Recently, after years, I returned to this piece that holds a significant place in my heart, and to a musical form which is the Adagio. The lengthy compositions with their long, melodious passages played by strings have always had a special place in my heart.
For me, Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings is one of the deepest and sorrowful works in the history of classical music and human kind in general. It doesn't leave a dry eye, not just upon the first few listens, but consistently over time. Some might label it as a bombastic composition full with pathos, but I believe that's not true.
It's a work that encapsulates the human existence in a mere 10-minute segment, from the simple birth through the tumultuous twists and turns of life to its quietly fading end into emptiness. The rising and falling melody and harmony contain an infinite sense of ascension and descension that we all experience in life, reaching a powerful climax that even the most skilled string orchestra might struggle to sustain.
Indeed, Samuel Barber himself was a tragic figure, a man who battled depression. Did this lead him to compose these music in such a honest and truthful manner, bringing us not only the universal story of us all but also his personal one?
I then asked myself if it's coincidental that I am listening to this composition now. The answer is no, it's not a coincidence. Now listening to it reminding me of the 7/10/23 massacre that happened to my people in Israel by the brutal and evil terrorist organization Hamas.
I've always dreamt of taking a beloved piece and create an harmonic and melodic analysis of it, it's called a "reduction"- which is compressing a big score into something smaller, in this case to only 2 staves. Even though I did not omitted the importance of the orchestration in the analysis. In special cases, like when the Cello's or Violas takes the melodic role in the composition I'm spotting it with an arrow that indicates what instrument is playing the part. Barber knew how to play with the colors of the strings in a way that defined him as a composer and orchestrator, for example: Choosing the piece to be in Bbm instead of Bm (this Low Ebm7 chord at the beginning could be played way better on an open E by the Basses than Eb, but he knew there's a special color in that dark key). Some argue that strings are "just a homogeneous layer" in the orchestra, but Samuel Barber proves them wrong.
You can learn a lot from such videos, and I hope this one helps someone in any way possible. I'm about to upload more of these soon, so stay tuned and subscribe.
Enjoy :)

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