During his lifetime, his was never the most popular classical music, but since his 1981 death, the compositions of Samuel Barber have resonated louder across the classical world.

A new documentary film, Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty, records the sound bites of life from the man seemingly born with his musical talents in West Chester. And it can’t help but pose the question, “Is Barber, in fact, the true Great American Composer?” according to a Philadelphia Inquirer report by David Patrick Stearns.

“He seems not to have found his compositional voice; it was always there and needed only to be cultivated and enriched,” the article stated.

The film itself is “lush with footage of Barber’s West Chester” and takes its listeners “beyond the music’s attractive surfaces. Rehearsal scenes help break down the elements of pieces that are so solidly built that they sometimes only imply the depths within. But those depths are there. I suspect that a lifetime of listening isn’t enough to find them all.”

Read more of the review of Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty in the Philadelphia Inquirer here.