Whenever the American dream suffers a catastrophic setback, Barber’s Adagio plays on the radio-
Alex Ross, author of The Rest is Noise
The child prodigy and famous American composer was a March 9 native like me and hence a week of the Loner person who at the age of nine worryingly wrote his first music titled Sadness and later composed the Hermit songs. Loner stuff, certainly. Perhaps representative of this week and bearing its trademark shortcomings, he later battled with alcoholism.
Loyal to his gay partner of 30 years , a famous composer of Italian extraction, Menotti, sadly he was let down by him. This is the reason the plot next to Barber’s grave lies empty; because his ex lover made other arrangements.
Samuel Barber was born old and wise and composed his famous adagio for strings the saddest music ever, at the age of 28. Enigmatic and multi-talented he was your typical versatile Pisces. He was plagued with depression and his most famous piece that is mentioned above is played at the funerals of tragic figures like President Kennedy and Grace Kelly. Younger people may know this music from the film Platoon.
Week of the loner 