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Samuel Barber (1910-1981) is an American composer. “Adagio” was composed in 1935 as a string quartet No. 1 in B minor while Barber was studying in Italy. The second movement became particularly famous as "Adagio for Strings". The above original string quartet performance is by the Dover string quartet.
The following performance of "Adagio for Strings" by Sir Simon Rattle (conductor) with Berlin Philharmoniker Orchestra is also wonderful as the tempo is not too slow and it sounds as if it were a like the flow of a river.
Leonard Slatkin (conductor) conducted the BBC Orchestra on September 15, 2001, entitled "In memory of 11 September 2001". It is a sentimental performance including a video of the scene.
"Adagio for Strings" was said to be one of John F. Kennedy's favorite music. Jackie Kennedy arranged a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra (without an audience) on Monday immediately after John Kennedy's assassination. The concert was broadcasted on the radio, and Barber received a radio interview with WQXR about this concert, saying "I know this music is always played in memory of the dead, but I hope they play my other music as well. " (Wikipedia)
Barber's "Adagio for Strings" is said to be the saddest music ever written, and there is also a book about “Adagio for Strings”, called "The Saddest Music Ever Written".
Perhaps it is the results of a survey of FM radio listeners, an UK-based Classic FM (100-102FM) lists top 10 of the "saddest" classical music. I cannot say listen to these top-10 music "in the long autumn night" as we are now welcoming the arrival of the string day by day, but I think it is worth listening to when “you feel like it" as they are interesting choices and I think they are worth listening to.
1. Puccini: ‘Sono andati?’ from La Boheme
2. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: ‘Requiem’
3. Edward Elgar: Nimrod from the Enigma Variations
4. Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings
5. Tomaso Albinoni: Adagio in G minor
6. Johann Sebastian Bach: Come, Sweet Death
7. Henryk Gorecki: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
8. Henry Purcell: Dido's Lament
9. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6, fourth movement
10. Giuseppe Verdi - V'ho ingannato, from Rigoletto
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