Medea’s Meditation and Dance of Vengeance are the fourth, fifth and seventh movements from Barber’s original ballet score Medea, written for Martha Graham. Commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Die Natali was composed during 1960. As its title suggests, the piece draws on Christmas carols for its thematic ideas, putting them through a series of ingenious harmonic and contrapuntal devices. Barber also began his Piano Concerto in 1960 with John Browning intended as the soloist. The work was written with his keyboard technique in mind. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1963 and the Music Critics’ Circle Award in 1964, the Piano Concerto marks the zenith of Barber’s public acclaim. It is a resolutely virtuoso work, composed in the grand romantic tradition of the nineteenth century.