This week on the Ether Game Weekly Music Quiz Podcast, we're feeling sorry for ourselves! It's a show all sadness and melancholy in music, a show we're calling "Woe Is Me"! Can you name this mournful tune? (The answer is below) Remember to keep your ears out for a portion of Tuesday night's Teaser selection. And don't forget to tune into the full show on Tuesday, October 9th at 8:00pm for a chance to win a prize!
Samuel Barber (1910–1981), Adagio For Strings
New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor
Barber's famous Adagio For Strings, dubbed by many as "the saddest piece of music ever," is one of those rare, well-known pieces that had its world premiere not in a concert hall, but rather on the radio. The year was 1938, and composer Samuel Barber had sent the score of his new piece, a single movement for string orchestra, to famed conductor Arturo Toscanini of the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Toscanini had apparently returned the score to Barber soon after, not because he didn't like it, but rather because he had already memorized it. The premiere took place on November 8, 1938 in front of a small audience at Rockefeller Center's Studio 8H (the studio that now houses Saturday Night Live), and broadcast out to millions of Americans. The work has been on the air many more times since, but mostly to accompany state funerals and other national tragedies.
