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The Saddest Music Ever Written: The Story of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, by Thomas Larson
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An exploration of the cultural impact of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, the Pietá of music, and its enigmatic composer--in celebration of the centenary of his birth. "Whenever the American dream suffers a catastrophic setback, Barber's Adagio plays on the radio."--Alex Ross, author of The Rest is Noise
In the first book ever to explore Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, music and literary critic Thomas Larson tells the story of the prodigal composer and his seminal masterpiece: from its composition in 1936, when Barber was just twenty-six, to its orchestral premiere two years later, led by the great Arturo Toscanini, and its fascinating history as America's secular hymn for grieving our dead. Older Americans know Adagio from the funerals and memorials for Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy, Albert Einstein, and Grace Kelly. Younger Americans recall the work as the antiwar theme of the movie Platoon. Still others treasure the piece in its choral version under the name Agnus Dei. More recently, mourners heard Adagio played as a memorial to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. Barber's Adagio is truly the saddest music ever written, enrapturing listeners with its lyric beauty as few laments have.
The Adagio's sonorous intensity also speaks of the turbulent inner life of its composer, Samuel Barber (1910-1981), a melancholic who, in later years, descended into alcoholism and severe depression. Part biography, part cultural history, part memoir, The Saddest Music Ever Written captures the deep emotion Barber's great elegy has stirred throughout the world during its seventy-five-year history, becoming an icon of our national soul.
- Sales Rank: #2580977 in Books
- Published on: 2010-09-15
- Format: Bargain Price
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.30" h x 1.00" w x 6.30" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 262 pages
Review
“If Aaron Copland was the Updike of American music, then Samuel Barber was its Cheever. Larson provides a rich biographical context for Barber’s fervid creativity.” (The New Yorker )
“This is a wonderful examination of the effects of an artistic artifact on culture and, conversely, the various uses (undreamt of by the composer) to which the music has been put by others. It is also a personal testament to the power of a cultural artifact on an individual. Highly recommended.” (Library Journal )
“Written with great compassion and earnestness. An intimate history of this great work of music. it is the soundtrack of the soul.” (Phyllis Nordstrom - Classical Voice of New England )
“Rarely, if ever, have nine minutes of music been subjected to such intense cultural, historical, and emotional analysis.” (Eugene Drucker, violinist, The Emerson String Quartet )
“An exploration of a fascinating composer, a case study in the cultural appropriation of works of art, and a very personal meditation on the power of music.” (Kevin Bazzana, author of Lost Genius )
About the Author
Journalist, critic, and memoirist, Thomas Larson is the author of three books: The Sanctuary of Illness: A Memoir of Heart Disease, The Saddest Music Ever Written: The Story of Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings," and The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading and Writing Personal Narrative. As a staff writer for the San Diego Reader, he has written more than 50 feature-length cover stories. He teaches in the MFA Program at Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio, and is the Book Review editor for River Teeth. He holds workshops and lectures on memoir writing, American music, and heart disease throughout the United States. His website is thomaslarson.com.
