Music: Samuel Osborne Barber

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Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. Samuel Barber expressed his passion for music from childhood and even at a very young age he decided to become a music composer. Barber was born in a family of musicians, it was quite natural that he went along with music all his life. Barber’s works acknowledge his love for poetry and his deep knowledge of music in all aspects. Barber had a very amazing skill in packing dense emotions into small segments of highly charged music. Barbers music often penetrated directly to the listener’s heart. This made his music popular among music buffs all over the world. He is regarded as one of the most distinguished composers to emerge in the twentieth-century. Barber followed neo-romantic style built on romantic …show more content…

He composed this song in 1943 the symphony was originally titled Symphony Dedicated to the Air Forces and was premiered in early 1944 by Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1947 Barber revised this symphony and G. Schirmer published and recorded it in 1945 with the New Symphony Orchestra in London. But in 1965 Barber destroyed this piece of music.The year 1947 wasn't a very good time for Samuel Barber he had many tragic things happen to him during this time. Both his aunt, Louise Homer and his father became seriously ill. Out of the agony of witnessing his dear ones suffer, he composed a deeply moving work based on the short prose poem “Knoxville, Summer of 1915”, written by the American writer and journalist James Agee. The poem depicts an evening in a Southern family he writes this song likes it’s through the eyes of a child. Samuel Barber published this work in April. And a month later his aunt died in May. His father also died immediately after Barbers aunt died. This composition was sung by Eleanor

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