Samuel Barber belongs to the second generation of native American 20th century composers, men who followed by a decade or two such pioneers as Aaron Copland and Howard Hanson. Thus during the musically turbulent 1930s, the young Barber was just commencing his serious life as a composer. Well documented is the fact that he found himself out of rapport with the then current and somewhat frantic search for the "new", a search in which most serious composers were then engaged. Barber himself had grown up in a stimulating, but conventional, musical environment. He was a nephew of the illustrious American contralto, Louise Homer and her composer-husband, Sidney Homer. Little wonder that Barber's early preference was for mellifluous, linear, conservative sounds.

Today, fifty years after its writing, Barber's only Violin Concerto impresses one as a glowing, rhapsodic composition and one well-suited to the violin, although Barber himself was not a string player. This opinion conflicts, of course, with many expressed fifty years ago, when any music not cacophonous, or not propounding some new system was deemed unworthy of serious consideration. This Violin Concerto is just beginning to achieve its deserved place in the repertoire for the instrument and will, one hopes, find a secure niche in the all-too-meager roster of string concertos.

1. Allegro molto moderato

The first movement Allegro molto moderato opens, without preliminaries, with the fervent first theme, stated by the solo violin. There is effective contrast between the very high and the lowest registers of the violin. Much of the melodic structure is replete with wide "yearning" intervals, or has principal tones stressed by approach from an adjacent string. In the simple sonata design that informs the movement, a second principal theme is shared by clarinet and a spiccato bowing from the soloist. After a free development, there follow recapitulation of both principal themes, a recitative-cadenza in the solo violin, and a quiet close.

2. Andante sostenuto

The second movement, Andante sostenuto, is in the simple lyric style made familiar in Barber's well-liked Adagio for Strings. The soloist is treated as part of the ensemble rather than as an exploited extra.

3. Presto in moto perpetuo

The finale, in an abrupt change of style, shows Barber as he was to become in future years, when he partly discarded his early conservatism. It is marked Presto in moto perpetuo and its style, that of a perpetual motion, may have been suggested by the concertos of such virtuoso-composers as Wieniawski and Ernst.