The reprise of the opening music at the end is a daring stroke-Arnold’s ‘ignorant armies clash by night’ would seem to demand more violent expression, but Barber stresses the indifference of nature in the face of human doubt. The central move to a hymn-like D major brings no relaxation the timbres of the string quartet create a strongly plangent emotional effect, most of all at the tragic return to D minor and the climactic appeal ‘Ah, love, let us be true / To one another!’. But the pitiless processes of the tides causes the emotion to darken, and the music responds with denser, more painful harmonies. Barber’s setting begins as an atmospheric evocation of the calm sea seen at night in an austere D minor. The sea’s ebb-tide, as seen from the beach, is the controlling metaphor: it stands for the retreating ‘sea of faith’ in whose place mere Nature can offer no comfort, only a confirmation of the human predicament. The poem depicts human misery as grounded in the loss of religious faith, isolating each human being from his or her fellows. Clearly the exalted pessimism of Arnold’s vision struck a resonant chord with Barber. While he sometimes dismissed his youthful works, Barber retained a special affection for Dover Beach Op 3 nearly fifty years after he first composed it, he remarked on the maturity of his setting of Matthew Arnold’s text and the timelessness of the poem, saying that the emotions evoked by both words and music seemed contemporary. Finley is a wonderfully persuasive advocate for all these songs, and shows that the best of them rank among the greatest of the 20th century’ (The Guardian) Barber, a singer with a fine baritone voice, was in some demand as a recitalist, a singularly unusual role for a composer and he made the first recording of Dover Beach. The Mélodies Passagères, composed in the early 1950s for Pierre Bernac and Francis Poulenc, are a homage to French song three other settings of James Joyce and some of Barber's songs to American texts are also included. Samuel Barber Dover Beach Op3 (1931) Dover Beach was written when Barber was a twenty one year old student at the Curtis Institute and represents the first of his extended pieces for voice and ensemble. Barber's gifts for elegant, melodic writing and his own early experiences as a singer (he once contemplated a career as a baritone) made him a natural songwriter, and two of the works here-the 10 settings of medieval Irish texts that make up his Hermit Songs Op 29, and the magically rapt version of Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach-are among his finest achievements in any genre. Samuel Barber's particularly personal brand of romanticism seems so natural and unforced, it's unnecessary to attach the prefix 'neo-' to it. 7 December 2021.‘Baritone Gerald Finley and pianist Julius Drake follow their outstanding disc of songs by Charles Ives with a collection devoted to a very different American composer. The program includes the Violin Sonata 'Dover Beach' for string quartet and baritone 'Hermit Songs' (Library of Congress commission) 'Summer Music' for woodwind quintet and, the Sonata in E-flat minor, Op. "Barber, Samuel." Discography of American Historical Recordings. videorecording videorecording 88 min Young artists from one of the nations top conservatories celebrate the centennial of Samuel Barber. In Discography of American Historical Recordings. "Barber, Samuel," accessed December 7, 2021. Roles Represented in DAHR: composer, baritone vocal Recordings CompanyĬontralto vocal solo, with string quartetĭiscography of American Historical Recordings, s.v.
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He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music twice: for his opera Vanessa (1956–57) and for the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1962). His Adagio for Strings (1936) has earned a permanent place in the concert repertory of orchestras. He is one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century music critic Donal Henahan stated, "Probably no other American composer has ever enjoyed such early, such persistent and such long-lasting acclaim."
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Samuel Osmond Barber II (Ma– January 23, 1981) was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music.