Run time: Approx. 9 minutes

Based on the 1777 play of the same name by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Samuel Barber’s short concert overture, The School for Scandal, was the composer’s first ever foray into orchestral writing. It’s hard to imagine this being his first try when listening to the lush textures and deft orchestration. Critics at the time seemed to agree; the piece won him the Joseph H. Bearns Prize in Music in 1933.

The overture’s source material is a “comedy of manners”, an absurdist genre that holds a magnifying glass to the conventions of society, often focusing on personal relationships and invented hierarchies within groups. Many consider Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing or Jane Austin’s Emma to be classic examples, but modern comedies like Seinfeld, Mean Girls, or White Lotus also fall nicely into the genre.

Sheridan’s play revolves around the salons (the party, not the beauty parlor) of Lady Sneerwell—delightfully named—which serve as hub for all sorts of scandal and gossip. The wild plot includes all manner of trickery, escapades, and cases of mistaken identity, all very Shakespearean and everything you’d want from such a comedy.

Barber’s music doesn’t put forth any sort of narrative but rather exudes the spirit of the play. The opening theme flits around like gossip at a party, and the whole work is permeated by an air of mischief that undoubtedly inspired John Williams in his scoring of a Hogwarts student creeping around school or an eight-year-old laying traps for intruders.

A comedy of manners is, at its core, about expectations and the boxes people are expected to fit into. Barber’s overture feels a bit like a musical version of this, playing with the conventions of what an overture “ought” to do. He introduces dramatic themes, lyrical themes, and high contrast, but all with a raised eyebrow. The gestures are just a bit too obvious, the contrasts a bit too sharp, the lyrical themes too sweet, and the drama too, well, dramatic—exactly what absurdist comedy does.