I own these are they are indeed a delight! Especially the Bersntein disc. Diamond is highly underrated and deserves more attention as one of America's best composers. Delos is to be commended for their diligence in promoting Diamond. I only hope that Naxos continue that with theirs.



Jim

Andre,

As always you make some good points. I got to stop reading all this stuff on this forum as it is costing me money

I have some Walton, but I need to check out Dohnanyi, Arnold, Penerecki & Rautauaara. Where do you get these names? Just kidding, I have heard the names but am afraid my collection is lacking in some of them. Off to research them in several books I already own.

I really do love this forum, one composer gets us thinking about more. I guess I am always looking for what I don't have, looking for that which I don't know. Like a kid in a candy store it is so much fun to discover something new.

Thanks

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No, it's a Bb. It looks wrong and it sounds wrong, but it's right - Vaughan Williams.

Bill Carter, CPA

Have you checked out Barber's work?

I ordered a very important recording today with Thomas Schippers and the NY Philharmonic. It's supposedly contains one of the best recordings of "Adagio for Strings" on record. Schippers didn't live very long, but from what I've read about him, he was a strong Barber supporter.

Barber was "punished" for "failing" to write serial music, and so his reputation has been damaged by a coterie of eurocentric academics who claimed to decide what was "good" in C20th music.

Here is his masterpiece VANESSA, in a production from Monte Carlo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7jRyqjvpP4

We should also remember DOVER BEACH, ANTHONY & CLEOPATRA and A HAND OF BRIDGE.

It's difficult not to mention Menotti in connection with Barber of course - another underrated genius of musical theatre in the USA (even if he clung to his Italian nationallty and never became a U.S. citizen)

This is one reason I admire and love Barber's work is because he chose to compose music his own way and not compose music that the classical establishment wanted him to compose, so this resulted in music that highly distinctive and truly his own.

I didn't have time to read all of the posts so I don't know if this work has been mentioned: I'm talking about Barber's Piano Sonata. It's exceptional. I believe it's one of the 2 major works for solo piano by american composers in the 20th century, the other being Ives's "Concord, Mass." Sonata (I think it's his 2nd piano sonata).

I'm not familiar with Barber's chamber works, so I will have to hear the "Piano Sonata." I'm a huge fan, though, of his orchestral output.

I thought I'd bump up this old thread...

I've finally gotten around to listening to some more Barber. Although Mirror Image's vehemence at me for only knowing the Adagio for strings & Violin Concerto last year has nothing to do with it. I was just interested in discovering his music a bit more.

I really like the Essays for Orchestra (he wrote three in all). Perhaps the second one grabs me the most, with it's interesting exploration of themes & ideas. You would be hard pressed to find a more thematically tight argument than this. By contrast, Medea's Dance of Vengeance doesn't really grab me at all. Given the title I was expecting something much more intense, and the piece doesn't "hotten up" until the very end (Oh, well...). & the Overture "School for Scandal" reminds me a bit of Mendelssohn (not that that's a problem).

I'll listen to the second cd in this EMI set soon, which has some piano & chamber works, & post my impressions of these later. Meanwhile, some of the newer members to the forum can now (freely) post their impressions of Barber. I think his music has good & bad points, like anyone else I guess...

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"Contrary to general belief an artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs" - Edgard Varese

Nobody else wants to discuss Barber?

I've just listened to the second cd, with some of Barber's piano & chamber works. An interesting thing is that while some of these works sound like an amalgam of Romanticism, early modernism (eg. "Impressionism") & modernism, they still sound coherent and not patchy. The piano works Souvenirs & Excursions, which incorporate jazz-like rhythms, grab me the most, but the early Brahmsian Cello Sonata is also very fine. Summer music for wind quintet reminds one of Stravinsky at times, Debussy at others. There's alot of variety here, but Barber did have his own voice albeit probably not as strongly individual as say Hovhaness, Carter or Bernstein (that's just my opinion). Nonetheless a homogenous style is detectable in these works. I think anyone with an interest in classical music of the C20th would enjoy them...

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"Contrary to general belief an artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs" - Edgard Varese

One of my favorite composer in term of being American, and also 20th century composer. Got several his piano works like Nocturne Op.11, but memorable is his Violin Concerto Op.14, uniquely my recording is a simplified version with only Violin and Piano playing, like the American melody overther.

I'm coming around to the Medea Suite. Like Barber's Piano Sonata, it was one of the works in which he experimented with atonality. I think that often he is pigeon-holed as a "neo-romantic" when he actually wrote music in a wide variety of styles.

Yes, the Violin Concerto is a very memorable work. I first heard it in a live concert in 1995, and from that moment on could remember it pretty clearly. It's the kind of work that you feel you've known all your life, even though it may be the first time you listen to it. No wonder it's the most popular American violin concerto ever, and probably one of the most popular for the instrument full-stop. Despite this overwhelming popularity, I don't feel like it's hackneyed, I listen to it afresh each time I hear it. It's that kind of work...

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"Contrary to general belief an artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs" - Edgard Varese

I just listened to Barber's Piano Sonata for the first time today. Played by Peter Lawson on a disc of American piano sonatas. Others are by Ives, Copland & Carter. The Barber stands out as perhaps the most emotional - although it uses the 12-tone technique - similar in a way to Berg's sonata, but perhaps less lush & more starkly modernistic. I especially like the slow movement, which for me evokes the eerie stillness of a city at night, loneliness. This music proves that Barber was actually quite an experimental composer, despite the fact that most people only know him as a neo-Romantic. I think the Piano Sonata should definitely be as well known as say the Violin Concerto, the former is a much more coherent, unified statement.

Here is that striking third movement (youtube):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJVLH35I8cI

I remember playing Barber's Excursions a while back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L2Cn8ZFFzI

They're fun, light, and (suprisingly) not too difficult. Of course Horowitz plays them like they're Balakirev's Islamey or something, but don't be fooled. I think his sonorously is perfectly suited to Barber and on top of it all, his technical brilliance is absolutely ravishing.

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“I thought with fury of the wonderful American orchestras that cared nothing for my music; of the critics who repeated for the hundredth time, 'Beethoven is a great composer,' while balking violently at new works; of the managers who arranged long tours for artists playing the same hackneyed programs fifty times over.” ~ Serge Prokofiev

I just ordered this highly acclaimed two disc set of Barber's songs for an obscenely low price... clearly Barber's vocal work is grossly undervalued.