Scholars say composer Samuel Barber
wrote Adagio for Strings in Austria. But watch a sunrise from Lake George’s shoreline—waves lapping, light breaking through the dawn mist—and you can imagine how Barber’s heart-stirring masterpiece that crescendos and crashes might have been inspired by this place. It’s possible. From the 1910s on, Barber spent time at his Aunt Louise and Uncle Sidney Homer’s summer retreat in Bolton Landing. The Homers likely looked to the lake for the same reason—Sidney was an accomplished composer and Louise sang with the Metropolitan Opera, as did her friend Marcella Sembrich, who also summered on this lake.
For centuries the arts have flourished here.