Most helpful customer reviews
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
Part biography and part tribute/analysis of the quintessential American dirge
By Midwest Book Review
"The Saddest Music Ever Written, The Story of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings" is part biography and part tribute/analysis of the quintessential American dirge. Familiar to multiple generations, Barber's Adagio for Strings has been performed following the deaths of President Roosevelt, Kennedy, and former movie star Grace Kelly. It was also part of the theme music for the movie "Platoon," grieving the reality of the war in Vietnam. More recently, it was performed in Great Britain to acknowledge the tragedy of the twin towers' destruction of 9-11-2001. The Adagio for Strings, written in 1936, when the composer was in his twenties, is described as "The Pieta of music. It captures the sorrow and pity tragic death: listening to it, we are Mother Mary come alive - holding the lifeless Christ on our laps, one arm bracing the slumped head, the other offering him to the ages. The Adagio is a sound shrine to music's power to evoke emotion. Its elegiac descent is among the most moving expressions of grief in any art....No sadder music have ever been written (p.7)." In "The Saddest Music Ever Written...," Larson asks, "What is its sorrow about (p. 14)?" He concludes there are perhaps three possible answers: "It is about Barber's melancholia and depression; it is about the aloneness we feel when a loved one is lost or dies,...and it is about our alienation from ourselves as Americans: (p. 14)' or about the death of part or parts of the American dream. Much in Larson's analysis delves deeply into the composer's personal life history and also into his own family and life history. It is as though the experience of the "Adagio" is a common thread of deep, universal, yet intensely personal significance. Surely this book is testament to the importance of music in expression of emotions, specifically grief. As the author states, quoting Chekhov, "'The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them (p. 131).'" He continues on, "What is it about ourselves that we aren't grieving that makes this music so fresh? What is the Americanness of its sorrow? How is it that Barber's dirge became a dual-sided coin, the suicide of Vietnam and the patriotism of 9/11 - the ambivalence digging the well of our national depression deeper and deeper (p. 131)?" The author's partial conclusion comes after many digressions and comparisons to similar works by other composers: "Despite its commercial uses and despite Menotti's and Barber's fears, the Adagio's true legacy is that even in consort with an emotionally and technologically evolving culture, it somehow is outlasting its appropriators......the piece will survive because its memorial value will survive: on a hot, overpopulated planet, fighting over scarce resources, we will need time for and places in which to grieve our catastrophes...(p. 227)." "The Saddest Music Ever Written, the Story of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings" is a full and moving testament to this seminal work.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Overstated
By Firebrand
For fans of the Adagio, this book lovingly (and almost obsessively) chronicles what the author (who must be the biggest fan of the work that there is) believes is the widespread cultural impact of the work, and the work's effect on him personally.
But there are problems. Larson grossly overstates his case. The Barber Adagio is indeed a sad work, but the "saddest ever written" is purely subjective. The universe of music offers an exhaustive list of works that are sad as well as more significant, just as popular, and also routinely played at funerals, in films, etc. "SaddEST" is subjective, yet Larson argues for his champion very desperately.
But worse, as others point out, Larson goes out of his way to shoehorn and project tragedy, and the Adagio itself, into every aspect of Barber's life and history, which is highly questionable, and highly subjective.
More than anything else, this book is about Larson, and Larson's wild guesses about Barber and the "meaning" of the work.
The author's fierce advocacy and very personal devotion to the work makes for an interesting and controversial read, but it is a dumbed down simplification that exaggerates and even invents extramusical projections and endless "what ifs" into a piece of music, robbing the music itself of its mystery, and the power to stand on its own.
Readers must be warned that this is one person's editorial. Not fact.
13 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
a disappointment
By an observer
as an admirer of barber's work, i so looked forward to this book. but it's a grievous disappointment.
the author, seemingly obsessed with the adagio, endlessly repeats the same banal and obvious
pop-culture observations about it; literally, the same cliches are hashed over and over about it, on and on,
chapter after chapter, as if the needle was stuck on an old lp record.
more disturbingly, he presents a highly editorialized view of barber's life and music through the prism/diagnosis
of depression - nearly every work of barber's is characterized as 'mournful'; every tender melodic passage
as 'rueful and sad'. hello!?! anyone who listens to barber's music will recognize its zest and love for life; its beautiful,
heartfelt, antic spirit. yes, some of his work is impassioned, and dark; but much of it is brimming
with joy and happiness. his lyricism is not 'mournful' as frequently described here, but
glowing, tender, even downright sensual.
and i don't believe barber's life was one solely clouded by darkness and despair. he had his ups, his downs,
his joys, his heartaches, like so many other great artists. but to paint him singularly as a tragic, depressed figure,
ever haunted by the monumental success of the adagio, is ridiculous and historically inaccurate.
well, i guess it makes sense, coming from a book entitled 'the saddest music ever written'.
funny, i have never found the adagio sad - stately, profound, uplifting, yes,
but the 'saddest music ever written'? give me a break!
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