Agnus Dei (music) Agnus Dei (music) Agnus Dei, referring to the Christian theological concept of the Lamb of God and the associated liturgical text from the Roman Catholic Latin Mass, has been set to music by many composers, as it is normally one of the movements or sections in a sung Mass setting. However, sometimes it stands alone, e.g. it provides the lyrics for Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei", the choral arrangement of his "Adagio for Strings". The Agnus Dei is a setting of the "Lamb of God" litany, based on John the Baptist's reference in to Jesus ("Behold the Lamb of God that
Agnus Dei (Barber) that version to the conductor, who premiered it in New York with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. In setting it to the liturgical Agnus Dei, a part of the Mass, Barber changed the music only a little. As with the other arrangements of "Adagio for Strings", it was published by G. Schirmer. Graham Olson describes the composition for Allmusic. After reflecting the history and pointing out the "Adagio"s associations with mourning, nostalgia, love and passion, qualified as "sentimental Romanticism", he writes about the choral setting: "Barber brought to the surface the work's sense of spirituality." He observes similarities to works of