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A comprehensive critique of this noted American composer's vocal, choral, chamber and solo, and stage works.
by Allan Kozinn
Samuel Barber at Spoleto, Italy, 1975.
This is the second and final installment of an interview conducted by the author--the last prior to Samuel Barber's death--and a detailed discography of his music. [part 1, here] A complete list of titles appears near the end of each section.
Vocal Works
NED ROREM HAS WRITTEN that Samuel Barber's early songs lack profile and a personal signature, that they "could have been written by anybody." For those who want to test that harsh judgment, there are but two collections avail able-by baritone Dale Moore (Cam bridge CRS 2715) and soprano Joan Patenaude (Musical Heritage MHS 3770), each including a few selections the other omits--and a stray "Sure on This Shining Night," Op. 13, No. 3 (1938), nicely sung by Bethany Beardslee (New World NW 243). For the most part, the Moore and Patenaude recordings sup port Rorem: The early songs are pleasant and skillfully written yet often bland.
An exception is the dramatic and intense set of Three Songs, Op. 10 (1936), from James Joyce's Chamber Music, best served by Patenaude. Barber returned to Joyce several times over the years: Patenaude includes the tango-like setting of "Solitary Hotel" (text from Ulysses) from Despite and Still, Op. 41 (1968-69); and the strange, colorful Nuvoletta, Op. 25 (1947), to a prose text from Finnegans Wake, has been recorded by Eleanor Steber (Desto DS 6411/2).
Another early work that cannot be said to lack character is Dover Beach, Op. 3 (1931). "I recorded Dover Beach," Barber recalled, "because there was some one at Victor who was interested and thought I had a good voice. Maybe they thought they were signing a potential John McCormack; well, they didn't get one. The difficulty with Dover Beach is that nobody is boss-not the singer, not the string quartet. It's chamber music.
And since we recorded it in the days of 78s, we had to go back to the beginning if somebody made a mistake. Not being a trained singer, I ran out of voice after the third time. When we finally got a good performance, the second violinist hit his music stand with his bow. So you hear this little 'ting.' like a triangle. But I wasn't about to sing the piece again, so that 'clink' is still on the record. Maybe it helps."
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[In the lists that follow, performing groups are indicated with appropriate combinations of P (Philharmonic), S (Symphony), C (Chamber). O (Orchestra), and Ch (Chorus). Where a set includes more than one disc, the number is given parenthetically following the record number. ]
Vocal Works
CAMBRIDGE CRS 2715-Three Songs. Op. 2: No. 1. "The Daisies"; No. 2, "With Rue My Heart Is Laden." Three Songs. Op. 10. Four Songs, Op. 13: No. 3. "Sure on This Shining Night"; No. 4, "Nocturne." "Monks and Raisins." Op. 18. No. 2. Moore. Tomfohrde. (Also works by other American composers.)
MUSICAL HERITAGE MHS 3770--"With Rue My Heart Is Laden," Op. 2. No. 2. Three Songs, Op. 10. Four Songs. Op. 13. De spite and Still, Op. 41: No. 4, "Solitary Hotel." Patenaude, Eliasen. (Also BERG: Seven Early Songs.)
NEW WORLD NW 243--"Sure on This Shining Night," Op. 13, No. 3. Beardslee, Helps. (Also works by other American composers, with other performers.) DEs-ro DS 6411/2 (2)-Nuvolerta, Op. 25. Steher. Biltcliffe. (Also works by other American composers, with other performers.)
CBS SPECIAL PRODUCTS
AKS 7131-Dover Beach, Op. 3. Fischer-Dieskau, Juilliard String Qt. (Also SCHOECK: Notturno, Op. 47.)
NEW WORLD NW 229- Dover Beach. Op. 3.
Barber, Curtis String Qt. Melodies passa geres, Op. 27. Bernac, Poulenc. (Also works by Rorem, with other performers.)
UNICORN UNS 256-Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24 (with McGurk); Music for a Scene from Shelley. Op. 7; Violin Concerto, Op. 14 (with Thomas). West Australian SO, Measham.
