An Exploration of the Early Training and Song Juvenilia of Samuel Barber
THE FORMATIVE YEARS: AN EXPLORATION OF THE EARLY TRAINING AND SONG JUVENILIA OF SAMUEL BARBER Derek T. Chester, B.M., M.M. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2013 APPROVED: Jennifer Lane, Major Professor Stephen Dubberly, Committee Member Elvia Puccinelli, Committee Member Jeffrey Snider, Chair of the Division of Vocal Studies James C. Scott, Dean of the College of Music Mark Wardell, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Chester, Derek T. The Formative Years: An Exploration of the Early Training and Song Juvenilia of Samuel Barber. Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance), May 2013, 112 pp., 32 musical examples, bibliography, 56 titles. In the art of song composition, American composer Samuel Barber was the perfect storm. Barber spent years studying under superb instruction and became adept as a pianist, singer, composer, and in literature and languages. The songs that Barber composed during those years of instruction, many of which have been posthumously published, are waypoints on his journey to compositional maturity. These early songs display his natural inclinations, his self-determination, his growth through trial and error, and the slow flowering of a musical vision, meticulously cultivated by the educational opportunities provided to him by his family and his many devoted mentors. Using existing well-known and recently uncovered biographical data, as well as both published and unpublished song juvenilia and mature songs, this dissertation examines the importance of Barber’s earliest musical and academic training in relationship to his development as a song composer. Copyright 2013 by Derek T. Chester ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I sang my first Samuel Barber song at the age of eighteen.
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