Summer Music Op.31 (1935)

‘It's supposed to be evocative of summer,’ said Samuel Barber, ‘summer meaning languid, not killing mosquitoes.’ That much is clear from the opening bars, marked ‘slow and indolent,’ for bassoon and muted horn. But, although that opening material pervades the rest of the work as the source of its several themes, indolence is only one element in the composer’s memories of summer days he spent as a boy in Knoxville, Tennessee. Nostalgic melody mingles with lively dance rhythms and echoes of the voices of an owl and a scolding aunt. While Summer Music sounds entirely spontaneous, it is finely calculated in construction and, while it is highly seductive to the ear, it is precariously complex in texture.