Samuel Barber was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 1910. His music had a considerably influence on the European idea of what American music is, as evidenced by the fact that his First Symphony was given its world première under Artur Rodzinski at the 1937 Salzburg Festival. He is best known, however, for his "Adagio for Strings", Opus 11, which was initially written as the second movement of his String Quartet. Characterizations of his music were quick in coming: "American naïveté" said an anything but positive write-up from a European music reviewer, "late Romanticism" wrote another. In fact Samuel Barber´s music, while it may make use of classic forms, comes from the "heart" and is targeted toward the listeners´ emotional responses. When questioned about this, the composer replied succinctly, this was the only way he could compose, adding that in an age of avant-garde music – Arnold Schönberg was teaching twelve-tone technique in the United States, and the first serial compositions were being written in Europe – writing this kind of music took a certain amount of courage. His audience thanked him for it: since the 1940´s, Samuel Barber was one of the most frequently performed American composers of "serious music", and so it was no coincidence that Barber was given the commission to compose an opera for the grand opening of the new Metropolitan Opera House in Manhattan´s Lincoln Center in 1966. The composer died in 1981 in New York.