Carl Sandburg

In this piece from Morning Edition (10/26/2006 - 7:18), NPR's Susan Stamberg discusses the poetry of Carl Sandburg with the editor of a slim new volume of his poems, Paul Berman. This new collection focuses on Sandburg's early works, from what Berman calls his "great period": "Mostly what I trimmed away was poems he wrote in his later years," Berman says. "I think [for] Sandburg, as with a lot of poets, his greatest years were early on. There was a moment there, ten years or so, beginning around 1914, when he was hot. He had the vision, he was going. He had one fine inspiration after another. That was his great period."

Musings

• Sandburg eventually became something of a venerated national institution in his later years, as seen by his appearance on the cover of Time magazine, a place usually reserved for world leaders. Berman suggests an inherent tension between being a young, creative artist and a distinguished figurehead. Can you see such tension at work among artists today?
  
  
• Sandburg is forever connected with Chicago, not just the city, but as Berman suggests, the attitude towards language that city represents. Can you see that attitude in Sandburg's poem, "Chicago"?
  

Barber's "Adagio for Strings"

Here's a real change of pace, from All Things Considered (11-4-06 - 8:59) and the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress, a piece on Arturo Toscanini's first performance of the what has become perhaps the most popular piece of classical music written in the 2oth century, Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings." The NPR piece focuses almost exclusively on the performer, in this case the great conductor Toscanini, rather than the composer.

Musings

• Try listening to the 7-minute piece (a link is on the same page) before listening to the discussion, and see how your response differs from that of the experts at NPR, or the more formal analysis at Wikipedia. The Wikipedia entry also notes the numerous times the Barber piece has been used in films and pop culture.
  
• Adagios are basically slow, somber pieces of instrumental music. What is the appeal of such music, or of somber art generally.