Samuel Barber – Early Organ Pieces
"Notice to Mother and nobody else" begins the short letter from nine-year-old Samuel Barber to his mother: "I am writing this to tell you my disturbing secret... My destiny is to be a composer and I am sure that I will be. Please don't ask me to forget this unpleasant matter and go play football..."
The 'disturbing secret' became one of the most astonishing and successful musical biographies of the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic...
From the European perspective, the parallels in the biographies of Samuel Barber and Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), who was almost the same age, are striking: Messiaen was accepted as a young student at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 12 and he also completed his studies after nine years with three degrees in organ, organ improvisation and composition...
Unlike Samuel Barber, however, Olivier Messiaen remained primarily an organist throughout his life, so that his organ cycles, composed between 1928 and 1984, are consequently at the centre of his work. Both composers succeeded in finding an unmistakable and characteristic language in their music in the first half of the 20th century, a period shaken by two world wars.
(Dr. Rudolf Innig)