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This is the second movement of Samuel Barber’s String Quartet, best known as his ‘Adagio for Strings’. Both in its special arrangement for orchestra by the composer and in the original string quartet score that we are listening to now, this evocative piece has been used again and again in film scores and television series in the years since it was written.

American composer Barber wrote his String Quartet in 1936 whilst he was in his twenties. He began the work during a summer vacation in Europe when he spent time at the American Academy in Rome. Barber always liked his music to relate personal responses and emotions and this piece certainly does exactly that.