Most of Samuel Barber's best-known work today is orchestral, but he wrote a great deal of choral music over his long career. Hearing a large amount of it in one place helps give depth to the common understanding of Barber as a Romantic melodist who would rather have lived half a century earlier. Various modes of tonal music in the twentieth century are represented here. The ultra-lyrical Barber of the Adagio for strings, Op. 11, is heard in the arrangement of the works as an Agnus Dei for chorus and piano. But there is also ...
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Most of Samuel Barber's best-known work today is orchestral, but he wrote a great deal of choral music over his long career. Hearing a large amount of it in one place helps give depth to the common understanding of Barber as a Romantic melodist who would rather have lived half a century earlier. Various modes of tonal music in the twentieth century are represented here. The ultra-lyrical Barber of the Adagio for strings, Op. 11, is heard in the arrangement of the works as an Agnus Dei for chorus and piano. But there is also a rather official piece of hymnlike ceremonial music (the Chorale for Ascension Day), a nice bit of neo-Classic humor ("The Monk and His Cat," from the Hermit Songs, Op. 29), some operatic music, some choral art songs set to poetry by Gerard Manley Hopkins and Emily Dickinson, a Celtic-inspired set of pieces (Reincarnations, Op. 16), and a highly inventive neo-Renaissance work of the 1930s, The Virgin Martyrs, Op. 8/1, in which Barber shows a personality absolutely distinct from...
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