Barber: The Complete Piano Music - John Browning

Sonata For Piano, Op. 26
1 1. Allegro Energico 07:26
2 2. Allegro Vivace E Leggero 02:18
3 3. Adagio Mesto 06:28
4 4. Fuga. Allegro Con Spirito 05:17


5 Interlude No. 1 (Adagio For Jeanne) (World Premiere Recording) 06:47


6 Nocturne, Op. 33 04:42


7 Ballade, Op. 46 07:44


Excursions, Op. 20
8 Un Poco Allegro 03:17
9 In Slow Blues Tempo 04:33
10 Allegretto 03:29
11 Allegro Molto 02:32

SAMUEL BARBER The Complete Solo Piano Music liner notes

During most of Samuel Barber's life, his conservative, tonal, essentially 19th-century orientation was considered an anachronism, not only by critics but by fellow composers. After all, serialism, indeterminacy, and electronics were the fascinations of the mid-20th­century avant-garde, not extensions of Romanticism. By the 1970s, American musical style had begun to change: neo-tonality and post-modernism were the buzzwords of the day, and Barber's music now seemed prescient in its foreshadowing of neo-Romanticism. But Barber died in 1981 -- depressed, embittered, barely glimpsing the revival of his music that was just around the corner. Still, it would be wrong to cast Barber as some neglected, misunderstood genius. If his modernist contemporaries had nothing but scorn for his work, the general public always adored it. Indeed, in Barber's case there never was any schism between composer and audience. In America, only Copland rivaled Barber in placing (and keeping) new works within the mainstream concert repertory.