Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty

09/14/2026

Eternal grieving after the terrorism against America of 9/11

For more information visit https://nyphil.orgSubscribe at https://...

08/06/2026

It's always a pleasure to run into Leontyne again at the National Portrait Gallery!

06/25/2026

My largest-scale documentary since this film, is now in the middle of its inaugural run as an immersive film at Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. through July 5, playing every hour on the hour Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays 11am to 5pm. Here's a quick video tour of the installation, and you can secure free tickets at: dc.july9th.com

If you're in the NYC area, the official premiere is at The Battery on July 9th, with free tickets to that still available at: nyc.july9th.com

Send a message to learn more

06/14/2026

Here for Barber's Violin Concerto, the last concert of the National Symphony Orchestra season - but something is different today. Hoping for a better season ahead.

05/23/2026

Now THIS is how it's supposed to sound! I was there for it, and it was brilliant. Nice review from EarRelevant.

Noseda leads a new National Symphony Orchestra recording of Barber’s Vanessa, featuring a star cast and richly detailed orchestral sound.

05/20/2026

This is, I must agree, ultimately the truth of the matter...

(The troupe's aggressive acclaim-strain continues to confound, but has a lot to do with identity...)

The New York company offers a stark, taxing adaptation of the composer’s 1958 work, which centers on a woman waiting for her long-gone lover’s return.

05/17/2026

Caught this at Baruch College, pretty good! Causes one to long for the scale and grandeur of Barber's original orchestration, as this was just a few musicians in a basement black box, but the material is timeless and always a pleasure to revisit. Doubled down into melodrama, at odds with the already delicate balance between the score's intensity, and need for theatrical naturalism. But more troupes will rise to the challenge, to be sure! I'll keep listening to the Slatkin reading for now.

04/24/2026

A dear friend of Samuel Barber, who paid tribute until the very end at 101 years old - may she rest in peace.

Her last album, a wonderful magnum opus in 2022 warmly titled "My Life In Music," features this rare performance of Barber's "Fresh from West Chester: II. Let's Sit It Out, I'd Rather Watch": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1itEKRSoH0

Ruth Slenczynska, the pianist who has died aged 101, was thought to have been the last surviving pupil of Sergei Rachmaninov who, she claimed, had once proclaimed her “the greatest talent in the world...

04/09/2026

A peculiar pairing tonight, with Yarn/Wire on the first half of the New York Philharmonic program (whose newest evening-length concert film that I shot last year premieres next week), then a bounty of Barber on the second half: his timeless Knoxville: Summer of 1915 sung by Golda Schultz, and the much less frequently programmed Second Essay to climax the concert. Every once in a while, spoiled by such consummate musicians, my belief that Samuel Barber was the greatest composer of all time (yes, very dramatic!) gets affirmed. A lighter work by another composer took the bigger ovation as always, but Barber always accesses something much greater, for eternity, beyond instant gratification.

"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.
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."

03/09/2026

🎂

Recommended viewing for Samuel Barber’s birthday: H. Paul Moon’s Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty. The award-winning documentary about the great American composer (world-famous for his “Adagio for Strings”) aired nationally on PBS back in 2017 and is now available for streaming on demand on Vimeo and elsewhere.

Watch the trailer here:

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/barber

Barber makes a wish in 1977

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUKoutowqpA

Happy birthday, Sam! It’s a good day for a trip to the Barber.