Barber’s Symphony No. 1
Notes by TŌN violinist Yuxuan Feng
In his twenties, when most people were still searching for direction, Samuel Barber had already discovered his own musical voice: sincere, lyrical, and refined. Symphony No. 1 was composed in 1936 during his residency at the American Academy in Rome, where he studied on a fellowship. The premiere, conducted by Bernardino Molinari in Rome, was met with immediate success. The following year, conductor Artur Rodziński introduced the work to American audiences with the Cleveland Orchestra, and it soon became the first American symphony ever performed at the Salzburg Festival.
“The form of my Symphony in One Movement is a synthetic of the four-movement classical symphony”, he wrote in the program note, For me this feels like a tribute to Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony. This single-movement work unfolds in a compact structure of four interconnected sections, much like the four movements of a traditional symphony: a fast and sonorous opening, followed by a quicker section in triple meter functioning as a scherzo, a slow andante, and finally a solemn conclusion in the form of a passacaglia. The three themes introduced in the opening allegro recur throughout the piece, particularly the expansive first theme, which serves as the work’s central unifying idea. In the scherzo, it reappears in disguise through rapidly repeated notes, and later forms the passacaglia melody played by the cellos and double basses in the finale.
I imagine that many listeners, like myself, first encountered Barber’s music through his famous Adagio for Strings, adapted from the second movement of his First String Quarte—perhaps in a film, or during a moment of solemn remembrance. At times one might recall the lush emotional sound of Hollywood composers such as Max Steiner or James Horner, and wonder whether their music drew inspiration from Barber’s lyrical legacy. Perhaps you will find your own answer within his music.