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
Works for prepared piano by John Cage presents a complete list of Cage's works for prepared piano, with comments on each composition. It should be noted that all of Cage's indeterminate works for unspecified forces (the Variations series, Fontana Mix, Cartridge Music, etc.) can also be performed on or with Prepared Piano. In interviews conducted in 1974 and 1982, Cage specified that this piece was composed in 1938. However, the manuscript used for Edition Peters' edition of "Bacchanale" specified 1940 as the date, and this has been used by numerous scholars since. The circumstances of the piece's composition are much more clear: it was created for a