Samuel Barber for kids: his life, his music, and what to play first

Samuel Barber was an American composer who lived from 1910 to 1981. At nine, he wrote his mother a letter to tell her he was meant to be a composer. He was right. He wrote some of the most loved American music of the 1900s, in a warm, singing style. His Adagio for Strings is played around the world in times of mourning. The best first piece for a child is that Adagio, eight minutes long.

Quick facts

• Born: 1910, in West Chester, Pennsylvania
• Died: 1981, in New York City
• Era: Modern, in a Romantic style
• Played: piano and organ, and he sang
• Known for: the Adagio for Strings, Knoxville: Summer of 1915, the Violin Concerto, and the opera Vanessa

The life in short

Barber grew up in a comfortable home in a small town. His father was a doctor. His aunt was a famous opera singer, and his uncle wrote songs.

He began the piano at six and wrote his first piece at seven. It was a sad little tune for the piano, and he called it “Sadness.”

At nine, he left a note on his mother’s dressing table. It said that he was not meant to be an athlete. He was meant to be a composer, and he asked her not to make him play football. His parents listened.

At 10, he started an opera, with words by the family cook. At 12, he had a paying job as a church organist.

At 14, he entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in its first year. He studied piano, singing, and composing, and he was excellent at all three. He had a fine baritone voice and thought for a while of becoming a singer. At Curtis, he met Gian Carlo Menotti, who became his partner in life and work. Read Menotti for kids.

In 1936, at 26, he wrote a string quartet. Its slow movement was something special. He arranged that movement for a full string orchestra and sent it to the great conductor Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini played it on national radio in 1938. That was the Adagio for Strings.

Barber won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for an opera and for a piano concerto. He wrote for the best orchestras and soloists of his day.

What the music sounds like

Many composers of Barber’s time wrote harsh, experimental music. Barber did not. He wrote long, singing melodies and rich harmony, in the tradition of Brahms. He had trained as a singer, and it shows. Even his music for instruments seems to breathe.

His fast music can be sharp, jazzy, and hard to play.

Pieces to play first

Adagio for Strings. One long, slow melody climbs step by step, higher and louder, to a single peak. Then comes silence. The melody begins again, soft this time, and fades away.

Overture to The School for Scandal. A bright, witty piece he wrote at 21, while still a student. An oboe sings the gentle tune in the middle.

Violin Concerto, first movement. The violin begins with the tune at once, with no introduction.

Knoxville: Summer of 1915. A soprano sings a child’s memory of a summer evening on the porch with the family. The music has a slow, rocking rhythm.

“Excursions” for piano. Four short pieces that borrow from American styles: boogie-woogie, the blues, a cowboy song, and a barn dance.

Things to do together

Climb the mountain. Play the Adagio. Your child starts crouched on the floor and rises a little at a time as the music climbs. At the peak, stand on tiptoe. In the silence, freeze.

Write the letter. Barber knew at nine what he wanted to be. Ask your child to write a note that begins, “I was meant to be…”

Name the feeling. After the Adagio, ask for one word. Many people say “sad.” Some say “calm” or “big.” There is no wrong answer.

Sing it. Barber made a version of the Adagio for choir. Play both and ask which your child likes better.

Why the Adagio is played at sad times

The Adagio was broadcast on American radio after the deaths of two presidents. Orchestras have played it at memorials ever since, and films use it for their saddest scenes.

Barber did not write it as funeral music. It was the slow movement of a quartet. Listeners gave it that meaning.

Print and play

Fill in a composer study notebook page for Samuel Barber. Read about more composers in American composers for kids and child prodigy composers. For calm listening, see calm classical music for kids at bedtime.

For more composers by era, see classical composers for kids.