade
The Escher String Quartet
Music@Menlo, Palo Alto, California
Giovanni Gabrieli: Sonata XXI for Three Violins
Violinists Ingrid Matthews, Tekla Cunningham, and Carrie Krause with the Seattle Baroque Orchestra
Town Hall, Seattle
Frederic Chopin: Polonaise in A, Op. 40, No. 1
Pianist Garrick Ohlsson
Chopin's childhood home, Zelazowa Wola, Poland
Samuel Barber: Agnus Dei
Conspirare with conductor Craig Hella Johnson
Long Center for the Performing Arts, Austin, Texas
Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings
The New World Symphony with conductor Teddy Abrams
Lincoln Theater, Miami Beach, Florida
Hour 2
Jean Francaix: Second movement from Quintet for Woodwinds
The Dorian Quintet
Samuel Barber: Quintet from Vanessa, Act IV, Scene 2
Members of the Metropolitan Opera with conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos
Samuel Barber: Essay No. 2 for Orchestra, Op. 17
The Nashville Symphony Orchestra with conductor Leonard Slatkin
Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Nashville, Tennessee
Anton Reicha, Richard Rodney Bennett, George Perle, and Lee Hoiby: Anniversary Variations on a Theme of Reicha
The Dorian Wind Quintet
Maud Moon Weyerhaeuser Studio, St. Paul
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Serenade No. 6 in D for Orchestra, K. 239
The Netherlands Chamber Orchestra with violinist and conductor Gordan Nikolic
The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
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American Public Media’s Performance Today® is America’s most popular classical music radio program and a winner of the 2014 Gabriel Award for artistic achievement. The show is broadcast on hundreds of public radio stations across the country, including at 1 p.m. central weekdays on Minnesota Public Radio. More information about our stations can be found at APM Distribution.
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