Classical Composer: | Barber, Samuel |
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Work: | The School for Scandal, Op. 5 |
Year Composed: | 1931 |
Instrumentation: | 2+pic.2+ca.2+bcl.2/4331/timp.perc/cel.hp/str |
Publishers: |
G. Schirmer, Inc. The Edwin A. Fleisher Music Collection Sikorski |
Duration: | 00:08:00 |
Period: | 20th Century |
Work Category: | Orchestral |
Work Information
Available Recording(s)
Samuel Barber quickly established his reputation as a composer in the romantic vein. His setting of Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach won the praise of no less than Vaughan Williams, while his concert overture The School for Scandal, a sparkling evocation of Sheridan's comedy, won the Bearns Prize of Columbia University in 1933.
Stabbing brass chords lead to a capricious string theme. A brief climax leads to a ruminative oboe melody of great beauty, taken up by the strings. A bucolic clarinet motif incites greater animation, leading to the work's central climax; cascading strings and pounding brass presage the full-blown return of the main theme. The oboe melody duly reappears, before a short fugato passage leads to a syncopated coda and final triumphant flourish.
The overture's première by the Philadelphia Orchestra established Barber's national reputation, consolidated by the American launch of his Symphony No.1 by Arthur Rodzinsky and the Cleveland Orchestra in 1937.
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