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The Saddest Music Ever Written: The Story of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings
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Author
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Thomas Larson.
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Publisher
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Pegasus
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Format
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hardcover
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Product Dimensions
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9.25
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6.25
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1
inches
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ISBN
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9781605981154
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Pages/Publication Date
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262/2010
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Daedalus Item Code
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22248
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This item is not available.
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Description
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In this exploration of the cultural impact of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, a work now synonymous with mourning on a national scale, music and literary critic Thomas Larson tells the story of the prodigal composer and his seminal masterpiece. From its composition in 1936, when Barber was just 26, and its orchestral premiere two years later, Larson follows the Adagio's history as America's secular hymn for grieving our dead, figuring in funerals and memorials for presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy, for Albert Einstein and for Grace Kelly, and for the victims of the 9/11 attacks, as well as commemorating the casualties of Vietnam in the film Platoon. Larson also portrays the melancholy Barber, who in later years descended into alcoholism and severe depression. "If Aaron Copland was the Updike of American music, then Samuel Barber was its Cheever. Larson provides a rich biographical context for Barber's fervid creativity."—The New Yorker
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