The second piece in Samuel Barber's Reincarnations, Op. 16 Anthony O’Daly was a member of the Whiteboys, a group that resisted encroachments on peasants’ rights to their land with a mixture of rent strikes and violence. In 1820, Daly was wrongfully acc...  moreThe second piece in Samuel Barber's Reincarnations, Op. 16 Anthony O’Daly was a member of the Whiteboys, a group that resisted encroachments on peasants’ rights to their land with a mixture of rent strikes and violence. In 1820, Daly was wrongfully accused of shooting at a local landowner and condemned to hang. Although the local population acclaimed him as a hero and attempted to help him escape the gallows, he went quietly to his death. "Anthony! Since your limbs were laid out, the stars do not shine! The fish leap, not out in the waves! On our meadows, the dew does not fall in the morn, for O’Daly is dead!" Barber’s song feels like a huge public outpouring of grief. It begins with the basses repeating Anthony’s name on a drone whilst the upper voices sing a keening melody, and the piece builds to hysteria as the sopranos and altos take over the chanted name. There are also suggestions that Raftery’s poem is not a lament but a traditional poet’s curse, calling down retribution in response to Raftery’s...    less

Anthony O'Daly by Samuel Barber Sunday, March 13, 2016 Congregational Church of Batavia