Barber Orchestral Works
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Samuel Barber
Label: Argo
Magazine Review Date: 1/1993
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 64
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 436 288-2ZH
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Symphony No. 1 |
Samuel Barber, Composer
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra David Zinman, Conductor Samuel Barber, Composer |
| Adagio for Strings |
Samuel Barber, Composer
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra David Zinman, Conductor Samuel Barber, Composer |
| Essay for Orchestra No. 1 |
Samuel Barber, Composer
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra David Zinman, Conductor Samuel Barber, Composer |
| Music for a scene from Shelley |
Samuel Barber, Composer
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra David Zinman, Conductor Samuel Barber, Composer |
| Essay for Orchestra No. 2 |
Samuel Barber, Composer
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra David Zinman, Conductor Samuel Barber, Composer |
| (The) School for Scandal Overture |
Samuel Barber, Composer
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra David Zinman, Conductor Samuel Barber, Composer |
Composer or Director: Samuel Barber
Label: Argo
Magazine Review Date: 1/1993
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 436 288-4ZH
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Symphony No. 1 |
Samuel Barber, Composer
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra David Zinman, Conductor Samuel Barber, Composer |
| Adagio for Strings |
Samuel Barber, Composer
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra David Zinman, Conductor Samuel Barber, Composer |
| Essay for Orchestra No. 1 |
Samuel Barber, Composer
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra David Zinman, Conductor Samuel Barber, Composer |
| Music for a scene from Shelley |
Samuel Barber, Composer
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra David Zinman, Conductor Samuel Barber, Composer |
| Essay for Orchestra No. 2 |
Samuel Barber, Composer
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra David Zinman, Conductor Samuel Barber, Composer |
| (The) School for Scandal Overture |
Samuel Barber, Composer
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra David Zinman, Conductor Samuel Barber, Composer |
Author: Edward Seckerson
As Barber compendiums go, this one will take some beating. Zinman begins in quiet understatement with that most challenging of all sustained legatos—the Adagio for strings. He and his Baltimore strings are calm, collected, resigned; the grief is contained; no wringing of hands at the climax, rather an intense transfiguration. The first of Barber's bite-size symphonies—his First Essay—is rather more demonstrative in its tragedy, working up from the deep-set bass lines of an imposing Andante sostenuto to the most public of displays. And then there is the Second Essay, Barber rhetoric at its most biblical (in the De Mille sense, of course). The engineering throughout this disc is exceptionally vivid, but nowhere more so than here: the impact of timpani and bass drum is unnervingly realistic, the brass and tam-tam-laden climax comes at you full on, Add to that a pugnacious fugue with Baltimore woodwinds devilishly incisive, and you've an absolute winner.
As ever, Zinman is punctilious but never overly succinct. Rhythm and impetus are priorities but he also knows where and how to open up to this music. His account of the First Symphony is laudably coherent—whole. There is sweep and a strong sense of evolution about its development: you need to know where it is headed next. I can't remember being quite so gripped before by the climactic disintegration of the first movement: as the final chord collapses, it is as if Barber's puckish scherzo has been in waiting behind it, revved up and raring to go. Zinman's solo oboe and cellos are heart-breakers in the slow movement, the impassioned climax—like everything else here—magnificently inevitable.
I'm glad, too, that Zinman included the Music for a Scene from Shelley—an early piece, but a highly accomplished one. In a sense, everything in this collection is music for a scene from something, but this response to lines of text from Shelley's verse-play Prometheus Unbound is an especially beguiling example of Barber's precocious lyric gifts. The ''sounds i' the air which speak of love'' are mysterious and tantalizing at first, precisely heard by Zinman and his players. A sunburst of sound brings on one of Barber's most rapturous melodies, voluptuously scored, and there is an exquisite postlude where two horns briefly ruminate on what has been heard and scented, while the nocturnal murmurings of string and harp quickly evaporate to the barely audible. Barber had come a long way fast from his School for Scandal Overture of just three years previously. He was still at the Curtis Institute at that time, but as Zinman so graciously reminds us, the second-subject oboe tune was to be the first of many palpable 'hits'.'
As ever, Zinman is punctilious but never overly succinct. Rhythm and impetus are priorities but he also knows where and how to open up to this music. His account of the First Symphony is laudably coherent—whole. There is sweep and a strong sense of evolution about its development: you need to know where it is headed next. I can't remember being quite so gripped before by the climactic disintegration of the first movement: as the final chord collapses, it is as if Barber's puckish scherzo has been in waiting behind it, revved up and raring to go. Zinman's solo oboe and cellos are heart-breakers in the slow movement, the impassioned climax—like everything else here—magnificently inevitable.
I'm glad, too, that Zinman included the Music for a Scene from Shelley—an early piece, but a highly accomplished one. In a sense, everything in this collection is music for a scene from something, but this response to lines of text from Shelley's verse-play Prometheus Unbound is an especially beguiling example of Barber's precocious lyric gifts. The ''sounds i' the air which speak of love'' are mysterious and tantalizing at first, precisely heard by Zinman and his players. A sunburst of sound brings on one of Barber's most rapturous melodies, voluptuously scored, and there is an exquisite postlude where two horns briefly ruminate on what has been heard and scented, while the nocturnal murmurings of string and harp quickly evaporate to the barely audible. Barber had come a long way fast from his School for Scandal Overture of just three years previously. He was still at the Curtis Institute at that time, but as Zinman so graciously reminds us, the second-subject oboe tune was to be the first of many palpable 'hits'.'
Barber Orchestral Works
Barber Orchestral Works
Explore the world’s largest classical music catalogue on Apple Music Classical.
Included with an Apple Music subscription. Download now.
Gramophone Digital Club
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Events & Offers
From £9.20 / month
Subscribe
Gramophone Club
- Print Edition
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Events & Offers
From £11.45 / month
Subscribe
If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.