# Samuel Barber's Knoxville: An Appreciation



## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

I've long held a fascination with and admiration for James Agee's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915". He wrote it in one 90 minute writing session, and likened the process to improvisation in jazz: made up on the spot, take or leave it. And for the most part, he stuck to his plan, editing it very little later on. He later incorporated it into his novel "A Death in the Family", which won him a posthumous Pulitzer Prize. The novel, in turn, became a Broadway play "All the Way Home", and later, a movie.

I first heard this prose in its perfect musical setting by Samuel Barber. It was finished in 1947 and premiered that year by Serge Koussevitsky & the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It was an instant success.

The way in which the prose paints a picture of family life in 1915, the adult narrator looking back on his childhood, is charming. The important lines, however, are the last lines.

Sleep, soft smiling,
draws me unto her;
and those receive me,
who quietly treat me,
as one familiar and well-beloved in that home:
but will not, oh, will not,
not now, not ever;
but will not ever tell me who I am.

This is as it should be: without anyone trying to define him according to their perception, he is thus free to define himself for himself and live life according to his own self-perception.

I have long wanted to find a similar text -- one in which the writer writes about an instance of absolute clarity of the moment some life lesson was learned.

I wish that I could summon the eloquence needed to write about such things as James Agee had writing Knoxville. But I am not a poet. I want to find someone else who could write the text for me. (God knows, I'm not going to attract the attention of a famous writer.) I would try as hard as I could to produce music that is as appropriate to it as Barber's music is to Agee's text.

Doing a piece like this (a vocal rhapsody? a monologue? a soliloquy?) would be one more item off my bucket list of pieces I want to write before I die: an extended choral work, a symphony, a ballet and a short opera are on that same list. So far I have done the choral piece, a setting of Coleridge's "Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan".

Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (Dawn Upshaw / Zinman - Orchestra of St. Luke's)


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

I have long loved this piece for the same reasons. It is so poignant and beautifully captures that feeling of youth, mystery, hope for the future, and that sense of identity and searching that is such a powerful part of growing up. I loved the piece so much that I read Agee's book.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I have heard the work, and enjoyed it, and felt it in a much different way. Ain't that neat?


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

In my opinion, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 ranks with the Violin Concerto, Piano Concerto, Symphony No. 1, the Second Essay for Orchestra and Vanessa as one of his greatest works.

I had the fortunate experience of performing this piece in a youth orchestra with American soprano Christine Brewer as the soloist. Barber found a perfect match for his musical style in poet James McGee and I can't imagine the poem without it.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Yes. I have the Dawn Upshaw performance and it is terrific. Barber's greatest work, in my opinion.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Indeed, for me Barber's best works, and one of the best in the vocal repertoire of any composer.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

hpowders said:


> Yes. I have the Dawn Upshaw performance and it is terrific. Barber's greatest work, in my opinion.


For once I completely agree with hp! Kathleen Batt!e with Andy Previn does it very well as well!

/ptr


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

_Knoxville_ seems to make a deep impression on people, both for its music and for its text. I haven't heard a performance I like better than Leontyne Price's, with Thomas Schippers. She has a sound and style, subtly tinged by jazz and gospel yet still sumptuously classical, that in itself evokes the southern milieu of Agee's words. It's as beautiful and powerful a rendering as I can imagine.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

For me _Eleanor Steber _any day .:tiphat:
She was the first one to sing it also.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

ptr said:


> For once I completely agree with hp! Kathleen Batt!e with Andy Previn does it very well as well!
> 
> /ptr


There's a first time for everything.


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## Eramirez156 (Mar 25, 2015)

Thanks for motivating me dig out my recordings of Knoxville, I already listened to the Upshaw, and the Steber versions, I have four more recordings to listen to, the *Steber* holds a special place.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Celloman said:


> In my opinion, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 ranks with the Violin Concerto, Piano Concerto, Symphony No. 1, the Second Essay for Orchestra and Vanessa as one of his greatest works.
> 
> I had the fortunate experience of performing this piece in a youth orchestra with American soprano Christine Brewer as the soloist. Barber found a perfect match for his musical style in poet James McGee and I can't imagine the poem without it.


Yes I like all those works too, and also the The Third Essay, written circa 1978.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

This is really a special piece. So much so that when I moved to Tennessee, I made it a point to visit Knoxville. Too bad the song didn't warn about the traffic. 

My favorite line is, "Who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in the summer evening, among the sounds of the night?"


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