RCA I.SC 3062- Knoxville: Summer of 1915.
Op. 24; Antony and Cleopatra, Op. 40: Two Scenes. Price: New Philharmonia Orch, Schippers.
ODYSSEY 32 16 0230- Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Op. 24. Sieber: Dumbarton Oaks CO, Strickland. Hermit Songs, Op. 29. Price. Barber.
CBS MS 6512-Andromache's Farewell, Op. 39 (with Arroyo. Schippers). New York P. (Also SCHUMAN: Symphony No. 8, with Bernstein.)
Choral Works
VANGUARD VSD 2083-A Stopwatch and an Ordnance Map. Op. 15 (with Robert de Cormier Chorale): A Hand of Bridge. Op. 35 (with Neway. Alberts. Lewis. Macro): Serenade. Op. 1: Music for a Scene from Shelley. Op. 7: Essay Orchestra. No. 2. Op. 17. S of the Air. Golschmann.
Vox SVBX 5353 (3)--A Stopwatch and an Ordnance Map. Op. 15. Gregg Smith Singers. Smith. (Also works by other American composers.)
GOLDEN CREST CCS 8050-Reincarnations, Op. 16. C. W. Post C Singers. Dashnaw.
(Also works by other American composers.) ORION ORS 75205-Reincarnations. Op. 16.
King Chorale. King. (Also works by other American composers.) Lot is vii its Letters ... Kierkegaard.
Op. 30 (with Capone. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Ch). Louisville SO. Mester. (Also works by H. Johnson. Welcher.)
Chamber and Solo Works
PELICAN LP 2010-Cello Sonata. Op. 6. Solow. Dominguez. (Also works by Dello Joio, Kodaly.)
ORION ORS 7297--Cello Sonata. Op. 6 Greco. Zeven. (Also works by Bach: arranged by Siloti.)
MUSICAL HERITAGE MHS 3378-Cello Sonata. Op. 6. Clark. Schuldmann. (Also DIAMOND: Cello Sonata.) RCA ARL I-1599-String Quartet. Op. 11. Cleveland Qt. (Also works by Ives.)
ORION ORS 76237 I..veurvionc.- Op. 20. Bates. (Also works by MacDowell. Walker.)
COMPOSERS RECORDINGS
SD 295 Excursions. Op. 20. Shaulis. (Also works by Bloch. Gruenberg.)
HYPERION A 66016- Excursions. Op. 20: Piano Sonata. Op. 26: Nocturne. Op. 33: Ballade. Op. 46. Brownridge.
RCA ARM I-2952-Piano Sonata. Op. 26. Horowitz. (Also works by Prokofiev. Scriabin.)
RCA LSC 3229-Piano Sonata. Op. 26. Van Cliburn. (Also PROKOFIEV: Piano Sonata No. 6. Op. 82.) DEsTo DC 7120 Piano Sonata. Op. 26. Browning. (Also CUMMING: Twenty four Preludes.) Vox SVBX 5307 (3)-.Summer Music. Op. 31.
Dorian Wind Quintet. (Also works by other American composers.)
CBS SPECIAL PRODUCTS AMS 6114 Summer Music. Op. 31. Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet. (Also NIELSEN: Wind Quintet. Op. 43.) Vox SVBX 5303 (31-Nocturne. Op. 33: Piano Sonata. Op. 26: Fugue. Shields. (Also works by other American composers.)
REPERTOIRE RRS 12- Wondrous Lore. Op. 34. Smith. (Also works by other American composers.)
MUSICAL HERITAGE MHS 1856 Canzone.
Op. 38. Wilson. Villa. (Also works by other composers, with other performers.)
UNICORN RHS 339-Mutations from Bach.
Locke Brass Consort. Stobart. (Also works by other composers.)
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--------- Barber with Leontyne Price at premiere of Antony and Cleopatra.
