Essay No. 2, Op. 17
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
[1942]
Samuel Barber caught his big break in 1938, when Arturo Toscanini featured two works by the 28-year-old composer on a national radio broadcast. One was the Adagio for Strings, arranged from the slow movement of Barber’s First String Quartet; the other was a single-movement Essay for orchestra. Barber returned to the Essay genre twice more, using it to signify a compact work for orchestra, similar in scope to the written essay, and without the specific “storytelling” of a tone poem.
Barber composed the second Essay at the request of Bruno Walter, who conducted the premiere with the New York Philharmonic in 1942. “Although it has no program,” Barber later wrote of the work, “one perhaps hears that it was written in wartime.” There is a yearning tension in the opening themes that leap and hover over a bare drone, voiced by the plaintive sounds of solo flute (in its pale lower range), bass clarinet, and English horn. More overt shades of war come through in contrasting material powered by the full force of the timpani and brass section. Flowing through a “very fast and energetic” section that begins with woodwinds trading volleys in strict counterpoint, and continuing to the solemn chorale that builds to a saturated conclusion, Barber leans into certain leaps and recurring motives that unify and integrate his musical argument, in true essay fashion.
Piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, strings
Essay No. 2, Op. 17
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
Samuel Barber caught his big break in 1938, when Arturo Toscanini featured two works by the 28-year-old composer on a national radio broadcast. One was the Adagio for Strings, arranged from the slow movement of Barber’s First String Quartet; the other was a single-movement Essay for orchestra. Barber returned to the Essay genre twice more, using it to signify a compact work for orchestra, similar in scope to the written essay, and without the specific “storytelling” of a tone poem.
Barber composed the second Essay at the request of Bruno Walter, who conducted the premiere with the New York Philharmonic in 1942. “Although it has no program,” Barber later wrote of the work, “one perhaps hears that it was written in wartime.” There is a yearning tension in the opening themes that leap and hover over a bare drone, voiced by the plaintive sounds of solo flute (in its pale lower range), bass clarinet, and English horn. More overt shades of war come through in contrasting material powered by the full force of the timpani and brass section. Flowing through a “very fast and energetic” section that begins with woodwinds trading volleys in strict counterpoint, and continuing to the solemn chorale that builds to a saturated conclusion, Barber leans into certain leaps and recurring motives that unify and integrate his musical argument, in true essay fashion.
Piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, strings