Symphony No. 1 in One Movement, Op. 9 Samuel Barber The years 1935–1937 were prolific and transformative for Samuel Barber. Several fellowships and two Pulitzer scholarships (not to be confused with the two Pulitzer Prizes he would later receive) allowed him to study and travel throughout Europe and compose some of his most well-known pieces. One of these was Symphony No. 1 in One Movement, finished 24 February 1936 in an Alpine village in France named Roquebrune. It was, in Barber's words, a "synthetic treatment of the four-movement classical symphony," compressing the standard form into a single movement without pauses. He modeled it after Sibelius' Symphony No. 7 (also in one movement); charts have even been found in Barber's sketches exploring Sibelius' themes and their development. Accompanying him throughout his European stay was his collaborator and partner Gian Carlo Menotti. The two had met at the Curtis Institute of Music in their student days and remained constant companions in the years that followed. A 1929 sea voyage sees the two young men sharing a cabin, reading aloud in the other's mother tongue (English for Barber, Italian for Menotti), and practicing their French. They parted ways romantically after living together for several decades in Capricorn, a mansion purchased using funds from one of Barber's sponsors, which they sold in the early 1970s. Menotti would be at Barber's deathbed when he succumbed to cancer in 1981. Barber revised Symphony No. 1 from 1942–1943 — the first version had already premiered in Rome in 1936 — while serving in the United States Army; he could only find time to work on it at night Violin Concerto, Op. 14 Samuel Barber Samuel Barber found his love for music early. A child prodigy, he composed his first work Sadness at the age of seven.
He was convinced that music was his destiny; a letter from the nine-year-old Barber to his mother refutes his parents' desire for him to play football and reveals his "worrying secret": "I was meant to be a composer, and will be I'm sure." At the Curtis Institute of Music, Barber would rub shoulders with many other such prodigies, including violinist Iso Briselli. Briselli's adopted father, Samuel Fels, would later commission Barber to write a piece for his ward, and the Violin Concerto was born. With half of the $1000 commission, Barber installed himself in Switzerland to begin, though was forced to finish the concerto in the United States at the outset of World War II. The first two movements were declared "not brilliant enough" and not worthy of Briselli's "technical powers." The third movement proved also unsatisfactory: as Barber told it, it was too hard for Briselli; as Briselli later told it, it was "too lightweight." Either way, Fels wanted his money back — money that had already been spent in Europe. The matter was settled when Herbert Baumel, a Curtis student, was called in to test it out; he played it without problems, and the commission was saved. Violin Concerto is one of Barber's most played pieces. Briselli would not be on the violin for its debut performance. PROGRAM NOTES © JESSIE MONTGOMERY, MISSY MAZZOLI, JUN-LONG LEE (2025)
© DARIO ACOSTA
for a hurdy-gurdy, a medieval stringed instrument with constant, wheezing drones that are cranked out under melodies played on an attached keyboard. It's a piece that churns and roils, that inches close to the listener only to leap away at breakneck speed, in the process transforming the ensemble turns into a makeshift hurdygurdy, flung recklessly into space.
ANTHONY PARNTHER CONDUCTOR "A conductor for the future" with "a flourishing career" (New York Times), Anthony Parnther is Music Director of California's San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra and conductor of the Gateways Festival Orchestra, which he led at its Chicago and Carnegie Hall debuts. He has also conducted major artists, who range from Joshua Bell and Jessye Norman to Rihanna and John Legend, as well as eminent ensembles including the Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and Sydney Symphony. Upcoming highlights include his Chicago Symphony debut and a revival of Anthony Davis' Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, The Central Park Five, at Detroit Opera. Dedicated to amplifying traditionally underrepresented voices, Parnther has reconstructed and performed orchestral works by Margaret Bonds, Duke Ellington, Zenobia Powell Perry, Florence Price, William Grant Still, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor; conducted Los Angeles Opera's world premiere production of Tamar-kali's oratorio We Hold These Truths; and premiered and recorded works by Jon Batiste, Kris Bowers, Adolphus Hailstork, Marian Harrison, George Walker, Errollyn Wallen, and many more. As one of today's foremost film conductors, he helms recording sessions for many of the world's top international feature films and television series. Recent projects include Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Encanto, Nope, Tenet, and the Grammy-winning Oppenheimer soundtrack. FALL 2025 | 59