While serving in the Army Air Force during World War II, Samuel Barber was commissioned to write a symphony about the heroic American flyers. The result is the Symphony No. 2, a work Barber was to later reject. Thinking it was inferior, he instructed his publisher to destroy the score and parts twenty years after its premiere. (The second movement did survive in the form of Night Flight, Op. 19a.) Luckily, parts were found in England a few years after Barber's death and the work was rescued from obscurity.

Symphony No. 2, unlike the one-movement Symphony No. 1, is in three separate movements. The first performance was with the legendary conductor Serge Koussevitsky and the Boston Symphony in 1944. The work depicts the danger and drama experienced by World War II flyers. While Barber can be considered the quintessential Neo-Romantic, he experimented with the more modern compositional technique of bi-tonality (two different keys played at the same time). The "introduction" of the first movement, Allegro ma non troppo, has a precarious, teetering effect in the high woodwinds. This is followed by a grand, almost plodding dotted rhythm in the lower register that suggests the huge scale of the machines these young flyers were expected to command. There are hints of Sergey Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky as dissonance plays a large role leading into the "exposition" marked by a faster tempo. This rhythmically complex section, which builds momentum and tension, is eventually contrasted by a calming, more placid secondary theme in major played by the oboe (typical "Barberesque" lyricism). A development section ensues containing bits of all previously used material. In fact, most of the thematic material in this movement derives from the very opening, giving it a cohesive, organic quality. A quasi-recapitulation brings the movement full circle ending in the stratosphere where it began, underlined by an ominously low rumble (plane engines in the distance?).

The second movement, Andante, un poco mosso, starts with a murky, dirge-like feeling that leads into a mournful English horn solo. The middle section gets about as dissonant as Barber gets, building to a tension-filled climax, working its way back to the lyrical English horn theme played this time by the strings. The movement ends with an E flat clarinet in the high register imitating the sound of a radio signal. (Apparently, the original score called for an authentic electronic homing device, which Barber later withdrew.) The third and final movement, Presto, senza battuta, is a whirlwind of energy. The texture is fairly contrapuntal (fugue-like entrances), especially some three and a half minutes into the movement. This developmental episode leads to the quiet before the final storm, which ends triumphantly in a major key. The symphony, fraught with defiance, uncertainty, and edginess, may not have been the patriotic piece of Americana the powers that be had in mind. But, like Barber's Symphony No. 1, it deserves to be heard more often for its thoughtful architecture and emotional impact.

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