Adagio for Strings Adagio for Strings Adagio for Strings is a work by Samuel Barber, arguably his best known, arranged for string orchestra from the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11. Barber finished the arrangement in 1936, the same year that he wrote the quartet. It was performed for the first time on November 5, 1938, by Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra in a radio broadcast from NBC Studio 8H. Toscanini also played the piece on his South American tour with the NBC Symphony in 1940. Its reception was generally positive, with Alexander J. Morin writing that "Adagio for
Adagio and Fugue in C minor (Mozart) “Angular outbursts alternate with an unearthly hush; its suggestions of violence and mysticism make the ensuing geometry of the fugue seem a relief”. The adagio section is notated in time, and the fugue is written as an Allegro "alla breve". The reason for the work's composition remains a mystery, as there is no known commission for it. One theory is that it was composed on a suggestion by F. A. Hoffmeister, who originally published the work. 1788 was also a time of significant contrapuntal composition for Mozart; in that year he composed a five-part fugue in the key of C