Samuel BARBER Symphony No. 2 Cello Concerto Medea Suite
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8.111358 bk Barber_EU:8.111358 bk Barber_EU 29-09-2010 13:30 Pagina 4 the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and played in a string ‘trattenuto’, a direction that does not appear in every 8.111358 quartet before going solo, a cellist who would be no annotation of this work, means ‘held back’). Nelsova, stranger to the new music of her time – including works who died in New York, (Garbousova passed away in Barber conducts Barber by Bloch, Hindemith and Shostakovich – and, later, the Illinois) and the composer are unified in a superb ADD concerto by Hugh Wood (a BBC Proms première in performance of music that one imagines the self-critical 1969), and, of course, the concerto by Samuel Barber Barber was particularly pleased with. When heard in (the work only four years old at the time of this this recording, the first made of this composer- recording), its many technical difficulties here made conducted threesome, one is convinced that he had light of to reveal an expressive, heartfelt, leaping and every reason to be. sometimes-turbulent work (the finale’s marking of Colin Anderson Samuel SAMUEL BARBER (1910-1981) BARBER Symphony No. 2, Op. 19 (1944; revised 1947) 27:16 1 Allegro ma non troppo 10:40 2 Andante, un poco mosso 7:41 3 Presto, senza battuta 8:55 Recorded in Kingsway Hall, London, 13 December 1950 • First issued as Decca LX 3050 Symphony No. 2 Cello Concerto (1945) 27:15 4 Allegro moderato 11:29 5 Andante sostenuto 6:50 Cello Concerto 6 Molto allegro e appassionato trattenuto 8:56 Zara Nelsova, Cello Recorded in Kingsway Hall, London, 11 December 1950 • First issued as Decca LX 3048 Medea Suite Medea, Op. 23 (1946) Orchestral Suite from the music to the Ballet “Cave of the Heart” 25:02 7 Parodos 2:38 8 Choros – Medea and Jason 4:22 9 The Young Princess – Jason 2:47 0 Choros 3:16 ! Medea 6:17 @ Kantikos agonias 2:48 Zara Nelsova, Cello # Exodos 2:54 New Symphony Orchestra Recorded in Kingsway Hall, London, 12 December 1950 • First issued as Decca LX 3049 of London New Symphony Orchestra of London • Samuel Barber Samuel Barber Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn Special thanks to James Miller for providing source material (1950 recordings) 8.111358 4 8.111358 bk Barber_EU:8.111358 bk Barber_EU 29-09-2010 13:30 Pagina 2 Barber conducts Barber Spalding as the soloist), Zubin Mehta (Essay No. 3), finding an outlet within the score’s three movements. If Artur Rodzinski (Symphony No. 1, American and Barber later felt that the extra-musical aspects of the Symphony No. 2 • Cello Concerto • Medea – Ballet Suite Salzburg Festival premières of the original version), symphony caused him to ‘say too much’ then that is a There was a time when Samuel Barber’s music was songs. He also won awards including two Pulitzer Dmitri Mitropoulos (Vanessa) and Thomas Schippers significant aspect of his personality, for although not reviled in some quarters for not being ‘modern’ or Prizes, one for Vanessa, the other for the Piano (Antony and Cleopatra) – all music by a virtuoso without an extrovert side, Barber is at his most progressive enough; his brand of romanticism and Concerto. Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Barber composer for virtuoso performers (and from the off, too revealing when innermost feelings are musically nostalgia allied to lyrical and passionate expression, composed his first piece at the age of seven. He entered – one has only to listen to the brilliant Overture to The expressed with discretion and economy. Not that this dressed in colourful and descriptive orchestration, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at the age School for Scandal, dated 1931, a graduation piece, to stopped Barber writing for the stage – including those although popular with audiences, was not necessarily of fourteen to study singing, the piano, and relish Barber’s youthful yet already-mature and two grand operas – for his Medea score, originally the thing to win over the cognoscenti, save those who composition. If Barber cannot be regarded as a musical personal mastery of melody, counterpoint, rhythm and choreographed by Martha Graham as The Serpent Heart were open-minded and open-hearted as well as innovator in terms of progressiveness, he did find his orchestration, and his depth of field in each). (1946) and then revised as Cave of the Heart (1947), receptive to a genuinely communicative composer. own compositional style early on – and that could Of the three works recorded here, Symphony No. 2 lacks nothing in dramatic impulses and vibrant However, in terms of recognition, Barber’s Adagio for indeed be counted as an innovation on its own terms (a is something of a problem child in Barber’s catalogue. It characterisation, the seven-movement concert suite Strings stands enormously high in its universal composer