Knoxville: “Summer of 1915” for Soprano and Orchestra, op. 24 / Four Excursions, op. 20

Album by Samuel Barber & Eleanor Steber & William Strickland & Dumbarton Oaks Chamber Orchestra & Rudolf Firkušný

This album is a recording of two works by American composer Samuel Barber: a vocal‑orchestral piece (Op. 24), composed in 1947, and an orchestral suite (Op. 20), composed in 1938. The music exemplifies Barber's neo‑Romantic lyricism, combining expressive, speech‑inflected vocal lines with lush orchestral colours and, in the earlier suite, more overt rhythmic vitality and orchestral experimentation, marking these pieces as representative milestones that bridge his earlier orchestral exploration and his mature voice-and-orchestra writing in the mid‑20th century.