The advent of this book brings to a conclusion a series of events that began shortly before Samuel Barber's death in 1981. The previous year the record company Hyperion invited my wife—the pianist Angela Brownridge—to record his complete published piano music, an LP that was released the week Barber died.

As a music producer with BBC Radio 3, I had already proposed a documentary program on Barber's life and work, but the idea was slow to get off the ground because his reputation with the British musical establishment at that time was not particularly strong. In addition, Barber had little personal contact with the British Isles. At first there was some reluctance by the BBC to make the program, but when the news arrived of Barber's death, any uncertainty gracefully waned.

In the 1970s and 1980s, BBC Radio 3 was a stimulating cultural environment— a period now sometimes referred to nostalgically as the “Golden Years.” Demands placed on producers were often great, but in the case of such programs as documentaries, although pre-commission scrutiny was severe, once all that was over the producer was simply left to get on with it.

The most important task was to find a presenter, not always easy in the musical climate described. Fortunately, I had come across someone with attractive qualifications: a composer-musician with a background of study in the United States, a fluent writer, and a proven communicator. But there was one problem: Peter Dickinson, founder and head of the Music Department and its Centre for American Music at the University of Keele (1974–84), was a busy professor of music at one of the country's well-established universities and might not be sympathetic to the idea of undertaking a thorough study of the life and work of Samuel Barber. I seem to remember that it took three phone calls before I finally persuaded him to take on the job. Strangely enough, I now believe it was that initial quality of the Doubting Thomas that provided the signature to the conversations that form this book. Throughout the extensive course of interviews, Dickinson continually impressed me with the depth of his background knowledge and his ability to pose contrasting points of view—techniques of interviewing that could have been less forthcoming from one more comfortable with the subject but conducted here with considerable aplomb.