295:. After this, we return to a rough interpretation of the first theme; this time the harp carries the "rocking" theme alone. This brief return to familiarity smoothly transitions into a passage where the narrator has changed from describing the summer's eve to contemplating grander things: "On the rough wet grass of the back yard my father and mother have spread quilts"... As was common before air conditioning, people would spend evenings outside their houses. Here adults and the narrator are lying down on quilts, talking sparsely and idly. In relative silence, the narrator, still a child, contemplates the vastness of the stars and "my people," sitting quietly with "larger bodies than mine". Thematically, the orchestra is closest to the introductory section before the rocking, consisting of a repetitive exchange between the bassoon and the other woodwinds.
230:). "The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near". The family members are described as a child would, quoting a grown-up: "One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home." The key people are the parents, his father and mother, who are both "good to me". The boy is "one familiar and well-beloved in that home". The text foreshadows some tragedy to come: "May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away".
25:
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209:, in many ways, parallels Agee's text. Agee was touched by the death of his father in his childhood, while Barber was, during the time of composition, enduring his father's deteriorating health. The two men were similarly aged. Most importantly, however, the two men were so compelled by nostalgia and inspiration that they (supposedly) wrote their pieces quickly and without much revision.
226:"of nothing in particular, of nothing at all". Their voices are "gentle and meaningless, like the voices of sleeping birds". A horse and a buggy go by, a loud auto, a quiet auto, a noisy streetcar. The members of the family lie on quilts, in the yard (as was not unusual on a hot summer evening, before
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lines add to the chaos. Like the introduction, the imagery is vivid but intangible yet—this passage has all the clearness of a dream, but we are unclear what it means. The soprano again clarifies the imagery: "a streetcar raising its iron moan; stopping, belling and starting; stertorous; rousing and
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The boy includes philosophical commentary: "By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night". He is "taken in and put to bed", and is received by sleep. Yet
225:
does not tell a story. It is a poetic evocation of life as seen from the perspective of a small boy. It is full of alliteration ("people in pairs", "parents on porches", "sleep, soft smiling", "low on the length of lawns"). The point is that nothing is happening; the adults sit on the porch and talk
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The childlike recollection of the summer's evening now turns abruptly, seriously "who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth," again hitting the high B-flat. The narrator then asks for the blessing of the aforementioned people, and moves into a final re-entry of the original theme, while
170:-like in form, with "several interconnected sections, tied together with a recurring refrain". Barber's choice to compose in a relatively free large-scale form parallels Agee's own choice in developing his work; both represent the fruits of a spontaneous improvisation, fueled by a moving nostalgia:
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I was greatly interested in improvisatory writing, as against carefully composed, multiple-draft writing: i.e., with a kind of parallel to improvisation in jazz, to a certain kind of "genuine" lyric which I thought should be purely improvised ... It took possibly an hour and a half; on revision, I
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1915 was a significant year for James Agee. He was six. It was the last year his family was intact; his father died in an automobile accident in 1916, and the remaining family members left
Knoxville, never to return. According to Agee, it was the point around which his life began to evolve. After
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The section ends particularly poignantly, with the narrator counting off the people present, ending with "One is my father who is good to me." The orchestra breaks into an agitated section, characterized musically by leaps of ninths and seconds. We see here that the text has struck a chord with
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In a 1949 radio interview, Barber said, “y musical response that summer of 1947 was immediate and intense. I think I must have composed
Knoxville within a few days... You see, it expresses a child’s feelings of loneliness, wonder and lack of identity in that marginal world between twilight and
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We are talking now of summer evenings in
Knoxville, Tennessee in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child. It was a little bit mixed sort of block, fairly solidly lower middle class, with one or two juts apiece on either side of that. The houses corresponded:
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at the time, and the performance could not be rescheduled). Koussevitzy wired to him noting that the performance was "an outstanding success and made a deep impression on all". While
Koussevitzky never performed the work again, it has remained popular over the years.
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raising again its iron increasing moan". The noisy, metallic texture persists, interrupted by a notably pointed excursion, "like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks." Describing the spark above the trolley car as a spirit following it closely, Barber uses
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The beginning of the piece, describing a warm summer's evening, is particularly lyrical in comparison to Agee's earlier passages in the same work. Barber capitalizes on the lyricism of this section through his use of
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Barber, whose father was grievously ill at the time, drawing a parallel between Agee's father (his text is "strictly autobiographical") in 1915 and Samuel Barber's father at the time of writing in 1947.
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Kreiling, Jean Louise. 1986. "The Songs of Samuel Barber: A Study in
Literary Taste and Text-Setting". PhD diss. Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. p. 170, 182.
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middlesized gracefully fretted wood houses built in the late nineties and early nineteen hundreds, with small front and side and more spacious back yards, and trees in the yards.
160:, narrated by a child who seems, at times, to transform into an adult. It is difficult to tell at times the identity of the speaker, enhancing the dreamlike quality of the work.
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After the streetcar fades, the soprano begins a lyrical passage "now is the night one blue dew." Here the soprano reaches the highest note of the entire work, a B-flat sung
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While the vocal part is typically sung by a soprano, it is also sometimes sung by a tenor. One such performance of the work with a tenor soloist took place in 2004 at the
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the narrator talks about being put to bed. The piece ends with the instruments calmly rising, almost floating, reinforcing the dreamlike aspects of the piece.
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is set in one movement, and the composer described it as "lyric rhapsody". It broadly conforms to the "ABA" pattern suggested by the text, and is
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the one thing he can never learn in that house, that no one will ever tell him, is "who I am". With this sense of lack, the piece ends.
