Recognition

This chapter describes Barber’s close relationship with Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini. Barber would frequently visit the conductor in his home, most days ending with music. This friendship resulted in Toscanini requesting that Barber write a work for the newly formed NBC Symphony Orchestra. This was a rare privilege, as Toscanini in the past had ignored American composers. His broadcasts were received with much enthusiasm from audiences. Toscanini further advanced Barber’s career by bringing his music to Latin America, with Barber being the first American composer whose work reached those shores. For Toscanini, Barber composed Essay for Orchestra and arranged the second movement of his earlier string quartet as the Adagio for Strings, which brought him international fame and became, as it were, the national funeral music of the United States, associated with the deaths of such famous names as Albert Einstein, Franklin Roosevelt, and Grace Kelly and with the tragedy of September 11, 2001. The chapter also covers Barber’s unaccompanied choral works.