Theory Wonk Post

I read this site for useful insight and information about today's music. Your comments on Barber's Adagio sadly seem to confirm simplicity in music is still frowned upon in certain circles. It is 2008 and these ideas have been old-fashioned for a while now. Even mathematics abides by the KISS principle. Putting down Barber's Adagio as a movie "trick" is also disengenuous; most movie scores are derivatives of original works written by others anyway.

Condescension toward Barber for a beautiful work, loved by millions, and can make grown men cry? Your doctorate and professorship are showing sir. Aside from this slip, please continue the good work.

KG replies: Oh, don't get your knickers in a knot, it's an OK piece. But Mahler achieves a greater depth of the same brand of sentimental feeling in the slow movement of his Fifth Symphony with far more inventiveness. It would be an enormous fallacy to assume, because I have a very specific complaint about one specific well-loved piece, that I must therefore be stereotyped as one of those intellectuals who looks down his nose at everything popular or un-intellectual. If you've been reading this blog, you should know that I've been championing simplicity in music since long before I earned a doctorate - and I've been condescending to Barber for the same length of time. As Noel Coward said, "Extraordinary how potent cheap music is."

The Adagio might also be a good teaching tool to use with your comp students, ie the musical sins of youth. Also, as a blind hog can find an acorn now and then, I do think Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is a pretty good work,

KG replies: That's always been my favorite Barber piece too, by far.

ah, but if you got a conductor to take the Barber Adagio slow enough so that it would last 45 minutes or an hour, then it would be supergenius!