September 16, 1966
There is a sonically more up-to-date version by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and the Juilliard Quartet (CBS Special Products AKS 7131); but who can resist Barber's 1935 original, with the Curtis Quartet, available in an excellent LP transfer, "ting" and all (New World NW 229)? That disc also includes Barber's only non-English settings (not counting Joyce), the elegant Melodies passageres.
Op. 27 (1950-51) on texts by Rilke.
Pierre Bernac and Francis Poulenc recorded this moving performance for Columbia in 1952. but it was unaccountably never released.
Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24 (1947), is a tender, nostalgic setting of a prose passage by James Agee that Barber encountered in the Partisan Reader and that later became the prologue of Agee's novel. A Death in the Family. Whereas in his other music of this period, Barber was experimenting with dissonance and rhythm. Knoxville is in his simpler, tonal/melodic style, and it includes some unabashed picture painting-for instance, the gentle rocking motif suggested by the first line of the text. David Measham's version (Unicorn UNS 256) is well played and acceptably sung, although Molly McGurk's soprano is somewhat thin. The two real contenders are Leontyne Price, with Thomas Schippers and the New Philharmonia (RCA LSC 3062), and Steber, who commissioned it. with William Strickland and the Dumbarton Oaks Chamber Orchestra (Odyssey 32 16 0230). Price gives a lazily atmospheric performance; Steher's is a bit brisker and clearer and, at low cost. offers a better coupling. Price's coupling is a pair of scenes from Antony and Cleopatra. otherwise unavailable, but Steber's Knoxville is coupled with a splendid Price/Barber performance of the Hermit Songs. Op. 29 (1952-53).
These ten settings of texts-some sacred, some profane-by anonymous Irish monks of the eighth through thirteenth centuries. are a delight.
Andromache's Farewell, Op. 39 (1962), was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its opening sea son at Lincoln Center. A long way from Knoxville, this is a powerful, emotionally charged monodrama, with an orchestral score as electrifying as that of the piano concerto, composed the same year. The magnificent recording of the work, by Martina Arroyo, Schippers, and the New York Philharmonic (CBS MS 6512) is, for no good reason, out of print. Besides Andromache. Barber's unrecorded or unavailable vocal works include "Bessie Bobtail," Op. 2. No. 3 (1934); "The Queen's Face on a Summery Coin," Op. 18. No. I: four of the five Despite and Still songs: and the Three Songs. Op. 45 (1974).
Choral Works
When the outbreak of World War II made it impossible for Barber to continue traveling and composing in Europe. he returned to the Curtis Institute for his only teaching stint (1939-42).
There he organized a small chorus and composed A Stopwatch and an Ordnance Map. Op. 15. and Reincarnations, Op. 16 (both 1940), for it. Stopwatch is an intriguing setting of a Stephen Spender poem about a fallen soldier in the Spanish civil war, scored for male chorus with percussion and optional brass accompaniment. Vladimir Golschmann, leading the Robert de Cormier Chorale (Vanguard VSD 2083), includes the brass: Gregg Smith (Vox SVBX 5353) does not and turns in the smoother, better-phrased performance. Reincarnations, a more ambitious and attractive work, contains settings of three poems by James Stephens for mixed voices, a cappella. There are two very good recordings, by the C. W. Post Chamber Singers (Golden Crest CCS 8050) and the King Chorale (Orion ORS 75205). The Orion disc has the edge sonically.
Barber's choral masterpiece is Prayers of Kierkegaard, Op. 30 (1954). Scored for mixed chorus (often in eight parts), full orchestra, and solo soprano, this work takes in everything from plainsong to polytonality, from haunting, devotional serenity to full-blown grand gesture. both orchestral and choral. It is a difficult piece, and although there are some problems (a too distant choir, some brass intonation flaws) in the sole recording-by Jorge Mester, with soprano Gloria Capone (Louisville LS 763)-the huge spirit of the work comes through clearly.
