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Knoxville: Summer of 1915

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Eleanor Steber performing "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" at Carnegie Hall, 1958, Edwin Bittcliffe, accompanist

It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees, of birds’ hung havens, hangars. People go by; things go by. A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt; a loud auto; a quiet auto…

Eleanor Steber commissioned Samuel Barber to create this work for voice and orchestra, using text from a short prose piece by James Agee. It premiered in 1948 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Carnegie Hall performance can be found on the 2-disc collection Eleanor Steber In Concert (1956-1958), published in 1994 by Video Artists Int'l.
  • Artist: N/A
  • Media Designation: CD
  • Label: Video Artists Int'l