Adagio for Strings

Samuel Barber, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1944

Adagio for Strings is a piece of classical music for string orchestra, arranged by the American composer Samuel Barber from his first string quartet. It is Barber's most popular piece.

Genesis

Barber's Adagio for Strings originated as part of his String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11, composed in 1936. In the original it follows a violently contrasting first movement, and is succeeded by a brief reprise of this music.

In January of 1938 Barber sent the piece to Arturo Toscanini. The conductor returned the score without comment, and Barber was annoyed and avoided the conductor. Consequently Toscanini sent a word through a friend that he was planning to perform the piece and had returned it simply because he had already memorized it. Barber's own arrangement for string orchestra was given its first performance by Arturo Toscanini with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on November 5th, 1938 in New York.

The composer also arranged the piece in 1967 for eight-part choir, as a setting of the Agnus Dei ("Lamb of God").

Analysis

The piece uses an arch form, employing and then inverting, expanding, and varying a stepwise ascending melody.

The long, flowing melodic line moves freely between the voices in the string choir; for example, the first section of the Adagio begins with the principal melodic cell played by first violins, but ends with its restatement by violas, transposed down a fifth. Violas continue with a variation on the melodic cell in the second section; the basses are silent for this and the next section. The expansive middle section begins with cellos playing the principal melodic cell in mezzo-soprano range; as the section builds, the string choir moves up the scale to their highest registers, culminating in a fort-fortissimo climax followed by sudden silence. A brief series of mournful chords serve as a coda to this portion of the piece, and reintroduces the basses. The last section is a restatement of the original theme, with an inversion of the second piece of the melodic cell, played by first violins and violas in unison; the piece ends with first violins slowly restating the first five notes of the melody in alto register, holding the last note over a brief silence and a fading accompaniment.

Adagio for Strings in culture

The 1938 world broadcast debut, with Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Orchestra, was selected in 2005 for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry at the United States Library of Congress.

In popular music

• The piece was used as a synth solo introduction to the song When A Blind Man Cries by Deep Purple on their live album Live at the Olympia '96.
  

• The piece was remade as the opening track on the William Orbit album Pieces in a Modern Style, and his interpretation was later remixed by DJ Tiesto.

• The melody has been used for digital compositions by Trance Music DJs such as Ferry Corsten and DJ Tiësto

• It was also remixed by the classical crossover string quartet "Bond" in their musical cd "Classified"

• "Interlude" by the band Muse, is constructed using the same chord progressions except with a heavy fuzz guitar effect.

• The piece was also redone by the Taliesin Orchestra in their album "Sacred."

In television

The piece is heard briefly in the "South Park" episode "Up the Down Steroid" in Season 8.

It can also be heard in the "Seinfeld" episode, The Fatigues.

It can also be heard in "The Simpsons" episode, "Strong Arms Of The Ma" from Season 14.

It also appeared in the October 11, 2006 episode of "The Daily Show."

It was also used in the British Comedy/Drama series "Butterflies"

During the fake gun fight featured in the British comedy series Spaced.

It was also used briefly in the final scene of the british comedy "Red Dwarf" Season 8, Episode 8 entitled "Only the Good".

In films

The Adagio is heard in The Elephant Man (1980), El Norte (1983), Scarface (1983), The Scarlet Letter (1995), S1m0ne (2002), Reconstruction (2003), and Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006); it is heard repeatedly in Platoon (1986), Lorenzo's Oil (1992), and Amélie (2001).

Ballet

The ballet, Adagio for Strings, choreographed for American Ballet Theatre by John Meehan to Barber's music of the same title, had its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House on 8 April 1980.

Computer games

Agnus Dei, the choral version of Adagio for Strings, is heard both in the opening launch sequence and later in the third as well as the last mission of the PC strategy game Homeworld.

Drum Corps

The Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps used Adagio for Strings as part of their 2000 show. They continue to use the chord progression of Adagio for Strings as a warm-up.

Trivia

• Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire, Commander of UN forces in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, called the piece "the purest expression in music of the suffering, mutilation, rape and murder of 800,000 Rwandans."
• The piece was played at the funerals of US Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, as well as at those of Princess Grace and Rainier III, Prince of Monaco.
• In 2004, Barber's masterpiece was voted the "saddest classical" work ever by listeners of the BBC's Today programme, ahead of Dido's Lament from Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell, and the Adagietto from Gustav Mahler's 5th symphony.
• The version of the piece performed by London Symphony Orchestra was, for a time, the highest selling classical piece on iTunes.
• The piece was played at the BBC's Last Night of the Proms shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, replacing the traditional exuberant finale. It was the first "Last Night" conducted by an American.
• The "Adagio for Strings" was played at the televised prayer service held at Ground Zero about six weeks after 9/11.

Audio

• BBC.co.uk Sample from the BBC
• modern-strings.de Sample from the Modern-Strings
• modern-strings.de MP3 from the Modern-Strings
• NPR special on the selection of the 1938 broadcast debut of "Adagio for Strings" to the 2005 National Recording Registry