"Adagio for Strings" was written by American composer Samuel Barber. It is Barber's best-known composition although it was not one of his Pulitzer Prize winners. The Adagio is a re-arrangement of the slow second movement of Barber's "String Quarter, Op. 11." Barber was only 26 when the Adagio was performed, in 1938, by Arturo Toscanini's famed NBC Symphony Orchestra. At the end of the first rehearsal, Toscanini remarked, "Simple & beautiful!" This was especially amazing because he rarely conducted pieces by American composers.

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