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On 5 November 1938, Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Radio Orchestra broadcast the first performance of a new, seven-minute piece by a 27-year-old American composer called Samuel Barber. Originally written as part of a string quartet, this orchestrated version was called simply "Adagio for Strings". It would become the piece that defined Barber's entire career.

In 1945, radio stations played it over and over again to mark the death of Franklin Roosevelt. Over the years, it became mourning music for fallen leaders and public figures: John F Kennedy, Albert Einstein, Princess Diana, Grace Kelly... When Oliver Stone used it for his film Platoon, the Adagio became an elegy for the horrors of the Vietnam war. In 2001, it was the music that radios and concert halls turned to in an attempt to try and find a voice for the inexplicable devastation of 9/11.

Barber never intended the Adagio to be mourning music, but this interpretation is reaffirmed and deepened with every association. If proof were needed, performances of the Adagio have become significantly slower over eight decades. It is as if the Adagio has had to expand to absorb and communicate grief on a global scale. As listeners have squeezed meaning from its content, the Adagio has, essentially, got sadder.

This is one of 100 significant musical moments explored by 麻豆社 Radio 3鈥檚 Essential Classics as part of Our Classical Century, a 麻豆社 season celebrating a momentous 100 years in music from 1918 to 2018. Visit bbc.co.uk/ourclassicalcentury to watch and listen to all programmes in the season.

This archive recording features the 麻豆社 Symphony Orchestra with conductor David Robertson.

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