Remembered as one of the most unabashedly Romantic composers of the twentieth century, Samuel Barber occasionally developed personal attachments to certain melodies—sometimes so intense, in fact, that he would revisit certain melodies throughout his career. Such is the case with his Canzone for flute (or violin) and piano (1961). This work was originally a gift for Manfred Ibel, an amateur German flautist whom Barber met and befriended in the summer of 1959. At the time, it was simply given the title Elegy, though it was never published or catalogued as such. Two years later, Barber changed the title in his own records to Canzone for Manfred. The tune reappeared in 1962 as the basis of the second movement of the composer's Piano Concerto, Op. 38, in which the flute retains a dominant role. The positive response to the Concerto prompted Barber to rededicate this work as his Op. 38a in the same year. The piece itself is a perfect portrait of Barber's bittersweet sense of nostalgia, the elegiac main narrative interrupted throughout by episodes of discomfort and uncertainty. At the end, these elements come to a peaceful, if not altogether fulfilling, resolution.

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