SYNOPSIS

Known for his mournful Adagio for Strings, he was never quite fashionable.  Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty is a probing exploration of his music and melancholia.

Performance, oral history, musicology and biography combine to explore the life and music of America’s greatest composer.  Leaving the protective shelter of small-town childhood, Samuel Barber rose to fame with the Adagio.  But his emotional honesty, and hidden private life, was never fully embraced in the 20th Century.  Yet his music, with its heartbreaking melancholy, survives despite and still.

The film includes subtitles in English, French, German, Spanish and Russian: during playback, click the CC icon at the bottom-right of the video frame to choose your language.

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