Orlando Cole - Collaboration With Samuel Barber

Collaboration With Samuel Barber

During this time, Cole was a classmate and friend of the composer Samuel Barber. Barber composed for and dedicated his Cello Sonata, op. 6 to Cole. Mr. Cole and the composer collaborated closely on its composition, reading a page at a time as it was written, until they gave the work its premiere in New York's Town Hall in 1933. Barber wrote also wrote his Quartet, op. 11, with its famous adagio, for the Curtis Quartet. The ensemble played this work from manuscript for several years, and it was only when the time of publication arrived that Barber chose to make major changes: the first movement was shortened significantly, with its coda ultimately becoming the finale of what is now the third movement, and the original contrapuntal third movement was abandoned entirely in favor of a reprise of the first movement's basic thematic material.. In the years since, several ensembles have sought to perform this original version, but Barber's longtime companion, Gian Carlo Menotti, the holder of his copyrights, forbade it. Barber acknowledged to Cole in a letter accompanying the manuscript score sent from Rome attesting to the composer's great confidence in the slow movement. The quartet's first performance of the work in Curtis Hall is testament to the same - so rapturous was the audience's response following the adagio that the ensemble was compelled to encore it right away before continuing on to the finale. Samuel Barber also composed for the Curtis Quartet his work for voice and string quartet, Dover Beach, set to the lyric verse of the same name by Matthew Arnold. The vocal line was originally sung by Rose Bampton in its premiere in Curtis Hall, but as the composer was dissatisfied with the work's dramatic impact given the male personage of the text, Samuel Barber chose to sing it himself for its recording in 1935. An earlier piece, the Serenade, was also written for the Curtis Quartet, though it fell quickly from the composer's favor and is rarely played today.