Piece#5 - Knoxville Summer of 1915 - Samuel Barber

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1I1WMCX0rU
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb5HGbLU1po

In a nice change of pace we have our first solo vocal work on the list. Like many of the other pieces discussed, I can't help but listen to this work and smile.

Factoids:

• The piece was composed by Pennsylvania's own, Samuel Barber (1910-1981).
• Although Barber won a Pulitzer prize (yes, there is a Pulitzer for music) for his opera Vanessa and another for his Piano Concerto, the most recognizable piece he ever composed is Adagio for Strings.
• If you are unfamiliar with the Adagio, here is a link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV3SHBFyDZM.
• This particular performance was given in London by just a few days after the attacks on September 11, 2001.
• Michiganders may recognize Leonard Slatkin, current conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at the podium.

• The poetry, which is the backbone of the work, is by James Agee.
• Many of you singers and choral musicians (not that the two are mutually exclusive!), may have performed a setting of his text Sure on this shining night, by either Barber, or more recently Morten Lauridsen.
• The text depicts a summer in, you guessed it, 1915 set in Knoxville, the hometown of Agee.
• This was a significant year for Agee, a summer when everything was peaceful before the death of his father in 1916.
• The speaker in this piece seems to alternate between euphoric remembrances of that wonderful summer, and their current state of strife.
• Barber was drawn to this text as he had equally colorful memories of childhood.
• Additionally, the health of his father began to fail, just prior to his composition of the work.
• The piece is appropriately dedicated "To the memory of my father," although I believe (not positive) he was still alive when Barber completed the work.

• I would characterize Knoxville as a modified Rondo.
• A Rondo is a piece with a section that is regularly repeated.
• In this case, that is the section that begins at :32.
• You will note the feel of three in the winds, which to me unmistakably sounds like someone in a rocking chair.
• This "rocking" motive is juxtaposed with sweeping string interjections sounding like weeping willows blowing in the wind.
• This opening section repeats again at 6:50, and is not exact, but maintains the character and integrity of the original musical idea as is the case with all other repetitions.

As you listen to the piece, consider consulting the text. I've included Agee's poetry below:

It has become that time of evening

when people sit on their porches,

rocking gently and talking gently

and watching the street

and the standing up into their sphere

of possession of the tress,

of birds’ hung havens, hangars.

People go by; things go by.

A horse, drawing a buggy,

breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt:

a loud auto: a quiet auto:

people in pairs, not in a hurry,

scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body,

talking casually,

the taste hovering over them of vanilla,

strawberry, pasteboard, and starched milk,

the image upon them of lovers and horsement,

squared with clowns in hueless amber.

A streetcar raising into iron moan;

stopping;

belling and starting, stertorous;

rousing and raising again

its iron increasing moan

and swimming its gold windows and straw seats

on past and past and past,

the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it

like a small malignant spirit

set to dog its tracks;

the iron whine rises on rising speed;

still risen, faints; halts;

the faint stinging bell;

rises again, still fainter;

fainting, lifting lifts,

faints foregone;

forgotten.

Now is the night one blue dew;

my father has drained,

he has coiled the hose.

Low on the length of lawns,

a frailing of fire who breathes.

Parents on porches:

rock and rock.

From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces.

The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air

at once enchants my eardrums.

On the rough wet grass

of the backyard

my father and mother have spread quilts

We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt,

and I too am lying there.

They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet,

of nothing in particular,

of nothing at all.

The stars are wide and alive,

they all seem like a smile

of great sweetness,

and they seem very near.

All my people are larger bodies than mine,

with voices gentle and meaningless

like the voices of sleeping birds.

One is an artist, he is living at home.

One is a musician, she is living at home.

One is my mother who is good to me.

One is my father who is good to me.

By some chance, here they are,

all on this earth;

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.

After a little

I am taken in

and put to bed.

Sleep, soft smiling,

draws me unto her;

and those receive me,

who quietly treat me,

as one familiar and well-beloved in that home:

but will not, oh, will not,

not now, not ever;

but will not ever tell me who I am.

Enjoy!