Timbre...

As I got to thinking and listening to the two versions of Samuel Barber's work (see previous post), the one thing which really stands out to me as being different is the timbre created by the strings vs. the voices.

Timbre (tam-ber) is a hard thing to define. Dictionary.com defines it as:

1.	Acoustics, Phonetics. the characteristic quality of a sound, independent of pitch and loudness, from which its source or manner of production can be inferred. Timbre depends on the relative strengths of the components of different frequencies, which are determined by resonance.

2.	Music. the characteristic quality of sound produced by a particular instrument or voice; tone color.

The overall colors of the sound is what makes these pieces each uniquely good. Some songs which are done by more than one group encourage people to say, "well I like Mr. X's version better than Mr. Y's." In this case each piece makes a solid case for itself.

Hope that makes sense...let me know if it doesn't!