In 1938, when Barber was 28, his "Adagio for Strings" was performed by the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Arturo Toscanini, along with his first "Essay for Orchestra". The Adagio had been arranged from the slow movement of Barber's String Quartet, Op. 11. Toscanini had rarely performed music by American composers before (an exception was Howard Hanson's "Second Symphony," which he conducted in 1933). At the end of the first rehearsal of the piece, Toscanini remarked, ""Semplice e bella"" (simple and beautiful). From 1939-1942, Barber taught composition at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.