<<  -- 9 --  Jennifer Paull    TIMEWARP

At the peak of his career, Samuel Barber was commissioned to write three works for the opening of the Lincoln Centre. At his death, he was writing an Oboe Concerto but sadly, only the slow movement survives. It is published as Canzonetta and was premièred by Harold Gomberg with the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta in 1981.

Barber struggled with depression, alcoholism and creative blocks as so many artists had done before him. These ingredients had been omnipresent throughout Robert Schumann's life well before his mental illness. Schumann's Violin Concerto, through circumstances and the warping of time, had seen the light of day a little over three years before that of Samuel Barber. Yet Samuel Barber died in 1981, and Robert Schumann in 1856. Their deaths were separated by one hundred and twenty five years, their violin concerti premières, by thirty-eight months.

'I write for the present, and I write for myself ... I think that most music that is really good will be appreciated by the audience, ultimately.'