Unrecorded are two early settings, The Virgin Martyrs, Op. 8, No. 1, and Let Down the Bars, 0 Death, Op. 8, No. 2 (1935-36): Chorale for Ascension Day (1964); an Agnus Dei, Op. II, that turns out to be yet a third incarnation of the Adagio for Strings (arranged 1967): and The Lovers, Op. 43 (1971), for baritone, chorus, and orchestra, to poems of Pablo Neruda.
Chamber and Solo Works The Cello Sonata. Op. 6 (1932), is a fiery, entirely idiomatic work in a traditional mold. Its most striking characteristics are its frequent (though not surprising) modulations, the exciting inter action between the cello and piano parts, and-almost needless to say at this point-its gorgeous melody. Jeffrey Solow and Albert Dominguez (Pelican LP 2010) offer the most expressive and finely nuanced performance, although Lucille Greco and Mary Zeyen (Orion ORS 7297) run a close second. Avoid the Harry Clark/Sanda Schuldmann recording (Musical Heritage MHS 3378); it's a disaster.
If you think you've heard enough full-orchestra performances of the Adagio for Strings, perhaps it's time to cleanse your perception of the piece by hearing it in its natural habitat, the string quartet. After the aggressive, angular thrusting of the first movement, the serene Adagio seems a perfect foil; and when played by four single strings, it takes on a new clarity and intensity.
Recordings of the quartet have come in and out of the catalog over the years, but the only one currently available is the fine, impassioned performance by the Cleveland Quartet (RCA ARL 1-1599).
The four Excursions, Op. 20 (1944), for solo piano, are as close as Barber got to writing folk- or popular-influenced music, and despite their definite charm, they are perhaps as far as he got from originality. The first and second Excursions are a boogie-woogie and a blues that, to paraphrase Rorem, could have been extemporized by any jazz pianist: the third is a set of variations on the cow boy ballad. "The Streets of Laredo"; and the last is a country hoedown. Leon Bates (Orion ORS 76237) best captures their loose, improvisatory atmosphere, but Zola Shaulis (Composers Recordings SD 295) comes close enough to make couplings the deciding factor. Angela Brownridge's approach is comparatively stiff, but hers is the only compilation of all Barber's piano music on a single disc (Hyperion A 66016).
"The most encouraging thing about the music world is the extraordinary progress young musicians have made, musically and technically." Barber said.
"I remember when my piano sonata was first played, by Horowitz, an eminent critic now deceased (I love quoting deceased critics--the more the merrier) wrote that the work would rarely be played. and certainly not as it was played by Mr. Horowitz, who made it into the fine work it is. Well, the joke is that now the sonata is a required work at just about every piano competition, and young people have no trouble with it at all. I get letters all the time saying, 'Please, please, write something else for the piano; we're getting sick of that fugue.'" The Piano Sonata. Op. 26 (1949). is certainly a peak, one of Barber's few works that sounds ahead of its time. The first movement, with its notes spilling out in every direction, brings to mind some of the avant-garde jazz improvisation of, say. Cecil Taylor; the second is a fleet Allegro; in the third, Barber flirts with tone rows; and the finale is a dazzling fugue that, like the first movement, takes on a rollicking jazzy character. Heretical though it may be, of the performances I've heard, I enjoy Vladimir Horowitz' historic 1950 original (RCA ARM I-2952) the least. It's a powerhouse performance, to be sure, yet it's so frenetic that it often sounds simply like "a difficult twentieth-century piece," not the expressive masterwork it is. Besides, the sound is boxy and distorted. There was, until a recent purge, a remarkably fluid performance by Van Cliburn (RCA LSC 3229) that ought to be reissued. Brownridge also takes a freer, less frenzied view of the work (Hyperion). I've been unable to locate John Browning's recording (Desto 7120).
About Summer Music, Op. 31 (1956), for woodwind quintet, Barber said, "It's supposed to he evocative of summer-summer meaning languid, not [clapping hands loudly] killing mosquitoes. Henry Cowell once wrote a piece in which the orchestra members had to clap their hands in that fashion-'brilliant innovation,' the critics called it.
But all I can say about Summer Music is that everybody plays it too slowly.
