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
Fantasia for Strings (Henze) a four-movement composition, because movements one, two, and three all resemble one another, creating thus a tripartite adagio and are used in the movie as the Törless family arrives at the school. According to the score itself, the movement list should be as follows: The composition is scored for violins I, violins II, violas, cellos and double basses. However, Henze uses the divisi a number of times throughout the whole composition, to the point that some of the voices can be divided into more than four staves. A performance takes about 16 minutes. This composition has been very rarely performed,