247:: "Talking casually" in measures 23–24, "increasing moan" in measures 65–66, "the faint stinging bell rises again ..." in measure 79.
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stayed about 98 per cent faithful to my rule, for these "improvised" experiments, against any revision whatever.
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is a lush, richly textured work. Setting music to excerpts from "Knoxville: Summer of 1915", a 1938
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Barber and Agee met, Barber noted that the two had much in common.
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Taylor, Benedict. "Nostalgia and
Cultural Memory in Barber's
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James Agee, "Program Notes of the Boston
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744:. Vol. 9, no. 9. June 2004. pp. 12–23 (14).
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Composition for voice and orchestra by Samuel Barber
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118:. Although the piece is traditionally sung by a
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665:"Barber: 'Knoxville: Summer of 1915', Opus 24"
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525:April Fredrick Sings Copland, Barber, Gershwin
326:. The performance was met with mixed reviews.
126:. The text is in the persona of a male child.
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102:, with text from a 1938 short prose piece by
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579:. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
566:Agee, James. "Knoxville: Summer of 1915".
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577:Samuel Barber: The Composer and His Music
69:Learn how and when to remove this message
791:), Luna Nova Ensemble (www.lunanova.org)
650:, Vol. 73, No. 2, pp. 150–65. 1983.
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32:This article includes a list of general
623:Peoria Symphony Orchestra Program Notes
106:. The work was commissioned by soprano
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700:. 1957; rpt. NY: Penguin, 2008. p. 3.
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385:Eleanor Steber in Concert (1956–1958)
735:"Summer Festivals / Festivals d'été"
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110:, who premiered it in 1948 with the
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663:Keller, James M. (September 2015).
314:was premiered on April 9, 1948, by
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201:Agee's text as excerpted by Barber
38:it lacks sufficient corresponding
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259:, where Barber carries a simple
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570:(August–September 1938): 22–25.
925:Music for a Scene from Shelley
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1145:Music of Knoxville, Tennessee
1140:Compositions by Samuel Barber
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415:Leontyne Price Sings Barber
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977:Medea's Dance of Vengeance
955:Second Essay for Orchestra
475:Barber: Scenes & Arias
447:Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
288:to illustrate this image.
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765:The Journal of Musicology
761:Knoxville: Summer of 1915
320:Boston Symphony Orchestra
312:Knoxville: Summer of 1915
223:Knoxville, Summer of 1915
207:Knoxville, Summer of 1915
136:Knoxville: Summer of 1915
122:, it may also be sung by
112:Boston Symphony Orchestra
83:Knoxville: Summer of 1915
940:Symphony in One Movement
515:Barber, Berlioz, Britten
457:, Telarc CD-80250, 1993.
437:Knoxville Summer of 1915
331:American Academy in Rome
696:, p. 22; see also
553:Gershwin Copland Barber
545:City of London Sinfonia
429:Orchestra of St. Luke's
90:24, is a 1947 work for
53:more precise citations.
1098:Barber Violin Concerto
917:The School for Scandal
866:Prayers of Kierkegaard
669:San Francisco Symphony
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1160:Songs about Tennessee
698:A Death in the Family
511:Anne-Catherine Gillet
501:Measha Brueggergosman
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149:A Death in the Family
890:Antony and Cleopatra
835:List of compositions
507:, CBC Records, 2004.
371:Columbia Masterworks
343:Anthony Dean Griffey
263:-like motive in the
154:Knoxville, Tennessee
947:Essay for Orchestra
675:on October 24, 2016
648:Geographical Review
575:Heyman, Barbara B.
568:The Partisan Review
339:Lanaudière Festival
284:strings in walking
1105:Gian Carlo Menotti
1071:Other compositions
933:Adagio for Strings
637:, pp. 279–80.
455:The Best of Barber
387:, VAI Audio, 1958.
324:Serge Koussevitzky
116:Serge Koussevitzky
1150:1947 compositions
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742:La Scena Musicale
621:Allsen, Michael "
481:Barbara Hendricks
477:, Etcetera, 1992.
471:Roberta Alexander
439:, Nonesuch, 1989.
347:Montreal Symphony
238:Musical structure
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988:Chamber and solo
882:A Hand of Bridge
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677:. Retrieved
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551:, CD album
467:, DG, 1995.
425:Dawn Upshaw
405:Evelyn Lear
357:Discography
267:and horns.
130:Description
59:August 2014
51:introducing
1134:Categories
1008:Excursions
909:Orchestral
560:References
541:Jill Gomez
140:prose poem
104:James Agee
34:references
1047:Capricorn
1033:Concertos
898:Agnus Dei
694:Agee 1938
585:Footnotes
451:Yoel Levi
282:pizzicato
273:pizzicato
265:woodwinds
213:sleep.”.
164:Knoxville
96:orchestra
1121:Category
1049:Concerto
533:, album
523:, album
513:, album
503:, album
493:, album
483:, album
473:, album
463:, album
453:, album
435:, album
413:, album
393:, album
383:, album
373:, 1950 (
365:, album
345:and the
318:and the
307:Premiere
278:staccato
269:Staccato
178:—
874:Vanessa
421:, 1968.
401:, 1961.
256:agitato
253:allegro
217:Summary
186:Genesis
120:soprano
47:improve
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495:Barber
375:ML2174
114:under
36:, but
1079:Medea
738:(PDF)
341:with
293:piano
168:rondo
124:tenor
92:voice
681:2018
271:and
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