Excursions, Op. 20, is the first published solo piano piece by Samuel Barber. Barber himself explains: These are 'Excursions' in small classical forms into regional American idioms. Their rhythmic characteristics, as well as their source in folk material and their scoring, reminiscent of local instruments are easily recognized.Barber, p. 2
This is typical of neo-Romantic composers such as Barber. As Susan Carter explains in her dissertation, "The Piano Music of Samuel Barber", that "neo-Romantic composers returned to a style characterized by broad lyricism and dramatic expression." She also states that the traditional structures of form from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were conserved while drawing upon a "contemporary technical vocabulary."Carter, p. 26 From a boogie-woogie style of a five-part rondo to a theme and variations of a well known cowboy ballad, and even to a barn-yard dance with a fiddler, Barber uses each style effectively and accurately, according to the neo-Romantic ideas.
The third movement incorporates the melody from Streets of Laredo, an American folk song.
History Before composing his Piano Sonata, Samuel Barber was asked by Jeanne Behrend, a personal friend of his and an accomplished pianist, to write a longer, more involved piece for piano that "would be appropriate to perform on one of her programs of American music."Heyman, p. 231 Barber obliged, and in June 1942 the first movement of Excursions was completed. As it turns out, this piano solo set is the "sole experiment in a nationalistic vein"Carter, p. 27 in Barber's career of composing. Even Behrend herself claimed that these pieces were "excursions into a style not typical of Barber"Heyman, p. 233
In July 1944, Vladimir Horowitz had been interested in performing works by an American composer. He was very impressed with Barber and his composing that he specifically requested to debut Excursions. At that point, movement III had not been written yet, it was the last to be written, and so Horowitz only received movements I, II and IV. He debuted these three pieces on November 28, 1944, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 26 and 29 November 1944 He also performed the music on January 4, 1945, at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. It was received well and in March of that year, Horowitz performed the three Excursions in New York at Carnegie Hall. In January 1946 they were performed at Carnegie Hall by Rudolf Firkusny, who also included them at his recitals in Czechoslovakia that year (including the first Prague Spring Festival 1946) and continued performing them over the following concert season. The official debut of all four movements of Excursions was left to Behrend who performed them in December 1948, four years after the completion of the set.
Music The work has four movements:
I. Un poco allegro Barber's first movement from Excursions shows how the composer combines classic forms with contemporary idioms. He uses many characteristics of Blues within the restrictions of classic forms to create these contemporary songs that have a familiar aspect about them.
The first movement of Samuel Barber's Excursions, entitled "Un poco allegro," is a classic five-part rondo form. Barber begins with the main element of the movement, the bass Ostinato. This bass pattern is what brings Nathan Broder to call this movement a boogie-woogie."Broder, p. 51 The New Grove Dictionary explains that a Boogie-woogie is a percussive style of piano Blues favoured for its volume and momentum… is characterized by the use of blues chord progressions combined with a forceful, repetitive left-hand bass figure… [and] independence of the right-hand improvisations from the steady, rolling rhythm maintained by the left hand.Oliver, "Boogie-woogie"
This left hand, bass Ostinato repeats itself, almost exactly, twenty-two times within the A1 section alone. As stated above, this repetitive nature of the left hand, under an improvisatory right, is a characteristic of a Boogie-woogie.
The overall form of movement I is the classic, rondo form Russell Friedewald, in his dissertation entitled "A Formal and Stylistic Analysis of the Published Music of Samuel Barber", divides the sections of this movement into A1BA2CA3 Coda.Friedewald His reasoning for this division of the sections is based upon the bass note of the ostinato pattern. From the beginning of the movement through measure 37, the bass ostinato stays on C. In measures 38 through 55, the bass ostinato moves to F, signifying the B section.
Sections A1, A2, and A3 are in the tonic key while B is under the sub-dominant (F) key and C is in the dominant (G) key. The overall I-IV-I-V-I progression is very simple but it provides a "structural unity of this piece in which motivic material freely crosses sectional boundaries."Sifferman, p. 9
The first A section introduces the main melodic pattern that can be found within other sections of the movement, which can be seen in measures 4 through 6.
This figure contains three repeated Es followed by a broken tonic triad. In measure six, there is an added B creating a seventh-chord on C. The seventh of the tonic C minor triad does not function correctly in a typical harmonic progression; it is actually treated as a consonant note. These types of harmonies as well as the heavily syncopated rhythms are characteristics "commonly used in blues and jazz."Carter, p. 34
Both Sifferman and Carter mention Barber's use of the "blue" notes in this movement. The blue-note," which is the third, seventh, and occasionally the fifth, would be sung or played a semitone lower than the diatonic pitch. Initially, musicologists thought that blues singers were using, for example, the E and B in the key of C major, but the "downhome" blues musicians tended to bend, or "worry," the notes, rather than actually change tones.Kubik, "Blue note" In Barber's movement, the lowered third and seventh scale degrees already exist within the key signature as consonant tones. Although the Blue-notes exist in the key signature, Barber utilizes the raised tones as well.
