Discovering Knoxville: A Biography, Analysis, and Study of Cultural Context Alison Brooks Music is an ever changing art form. As time progresses, music has become increasingly diverse, with many different genres and subgenres. During the twentieth century originality of composition has often been stressed over understanding and coherence of a piece. One composer who did not fit the stereotype of newness brought on by modernism was Samuel Barber. He is often referred to as a neoromantic1, but even this term does not fit the full scope of his music. Robert R. Reilly comments on the academic reaction to Barber’s music by noting:
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Barber gave Romanticism2 a fresh start with his freedom of expression and melodic and orchestral genius. For this, he became the composer of the twentieth-century members of the avant-garde loved to hate. He was the last thing they needed—a composer who breathed new life into a language they had declared dead (46).
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Although critically acclaimed by many of his colleagues, Barber’s music spoke for itself as he became one of the most well-known and often played composers of the mid-twentieth century. Barber is especially known for his vocal works because of “his lyricism, along with a great sensitivity to the nuances and accentuation of poetic texts...” (Nicholls 486). Knoxville: Summer of 19153 illustrates this point. This work has become one of Barber’s most famous vocal works. Scored for orchestra and soprano, it provides a glimpse into Barber’s mixture of old and new styles and reflects the culture in which Barber was submersed at the time he wrote it. This essay seeks to analyze Knoxville: Summer of 1915 by investigating the life, compositional style, and cultural environment that surrounded Barber at the time of its composition. Samuel Barber was born on March 9, 1910 in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was born into an affluent family, his father being a doctor and the head of the West Chester School Board. Barber’s family was a musical one. His maternal aunt was the well known contralto Louise Homer, and his uncle the notable composer of American song, Sidney Homer (Broder, Samuel Barber 10). These two relatives would encourage and support Barber throughout his musical career. At the age of six Barber began to play the piano. This was not encouraged by his parents who would have preferred him to play sports like a “normal boy.” By the age of eight Barber had decided to follow the career path of a composer, and wrote the following to his mother, “I was meant to be a composer, and will be, I’m sure...Don’t ask me to try and forget this and go and play football, Please!” (Hennessee 3). At ten years of age Barber had begun composition on his first opera, The Rose Tree, which he never finished. During high school he was accepted as a charter student at the up and coming conservatory, the Curtis Institute of Music, during its first year of operation in 1926. Barber remained at the Curtis Institute for eight years and studied with a number of well-known musicians including George Boyle, Isabelle Vengerova (who studied piano with
