Samuel Barber

サミュエル・バーバー　/　さみゅえる・ばーばー

American composer

March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981　・　West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States

Pennsylvania
composer
musicologist
pianist

My Take

Samuel Barber is one of those composers who could make you feel the full weight of human grief in about eight minutes flat, and the Adagio for Strings is the proof. Written in the late 1930s and famously broadcast on the radio after Franklin Roosevelt's death, it became the go-to piece for national mourning — and it still shows up whenever the world needs to feel something deeply and collectively. What I find remarkable about Barber is that he never chased the modernist crowd; while his peers were deconstructing tonality, he kept writing lush, emotionally direct music and won two Pulitzer Prizes doing it. He studied at Curtis, trained as a baritone, and genuinely understood the voice in a way most composers don't. The opera Antony and Cleopatra had a rocky premiere at the new Met in 1966, but even that stumble shows his ambition. A quietly essential American voice, gone too soon in 1981.

Overview

Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the mid-20th century. Principally influenced by nine years' composition studies with Rosario Scalero at the Curtis Institute and more than 25 years' study with his uncle, the composer Sidney Homer, Barber's music usually eschewed the experim…

1. Profile

Name (English): Samuel Barber
Name (Japanese): サミュエル・バーバー
Reading: さみゅえる・ばーばー
Born: March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981
Zodiac / Chinese zodiac: Pisces / Dog
Origin: West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States
Blood type: Private
Height: Private
Agency: Private
Occupation: composer / musicologist / pianist / conductor / musician

2. Background

Elementary school: Private
Junior high: Private
High school: West Chester Henderson High School
University: Private

Awards & achievements

1934 Rome Prize
1945 Guggenheim Fellowship
1947 Guggenheim Fellowship
1949 Guggenheim Fellowship
1958 Pulitzer Prize for Music
1961 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1963 Pulitzer Prize for Music
1980 Edward MacDowell Medal

3. Relationships

Spouse: Private
Children: Private
Parents: Private
Siblings: Private

4. Personality

Motto

Private

5. Works & records

Category	Title	Role
Notable work	Cello Concerto	—
Notable work	Adagio for Strings	—
Notable work	Agnus Dei	—
Notable work	Violin Concerto	—
Notable work	Antony and Cleopatra	—
Notable work	Capricorn Concerto	—

6. Links

Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B5%E3%83%9F%E3%83%A5%E3%82%A8%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BB%E3%83%90%E3%83%BC%E3%83%90%E3%83%BC