Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty

Known for his mournful "Adagio for Strings," Samuel Barber was never quite fashionable. This acclaimed film is a probing exploration of his music and melancholia. Performance, oral history, musicology, and biography combine to explore the life and music of one of America’s greatest composers. Featuring Thomas Hampson, Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop and many more of the world's leading experts on Barber's music, with tributes from composers Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and William Schuman. The Philadelphia Inquirer acclaimed the film's "great visual polish," adding that the "extremely impressive array of...so much visual evidence is astounding." Composition:Today called it a "remarkable success that rewrites the rules of documentary filmmaking," and MusicWeb International wrote: "This lavishly illustrated documentary...proclaims the meticulous labour, inspiration and persuasive powers of H. Paul Moon and his subject: the life and music of Samuel Barber. This a bejewelled production…that steers a rewarding course between moving things along yet staying still long enough to inform, surprise and please." "Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty" has screened in several film festivals worldwide, and received its limited broadcast premiere on WHYY-TV (Philadelphia PBS) on July 15, 2017.