Adagio for Strings
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Adagio for Strings is a work by Samuel Barber, arguably by far his most well known, arranged for string orchestra from the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11. Barber finished the arrangement in 1936, the same year that he wrote the quartet. It was performed for the first time in 1938, in a radio broadcast from a New York studio attended by an invited audience, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, who also took the piece on tour to Europe and South America. It is disputed whether the first performance in Europe was conducted by Toscanini or Henry Wood. Its reception was generally positive, with Alexander J. Morin writing that Adagio for Strings is "full of pathos and cathartic passion" and that it "rarely leaves a dry eye." The music is the setting for Barber's 1967 choral arrangement of Agnus Dei. Adagio for Strings can be heard in many TV shows and movies.
Film and TV soundtracks
Adagio for Strings can be heard on many film soundtracks:
- Amélie (2001), a romantic comedy directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
- A Very Natural Thing
- El Norte
- Lorenzo's Oil
- Platoon, directed by Oliver Stone
- Reconstruction
- Sicko (2007), a documentary by Michael Moore
- Swimming Upstream;
- Galipolli;
- The Elephant Man (1980), directed by David Lynch
It has been heard in episodes of Daria, The Simpsons, Big Brother 2010 (UK), That Mitchell and Webb Look, The Boondocks, South Park, American Dad!, How I Met Your Mother, Seinfeld, ER (TV series), Red Dwarf, Band of Brothers, Big Love, Misfits, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Pramface, and the live-action Japanese drama Nodame Cantabile.