For all the hoopla over National Public Radio – whose affiliates have mostly converted their classical music programming to an all-news-all-the-time format – gone are the days when a commercial AM radio station had its own resident symphony orchestra, much less one with the world’s foremost maestro conducting a weekly broadcast. But in 1937, NBC inaugurated its live orchestral series under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. Musically conservative in taste, Toscanini, nevertheless, was eager to include in the series suitably lyrical works by American composers. Samuel Barber submitted for Toscanini’s consideration both the First Essay for Orchestra and the Adagio for Strings, an orchestral transcription of the Adagio movement from his String Quartet in B minor. 

Not always a paragon of tact, Toscanini sent back both scores without comment, infuriating the composer. Barber profoundly revered the conductor and had endeavored to compose something worthy of him only to receive a snub. In actuality, Toscanini, whose poor eyesight made it impossible to read a score from the podium, had kept the scores just long enough to commit them to memory intending, as he told the composer’s friend Gian Carlo Menotti, to perform both works on the air. He premiered both on November 5, 1938.

The neo-romantic Adagio was an instant success and has remained Barber’s most popular work. A finely spun cantilena, its emotional power lies in the almost imperceptible gradual buildup of tension by the repetition and elaboration of the stepwise theme in different registers and instrument combinations. At the powerful climax there is a short pause after which the theme is restated in its original form and then winds down peacefully.

Program notes by:
Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn
Wordpros@mindspring.com
www.wordprosmusic.com