finding himself), a recognisably American was composed in 1944, revised in 1947, and then in (1948, first conducted by Ormandy) being concise in significance and appeal, and alone has maintained his articulation that is distinctive and also distinct from his 1964 – several years following this recording that the design and pithy in gesture: Medea, a woman scorned, name; music that began as the slow movement of his illustrious contemporaries such as Aaron Copland composer made in 1950 – Barber decided to suppress revengeful of her betraying husband Jason, otherwise a only string quartet (1936) and then which took a life of (1900-1990) and William Schuman (1910-1992). the work, requesting that scores and parts be destroyed; hero, who leaves Medea for a younger woman. Barber its own as a solemn and deeply beautiful orchestral On this Naxos release we have the opportunity to what Barber did not bank on was that a set of parts later re-fashioned some of the Medea music to create an work (1938) – when President Franklin D. Roosevelt hear three major orchestral works of Barber conducted would escape the cull and be found in a warehouse in orchestral showpiece, Medea’s Meditation and Dance died in April 1945 American radio stations broadcast by the composer, the results of three consecutive days England a few years after his death. At least two of Vengeance, which was unleashed in 1956 under Barber’s Adagio for Strings as a tribute – to be followed of sessions (one day per work) in London’s Kingsway recordings of Barber’s Second Symphony have been Mitropoulos. by the composer’s own arrangement of it as an a Hall, which sported a splendid acoustic that was lost to made subsequently – conducted respectively by Barber’s Cello Concerto was first heard in April cappella piece, setting the text of the Agnus Dei (1967). record companies in the mid-1980s – the building, Andrew Schenck and Neeme Järvi – and the occasional 1946, the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Barber did not record Adagio for Strings (music located in the Holborn area, is now a luxury hotel. The concert performance has also taken place. Whether one Koussevitzky, the soloist being the Georgia-born Raya featured in films such as Platoon and The Elephant New Symphony Orchestra of London was Decca’s ad- agrees with Barber that this is music that should not Garbousova (1909-1997) for whom the work was Man), although he did document his 1931 piece Dover hoc recording ensemble (but not at the sacrifice of using now be played (and his urge to abandon it was no rash written. Barber’s Cello Concerto is a compact yet Beach, a setting for baritone and string quartet of the either the London Philharmonic or London Symphony decision) – and he thought highly enough of the dark, outgoing piece, a delicious combination of singing poem by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), which attracted Orchestras), a mix of musicians from London’s free- lonely and rather elegiac slow movement to publish it phrases and agile rhythms, and not without rumination Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau into the recording studio; lancers and those who were members of the city’s separately as Night Flight, Op. 19a – the moral dilemma in the rather sad central Andante, Barber opting for the Barber’s recording dates from 1935 – he had a fine and permanent symphony orchestras. is either to respect the composer and ignore the traditional three-movement concerto-design (as he also trained voice. He was also an accomplished pianist. In Although Barber’s conducting activities seem to symphony’s existence or to have the guilty pleasure of did for his concertos for piano and for violin). Barber 1953 he first performed and recorded his Hermit Songs have been limited in terms of opportunities (or maybe enjoying music that may not be top-drawer Barber (the invited Garbousova to his home to discuss the work and with soprano Leontyne Price. On this current release we out of choice), he learnt from a master, namely Fritz otherwise vivid outer movements lack melodic to listen to her playing; yet for all that her personality is hear his endeavour as a conductor in three of his works Reiner (1888-1963), music director of the Pittsburgh individuality at times as well as structural finesse) but imbued into the concerto, and she continued to play it, it recorded in London in 1950. Symphony Orchestra and then, famously, of the which include plenty of good and ear-catching ideas; in was to another long-lived lady cellist – Zara Nelsova Samuel Osborne Barber II (1910-1981) left us a Chicago Symphony from 1953, and it is difficult to any case, despite his wish for the withdrawal of scores (1918-2002) – that the honour of making the first body of richly expressed and finely crafted music, imagine that if Barber had been a non-starter in this rôle and parts, the composer cannot have forgotten that his recording fell.