Samuel Barber

Samuel Barber (1910–1981) was one of the most beloved American composers of the twentieth century, and one of the most unabashedly lyrical. Trained at the Curtis Institute (where he studied composition, piano, conducting and singing), he largely turned his back on the modernist experiments of his contemporaries in favour of a rich, Romantic idiom rooted in beautiful melody and warm harmony. That gift made him famous: his Adagio for Strings became perhaps the most performed piece of American concert music, a byword for elegiac beauty. He won two Pulitzer Prizes, wrote in every genre from song to opera (Vanessa) to concerto, and at his best combined emotional directness with impeccable craftsmanship. The Violin Concerto, an early work, is among his most cherished: a perfect distillation of his lyrical voice.