Why We Love Barber's Adagio for Strings

[ADAM: THIS IS AN ANNOUNCEMENT AND LINK TO AUDIO OF AN INTERVIEW] Memoirist Thomas Larson, author of The Saddest Music Ever Written: The Story of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, will give a multimedia presentation on the role of Barber’s Adagio for Strings in American popular culture, 5 p.m. Nov. 14 at the Peggy R. McConnell Center for the Arts, in Worthington. WOSU Public Media sponsors Mr. Larson’s visit in partnership with the McConnell Center for the Arts, Chamber Music Columbus and Chamber Music Connection. Click here for tickets and information. In an interview I conducted last spring with memoirist Thomas Larson, author of The Saddest Music Ever Written: The Story of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, Larson noted a performance of the Adagio that Leonard Slatkin and the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave on September 15, 2001, in homage to the victims of the terrorist attacks a few days earlier. The video of this performance makes it clear why Barber's Adagio for Strings has lodged in our hearts: it says different things to each of us, while it says the same thing to all of us. Please write in and let us know what Barber's Adagio for Strings says to you.