This is my version of it. Warts and all. Hollywood Strings Gold. I used both up and down samples for every instrument, equalised using VSL EQ/Comp. Quantum Leap Spaces and things. Took for ever. 
 
Enjoy.
 
https://soundcloud.com/sigmadelta/adagio-for-strings
 

fun!  Barber and Mozart would be proud. ( It starts off more like the requiem  (mozart's).  But it has a happy ending. :D:D  I kind of want this at my funeral, but 8 minutes is a long time to ask someone to sit and be quiet these days.  My favorite stand alone adagio is from Mahler's unfinished symphony.  He only wrote the adagio but sketched out the rest and others put it together.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PQT5IK8mwA

Very nice!! I love this piece and tried recording it myself a couple of years ago but gave up I'm sure this took a ton of work and time but I imagine that you learned a lot about a bunch of different of things... Excellent job

Thanks for the kind words. I learned that you can bounce in real-time in Sonar rather than having to freeze all of the synth tracks.