It’s Time to Bring Back Samuel Barber

Considerable recorded attention is being paid to such “lost” American composers of our century as David Diamond, Walter Piston and Howard Hanson.

Surprisingly little, however, has been given in behalf of Samuel Barber (1910-1981), who seemed a few decades back to be on the brink of “classic” status and who is the composer of the chart-topping “Theme From ‘Platoon,’ ” as the world now refers to his Adagio for Strings--a melody millions can hum but probably few can ascribe.

In all likelihood, then, Barber isn’t sufficiently “lost” to merit additional attention.

Which leaves at least one listener to ponder the near-oblivion that has befallen a work as dramatic, finely crafted and accessible as Barber’s First Symphony, which was popular for at least a decade after its definitive 1942 version was given its premiere, two years later, by the New York Philharmonic under Bruno Walter.

One wonders whether Barber’s First Symphony will really sell fewer copies or cost more to record than the 45th or 46th CD versions of Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique,” deposited on my doorstep by UPS last month and unlikely ever to be listened to in this household (or a billion others).

OK, they’re here: The first made-for-CD versions--recorded esoterica seems to come in pairs these days--of the Barber First. They are both played by Midwestern American orchestras: the Saint Louis Symphony, conducted by Leonard Slatkin (RCA 60732), and the Detroit Symphony, under newly appointed music director Neeme Jarvi (Chandos 8958).

The work is tonal, stunningly orchestrated and in a single movement of 22 eventful minutes. Its rhythms are crisp, its big tunes elegiac in a rather Nordic way.

Both orchestras play the symphony skillfully. In either version the gorgeous oboe-and-strings killer tune of the slow section sounds like a candidate for a “theme from” something.

Slatkin’s overall concept is the broader of the two, with richer orchestral textures but no lack of propulsion. Jarvi’s more tautly inflected reading (the overall timings are, however, only a couple of seconds apart), with less subtle gradations of tempo and dynamics, draws the listener’s attention toward Barber’s nervous intensity, an important but secondary characteristic of the score.

Slatkin’s Barber program further offers one of that composer’s spikiest, least Romantic works, the Piano Concerto written in 1962 for John Browning, the soloist here.

Where the symphony is marked by broad, late-Romantic lyricism, the Concerto takes a firmly 20th-Century stance in its ferociously driven, ostinato-rich rhythmicality and ambiguous tonalities.

With their collaboration, however, Browning and Slatkin produce quite different results from the pioneering Browning-George Szell recording of 1962, currently unavailable on CD but a likely candidate for re-release by Sony.

The pianist’s mood and views have been tempered by time. Perhaps the very newness of the work lent the earlier version an edge of recklessness, even roughness, that accompanies voyages of discovery. Today, the mood is mellower, the passions somewhat harnessed. Either way, Browning owns the piece.

RCA’s program is generously filled out by the intentionally deja entendu -inspiring “Souvenirs” (1952), in the composer’s arrangement for piano, four-hands. Browning’s able partner is pianist Leonard Slatkin.

The Jarvi coupling is Barber’s familiar “School for Scandal” Overture, rather charmlessly delivered, and Amy Beach’s “Gaelic” Symphony, c. 1895, purportedly based on Irish folk tunes but deriving its melodic style and instrumentation from Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, possibly Wagner. As derivative music goes, we find Barber’s “Souvenirs” more amusing.

Postscript: RCA’s program notes are remarkably short on factual information. No dates-- none --are offered. Nothing about whether the composer is alive or dead, or when and for what circumstances any of the music was written. Chandos is only marginally more helpful.