Notes from YouTube's RupertJones: "The 2001 Last Night
of the Proms season finished as it usually does in September.
Only this year was very different in mood, following the 9/11 Terrorists
strikes across America. This is the performance of Samuel Barber's
Adagio for Strings that night. Performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra,
presided over by American conductor, Leonard Slatkin."
About the Gruppman /. Miami Int. performance on YouTube: I feel as some commenters noted on the other youtube Barber "Adagio..." (AfS) feat. L. Slatkin/BBC (the non-uncut version -- see above) ... that being spoon-fed emotional images (from 9/11 or whatever) greatly detracts from the power of this piece. “AfS” may be, IMO, the most emotionally-lyrical composition ever written. In the media world, it has only really worked in (IMO) The Elephant Man (1980) -- and that scene (and movie itself) was not true to the real-life accounts of Joseph Merrick. The scenes were deliberately "inflated" for emotional Romanticism and melancholy. But Romantic-lyricism was/is Barber's gift.
Also, and to be honest, the Gruppman / Miami performance is not that
good. Then again, not many major orchestras/famous conductors get AfS
right. Best are: Thomas Schippers/NY Phil (1965), Neville Marriner /Academy-of-St-Martin-in-the-Fields
(1976) and David Zinnman/Baltimore Symph. Orch. (1992). Also, the Sept.
15, 2001 Slatkin/BBC performance is very good. The uncut youtube version
is the one to hear/see (but still wish BBC showed only conductor and
orchestra -- no cutaway to flags and patriotic spectators). The other “9/11” version
is emotionally-pretentious.
