Capsule Reviews
Barber and Picasso
I enjoy reading about twentieth-century musicians, artists, and writers and about the times in which they lived and worked. Recently I read a couple of fine books about two of them.
I had always been aware of Samuel Barber, but I wouldn’t have put him on a short list of the greatest American composers, a list that, for me, really contained just three names: Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, and Charles Ives. (Songwriters and lyricists warrant their own list, as do Broadway and film composers.)
After reading Samuel Barber: His Life and Legacy, by Howard Pollack, I would now add Barber to the list.
This big fat book is well-written but not beautifully done in the way you’d describe, for example, a Robert Caro biography. However, it was exhaustively researched, and the sheer quality and quantity of information about this fascinating man and his times made it a satisfying read.
Barber lived in an era when composers worldwide, including the United States, confused innovation with quality. Melody? Harmony? Those had been done. Atonal music was new and therefore better. A generation of concertgoers was subjected to works that, in truth, had been written for a handful of colleagues and academics.
Barber, composing at that same time, swam against the current. Aside from the occasional experiment, he wrote melodic, tonal music, such as his most famous work, Adagio for Strings, and a personal favorite of mine, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 for voice and orchestra, with luminous text by James Agee.
I look forward to rediscovering the music of one of our greatest composers.
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