In measure 4, for instance, the repeated E is heavily emphasized as well as the whole C-minor triad through measure five. Just a few bars later in measure 10, we see the raised third, an E. Also the first appearance of the raised seventh scale degree occurs enharmonically as a C in measure 41. It proceeds to the B when the A2 section returns in bar 56. Carter takes it a step further and shows how the G, the lowered scale degree five and a tritone from C, are emphasized.
In measures 29 through 32… the melodic figure is centered on G, accompanied by the ostinato built on C. Another example of emphasis of the tri-tone occurs in measures 44 through 46: the right hand pattern is based on a B seventh chord, while the left-hand [ostinato] pattern is based on F. These passages also hint at bitonality.Carter, p. 6
New Grove's definition of boogie-woogie includes the term "momentum" as a characteristic. Barber creates forward motion with quarter-notes followed by eighth- and sixteenth-notes in quick succession. Through the use of this rhythm, the momentum of the music quickens until bars 9 through 13, where the rhythm slows down.
The sixteenth notes on beats four and five of measure nine is the beginning of the slowing down momentum. Measure 10 starts slowing the rhythm by the use of eighth-notes, quarter-note triplets, and finally, quarter-notes, when the primary motive pattern returns in measure 13.
Another instance where the momentum of the piece begins to slow down is right before the start of the A3 section. Six measures before 90, the right hand melody consists of straight sixteenth-notes creating a very fast pace. In bar 92, the right hand chords allude to the rhythm of the main melodic pattern found in bar 4, but at a slightly slower pace. This same rhythmic pattern, a dotted quarter-note followed by a half-note and quarter-note triplet, persists for twelve measures until measure 103, when we see a change. Each following measure continues to slow down the momentum that has been building throughout the entire piece until the Coda in measure 107.
These momentum shifts also help to create "textual contrasts [that] define each section."Carter, p. 35 The A1 and A2 sections only utilize two voice textures. Sections B and C contain quick rhythmic chords in the right hand, and in the A3 section, the right hand contains rhythmically broader chords.
Another term by which The New Grove Dictionary defines a boogie-woogie is "volume." In this movement, any one of the sections can contain a pp dynamic marking (m. 11, 56, 84-91, and 106 to the end) all the way up to a ff (m. 53, 77, 80-83). This highly contrasting dynamic range in one movement is an aspect of the boogie-woogie that creates attention and interest.
Barber describes these Excursions by stating that the characteristics, "reminiscent of local instruments, are easily recognized." There are instances in this movement, and the others, that bring up certain instruments that could be "playing" the melody. Sifferman imagines the "main theme (m. 4-9) played on saxophone, while the right-hand figure in measures 44-46 sounds like [a] harmonica, imitating the alternately in and out breath motions."Sifferman, p. 8
According to Sifferman, the F-major chords in the right hand on beats one and three, starting halfway through measure 45, are the tones that are created when air is "blown into" a harmonica. The tones that occur when breath is "drawn in" through the instrument comprise the B major seventh chord. On a typical diatonic harmonica, the tones that are created when air is drawn through the instrument correspond to the dominant of the key of the instrument, not the tritone. This further illustrates Barber's use of the tritone in this movement.
Barber uses the bass ostinato, the "blue" chords, improvisatory melodic lines and characteristics that are similar to instruments to achieve an idiomatic style within classic limitations.
II. In slow blues tempo The second movement, entitled 'In slow blues tempo,' encapsulates the popular American idiom, a "rich and elegant blues."Broder, p. 68 Barber uses "conventional harmonic progressions and melodic and rhythmic features associated with blues"Heyman, p. 236 to continue the overarching idea of the American idiom within classic form.
Movement II contains four twelve-bar phrases that utilize harmonies very similar to movement I. Russell Friedewald was the first individual to formally analyze this set of Excursions in 1957. His explanation for this movement is the clearest: "the second in this set, a rich and elegant blues, is divided into four twelve-measure sections, each being improvisatory in nature."Friedewald, p. 127
As previously mentioned, this movement is what New Grove calls "twelve-bar blues."
As the blues was created largely by musicians who had little education and scarcely any of whom could read music, improvisation, both verbal and musical, was an essential part of it... To facilitate improvisation a number of patterns evolved, of which the most familiar is the Twelve-bar blues.Oliver, "Blues"
The typical harmonic structure of Blues, as identified by New Grove, is the twelve-bar blues.
Because blues is based on improvisation, having a common and familiar chord progression lends itself to an easier improvisation. Not every blues progression is exactly the same, but this one in particular is very common, and Barber uses this progression almost exactly. What ties this movement with the first is the harmonic progression. The boogie-woogie, which is "a style of piano blues," also contains the chord progression I-IV-I-V-I.