Adagio for Strings
Categories: Classical composition stubs | Pieces
Adagio for Strings is a piece of classical music for string orchestra by Samuel Barber.
It is Barber's own arrangement of the second movement of his String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11, and was given its first performance by Arturo Toscanini. It is Barber's most popular piece, being used in the films Platoon, The Elephant Man, Amélie, Al Norte del Corazón, Lorenzo's Oil and S1m0ne and being given an electronic treatment by William Orbit (a remix by Ferry Corsten sold well in both the US and the UK in 1999), DJ Tiësto and Delerium ("Eternal Odyssey" from 2003's Chimera). It is also referred to in a key scene in Alice Sebold's bestselling 2002 novel The Lovely Bones. The music was used repeatedly in Platoon to add to the film's powerful and emotional intensity.
The piece uses an arch form, employing and then inverting, expanding, and varying a stepwise ascending melody. It was played at the funerals of U.S. Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, as well as at those of Princess Grace and Rainier III, Prince of Monaco.
It has also been modified into an eight-part choral work called Agnus Dei ('Lamb of God'), a favorite of choirs all over the world; it has been heard in such disparate places as the computer game Homeworld (Mission 1 - Kharak System and Mission 3 - Kharak System destroyed) to the 10th season premiere of the television show ER (episode number 204 "The Lost", when Dr. Luka Kovač prays).
In 2004, Barber's masterpiece was voted the "saddest classical" work ever by listeners of the BBC's Today Programme, ahead of Henry Purcell's Dido's Lament and Gustav Mahler's 5th symphony.