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COMPOSER

Samuel Barber

1910 - 1981

Photo of Samuel Barber

Icon of person Samuel Barber

Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the mid-20th century. Principally influenced by nine years' composition studies with Rosario Scalero at the Curtis Institute and more than 25 years' study with his uncle, the composer Sidney Homer, Barber's music usually eschewed the experimental trends of musical modernism in favor of traditional 19th-century harmonic language and formal structure embracing lyricism and emotional expression. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Samuel Barber has received more than 1,520,686 page views. His biography is available in 47 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 46 in 2019). Samuel Barber is the 193rd most popular composer (down from 160th in 2019), the 854th most popular biography from United States (down from 644th in 2019) and the 9th most popular American Composer.

Samuel Barber is most famous for composing the "Adagio for Strings" in 1936.

Memorability Metrics

  • 1.5M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 63.28

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 47

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 6.60

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.66

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Page views of Samuel Barbers by language


Among COMPOSERS

Among composers, Samuel Barber ranks 193 out of 1,216Before him are Siegfried Wagner, Luciano Berio, Louis Spohr, Max Reger, Johann Joachim Quantz, and Ludwig Minkus. After him are Michael Praetorius, Jordi Savall, Philippe de Vitry, Gilles Binchois, Francesco Landini, and Karol Szymanowski.

Most Popular Composers in Wikipedia

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1910, Samuel Barber ranks 30Before him are Lee Byung-chul, William Hanna, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Ludwig Stumpfegger, Nathuram Godse, and Helenio Herrera. After him are Momofuku Ando, Jean Anouilh, August Landmesser, Jean-Louis Barrault, Erich Kempka, and Paul Flory. Among people deceased in 1981, Samuel Barber ranks 24Before him are Odd Hassel, Joe Louis, Harold Urey, William Saroyan, Omar Bradley, and A. J. Cronin. After him are Georges Brassens, Joseph Murphy, Karl Böhm, Max Delbrück, Mehmet Shehu, and Abel Gance.

Others Born in 1910

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Others Deceased in 1981

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Samuel Barber ranks 854 out of 18,182Before him are Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. (1915), Britney Spears (1981), Mary Higgins Clark (1927), James Hetfield (1963), John Lee Hooker (1917), and Paul Allen (1953). After him are Alan Arkin (1934), Bill Bixby (1934), John J. Pershing (1860), Lynn Margulis (1938), Jason Robards (1922), and Kris Kristofferson (1936).

Among COMPOSERS In United States

Among composers born in United States, Samuel Barber ranks 9Before him are John Cage (1912), Leonard Bernstein (1918), Henry Mancini (1924), Philip Glass (1937), Scott Joplin (1868), and Steve Reich (1936). After him are Jerry Goldsmith (1929), James Horner (1953), Cole Porter (1891), Aaron Copland (1900), Charles Ives (1874), and Alan Silvestri (1950).