Aural Analysis (Extended Analysis Step 2) of Adagio for Strings - Samuel Barber

After choosing which piece to work on, the second step of the Extended Analysis Project is to conduct an aural analysis of the piece, meaning that I will listen to the piece several times and make note of the musical elements present in the piece, including instrumentation, melody, range, tempo, meter, texture, and tonality. I will also record the context and structure of the piece. A recording of Adagio for Strings is attached below:

Musical Elements:

1. Context
1. Adagio for Strings was written by Samuel Barber in 1936 as the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11. In contrast to Adagio, the first movement of the piece was much livelier and more violent than the second movement, yet it did not gain as much popularity or recognition. Barber composed Adagio while in Europe with a fellow student and composer, Gian Carlo Menotti, but the quartet was not performed until 1938. Due to the time period that the piece was written, the rising political tensions in Europe that Barber would have experienced most likely influenced his writing, but they are not the main contributor to the sadness found in all of his music. Throughout his life, Barber suffered from intense depression and expressed his feelings in every piece that he composed. It is likely that he was experiencing an extreme low when he wrote Adagio, as evidenced by the emotional tension and intense sorrow present in the piece.
2. Instrumentation
1. Violin (most likely split into firsts and seconds)
2. Viola
3. Cello
4. String Bass (although not present throughout piece)
3. Melody
1. Most often present in upper voices (violin, viola)
2. Melody is mostly conjunct, moving mainly stepwise throughout the entire piece. Sometimes the line playing the counter-melody (either violin one, viola, or cello) jumps back and forth from high notes to low.
3. Because of the frequent jumps within the counter-melody and the extremely high portion of the climax (5:00-5:53), the range of the melody is very large, exceeding several octaves.
4. Meter and Tempo
1. The meter is a bit hard to establish, my guess is that it is simple quadruple but not exactly 4/4, as there aren't four solid beats in each measure. It also seems as if there is an extra beat at the end of some phrases, the first phrase in the piece, for example. This may be a switch into a complex meter, or it may be artistic interpretation where the whole note is held for a closing effect.
2. The tempo is most likely adagio, as the song is titled "Adagio for Strings". To further back this claim, the piece moves slowly and somberly, but it still progresses at a moderate pace, especially during the climax of the piece.
5. Texture
1. I would classify this piece as polyphonic because of the counter-melody that is almost always present accompanying the main theme. However, there are portions of the piece that are almost homorhythmic, where more than one voice has the exact same melody at the same time, and the rest of the voices have a different yet common harmony. 
6. Tonality
1. The tonality of this piece is indefinitely minor. In fact, the entire piece may be composed of minor chords, save for a few major chords that exist only for, at most, a single beat. I can tell that this piece is minor especially within the melody; the slow, often repeating stepwise motion symbolizes a reluctance to move forward, which is a feeling that accompanies grief. Based on the movement of the melody alone, it would not make sense for this piece to have a major tonality. 
7. Structure
1. I would say that this piece is through-composed, mainly because there is never a clear shift in theme that would normally signal a new section of the piece. The same melody is constant throughout the piece, but different counter-melodies and harmonies are added each time it is played, and the theme is never returned to exactly as it was at the start of the piece.