One of the best loved and most frequently performed American composers of the twentieth century, Samuel Barber developed his own highly individual voice quite independent of the modernist mainstream. Unquestionably one of Barber’s most popular works, the Violin Concerto is a key work, marking his transition from dreamy neo-romanticism to a more modernist style. Music for a Scene from Shelley is an earlier work, dating from 1933, and seeks to evoke the atmosphere of Shelley’s poetry in musical terms. The Serenade is an arrangement of an earlier work for string quartet written when Barber was just eighteen. The ballet suite Souvenirs is made up of short dance movements in different genres.