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 20th century. The music critic Donal Henahan stated, "Probably no other American composer has ever enjoyed such early, such persistent and such long-lasting acclaim." Principally influenced by nine years of composition studies with Rosario Scalero at the Curtis Institute and more than twenty-five years of study with his uncle, the composer Sidney Homer, Barber's music usually eschewed the experimental trends of musical modernism in favor of utilizing traditional 19th-century harmonic language and formal structure that embraced lyricism and emotional expression. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Samuel Barber has received more than 1,104,584 page views. His biography is available in 46 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 43 in 2019). Samuel Barber is the 160th most popular composer (up from 175th in 2019), the 644th most popular biography from United States (up from 699th in 2019) and the 8th most popular American Composer.

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

Memorability Metrics

  • 1.1M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 73.18

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 46

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 7.00

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.39

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Page views of Samuel Barbers by language


Among COMPOSERS

Among composers, Samuel Barber ranks 160 out of 1,228. Before him are George Enescu, Franz von Suppé, Giovanni Paisiello, Enrique Granados, Josef Strauss, and Vittorio Monti. After him are Gustav Holst, Hugo Wolf, Johann Adolph Hasse, Vincenzo Galilei, Francesco Cavalli, and Ferruccio Busoni.

Most Popular Composers in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1910, Samuel Barber ranks 22. Before him are David Niven, Kurt Meyer, Gerda Taro, William Hanna, Dorothy Hodgkin, and Jacques Monod. After him are William Shockley, Chiang Ching-kuo, Lee Byung-chul, Helenio Herrera, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, and Nathuram Godse. Among people deceased in 1981, Samuel Barber ranks 19. Before him are William Holden, A. J. Cronin, Béla Guttmann, Joe Louis, Harold Urey, and René Clair. After him are Omar Bradley, William Saroyan, Odd Hassel, Hideki Yukawa, Joseph Murphy, and Karl Böhm.

Others Born in 1910

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Others Deceased in 1981

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

In United States

Among people born in United States, Samuel Barber ranks 644 out of 15,968. Before him are Ali MacGraw (1939), Roy Orbison (1936), Francis Gary Powers (1929), Charles Taze Russell (1852), Benjamin Thompson (1753), and Robert Mitchum (1917). After him are Patricia Highsmith (1921), Matt Damon (1970), Gary Becker (1930), Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867), Louise Hay (1926), and Monica Lewinsky (1973).

Others born in United States

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Among COMPOSERS In United States

Among composers born in United States, Samuel Barber ranks 8. Before him are George Gershwin (1898), John Cage (1912), Leonard Bernstein (1918), Henry Mancini (1924), Philip Glass (1937), and Scott Joplin (1868). After him are Steve Reich (1936), Jerry Goldsmith (1929), Cole Porter (1891), James Horner (1953), Bernard Herrmann (1911), and Charles Ives (1874).

American born Composers

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous
  • Datawheel