Which leads certain charming colleagues of mine to come up with real mean remarks. Two of them-one of our better known composers and one L.F. [Lukas Foss] from Brooklyn-once told me they heard a performance that dragged so, it should have been called Winter Music." Two perfectly sprightly, languid performances are those by the Dorian Wind Quintet (Vox SVBX 5307) and the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet (CBS Special Products AMS 6114).
Barber's chamber and solo works after Summer Music were mostly short incidental works. The Nocturne (Homage to John Field), Op. 33 (1959), is a light, pretty keyboard miniature in ABA form. as is the Ballade. Op. 46 (1977), composed for the Van Cliburn Competition. Roger Shields makes the most of the nocturne, dramatically shaping the melodic line and strikingly varying his tempo in the middle section (Vox SVBX 5303); but again, you may opt for the Brownridge (Hyperion) to have all the piano music on one LP. Only she has re corded the Ballade, a work that tends toward bluesy introspection in its outer sections, with an agitated, finger-breaking central passage. The sole work for solo organ. Wondrous Love, Op. 34 (1958), a set of variations on a hymn tune, is not very well represented in its only recording, a square, dry reading by Rollin Smith (Repertoire RRS 12). The Canzone for flute and piano, Barber's own arrangement from the second movement of his piano concerto, is played straightforwardly by Ransom Wilson (Musical Heritage MHS 1856).
And finally, Mutations from Bach (1968), for brass and percussion. a set of not particularly interesting variations on chorale settings by Bach and Joachim Decker, has been recorded by the Locke Brass Consort (Unicorn RHS 339).
None of Barber's acknowledged chamber or solo works has gone unrecorded-only the early. prizewinning Violin Sonata (1931) and Five Pieces for a Singing Tower (1930) for carillon.
Stage Works
Barber's two ballet scores, Medea. Op. 23 (1946), and Souvenirs, Op. 28 (1952), are entirely antithetical in character one a mythic tragedy, presented as a psychodrama; the other an urbane parody of a modern dance suite-Yet both are indebted to Stravinsky. In Medea, Barber seems to have come to terms with dissonance (methodically re lying on seconds, sevenths, and ninths as both melodic and harmonic elements), using it to much better effect than in the Second Symphony. Composed for Martha Graham, the work concludes with a violent, primal "Dance of Vengeance" that cannot fail to bring to mind sections of Stravinsky's Sacre. Barber made two concert arrangements of Medea. The first, from 1947. is a seven-movement suite. The Howard Hanson performance (Mercury SRI 75012) is a tepid affair: Barber's own version, from the 1950 London sessions (Everest 3282), is far superior. However, the suite itself is not nearly as compelling as the pared-down 1955 arrangement, the more concise, single-movement Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance, Op. 23a (1955). Schippers' version on Odyssey (Y 33230) is excellent, but as in the Second Essay on the same disc, there is a sonic flaw (this time a drop in loudness) at one of the climaxes. There are no competing versions.
Souvenirs had its genesis as a set of piano duets, which Barber orchestrated at the request of Lincoln Kirstein, then director of the New York City Ballet.
The movements include a waltz, a schot tische, a pas de deux, a hesitation-tango, and a galop, each treated somewhat in the manner Stravinsky treated Pergolesi's original in his recasting of Mile/ nella. The Jose Serebrier/London Symphony recording ( Desto DC 6433) is a good representation of this partly humorous, partly nostalgic score.
"Opera," said Barber, "is the slipperiest thing you can get into. There are more excuses for not doing it, or for doing it badly. But I've always been a sucker for opera--it's terribly exhilarating when you finally hear and see it on stage, with all the costumes and lights. I wrote Vanessa, actually, without a com mission. I just wanted to see if I could write an opera. I remember bringing the score to Rudolf Bing, at the Met, and having to play it for him on the piano, singing all the parts, while he turned pages. That was not an easy job. No. [G. Carlo] Menotti did not have any input into the music: He was busy with projects of his own, so he wrote the words in a notebook and sent them over to me. Of course, I would always show him the music once I wrote it. He's a wonderful critic-he has a superb sense of line." Barber's piano audition was enough to persuade Bing to stage Vanessa. Op. 32 (1957), at the Met, and it was a resounding success, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1958. It is a poignant, intriguing work about a woman who, having waited twenty years for the return of an old lover, receives his son (Anatol) as a house guest and falls in love with him.
