Uploaded November 2021 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
This performance of George Walker's Molto Adagio from String Quartet No. 1 appeared in a recent live streamed concert. George Walker was a vital American composer who was active right up to his death in 2018 at the age of 96. Decades before he became the first Black winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1996, he broke ground in 1945 as the first Black graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied piano with Rudolf Serkin and composition with Samuel Barber. In an uncanny parallel with Barber, whose most celebrated music is still the Adagio for Strings adapted from the first String Quartet he wrote just after graduating from Curtis, Walker, too, is best known for the slow movement of the String Quartet No. 1 that he wrote in 1946. Originally titled Lament and dedicated to his recently deceased grandmother, Walker renamed the movement Lyric. Whether performed in its original quartet configuration or in his transcription for string orchestra, Lyric has become a fixture of American concert music.
Enjoy the full performance anytime for free at content.thespco.org/music/concert-library/concert/songs-of-sorrow-songs-of-hope
This performance of George Walker's Molto Adagio from String Quartet No. 1 appeared in a recent live streamed concert. George Walker was a vital American composer who was active right up to his death in 2018 at the age of 96. Decades before he became the first Black winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1996, he broke ground in 1945 as the first Black graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied piano with Rudolf Serkin and composition with Samuel Barber. In an uncanny parallel with Barber, whose most celebrated music is still the Adagio for Strings adapted from the first String Quartet he wrote just after graduating from Curtis, Walker, too, is best known for the slow movement of the String Quartet No. 1 that he wrote in 1946. Originally titled Lament and dedicated to his recently deceased grandmother, Walker renamed the movement Lyric. Whether performed in its original quartet configuration or in his transcription for string orchestra, Lyric has become a fixture of American concert music.
Enjoy the full performance anytime for free at content.thespco.org/music/concert-library/concert/songs-of-sorrow-songs-of-hope