Anatol, meanwhile, promptly seduces Vanessa's niece (Erika), and when Vanessa and Anatol marry and leave for Paris. Erika secludes herself in wailing, just as Vanessa had done. The score is one of Barber's strongest and most passionate, and although the vocal lines are often more declamatory than was his wont, there is also plenty of soaring vocal melody; the quintet in the fourth act is marvelous. The only recording is the 1958 Dimitri Mitropoulos/ Metropolitan Opera set (RCA ARI. 2-2094) with Steher as the definitive Vanessa, Rosalind Elias a fine Erika, and Nicolai Gedda as Anatol. Although the sound is starting to show signs of age, the superb performance is enthusiastically recommended.
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C Stage works
MERCURY SRI 75012 Medea. Op. 23: Suite: The School for Scandal Overture. Op. 5: Symphony No. 1. Op. 9. Eastman-Rochester SO. Hanson.
EVEREST 3282-Medea. Op. 23: Suite: Symphony No. 2. Op. 19. New SO of London, Barber.
ODYSSEY Y 33230 Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance. Op. 23a: The School for Scandal Overture. Op. 5: Agagio for Strings. Op. 11: Essay for Orchestra. No. 2. Op. 17. New York Phil. Schippers.
Deso DC 6433-Souvenirs. Op. 28. London SO. Serebrier. (Also SURINACH: Spells and Rhymes. Harkness SO. Mes ter.) RCA ARI. 2-2094 (2)-1/anev.va. Op. 32. Serebrier. Elias. Resnik. Gedda. Toni: Metropolitan Opera Ch&O. Mitropoulos.
VANGUARD VSD 2083--See Choral Works.
RCA LSC 3062-See Vocal Works.
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A Hand of Bridge, Op. 35 (1958), was written for a program of short operas presented at Spoleto. Between the superficial movements of a card game, we hear the inner anxieties and fantasies of the four players. This is an attractive and entertaining little work that deserves to be heard more often. Golschmann includes it on his Barber disc (Vanguard VSD 2083).
When the Metropolitan Opera's move to Lincoln Center was imminent, it commissioned Barber to write an opera for the opening of its new house. That work, Antony and Cleopatra. Op. 40 (1965-66), more ambitious and more colorful than Vanessa, had a libretto by Franco Zeffirelli, after the Shakespeare play. Unfortunately, the opera was a dismal failure, the only major disappointment in Barber's career. Immediately after the opening. he went to the Italian Alps, where he spent five unproductive years. The two excerpts from Antony that Price has recorded (RCA LSC 3062) do not explain much about the opera's failure; indeed, they show the kind of dramatic expressivity one would expect.
There is hope for Antony, though: In 1975, Barber reworked the score. with some help on the libretto from Menotti, and the new version has been presented with success at Juilliard and in Paris. Ac cording to friends of the composer, Barber spent a great deal of time during his last few weeks listening to tapes of the Paris performances. Perhaps the time for a complete recorded Antony has come.
Finally, I simply point out that listeners interested in hearing a fair sampling of Barber in good (if not always the best) performances can do so without spending a fortune. A broad, economical selection would include: Schippers on Odyssey Y 33230; Measham on Unicorn RHS 342; Golschmann on Vanguard VSD 2083; Brownridge on Hyperion A 66016; Steber and Price on Odyssey 32 16 0230; Isaac Stern/Leonard Bernstein and Browning/George Szell on CBS import 61621; and for good measure, Vanessa (RCA ARL 2-2094). You end up with all three Second Essays, and you miss a few gems, but that selection af fords the most Barber for the least money.
(High Fidelity)