Hermit Songs

The most literate and cultivated of composers, Samuel Barber had a lifelong interest in Celtic poetry that found its ultimate expression in his Hermit Songs of 1952/53. There are 10 in the collection, and they set the wistful, lyrical, not always saintly observations Irish scholar-monks would scrawl anonymously in the margins of medieval manuscripts—adapted into modern English by the likes of W.H. Auden and his partner Chester Kallman. Barber prized these out-takes from monastic duty for their charm, humanity and insight into ordinary life within the cloister; and he set them in a subtle but straightforwardly melodic way, with music that follows the rhythms of the text so flexibly it abandons time signatures or regular beats to the bar. First performed by Leontyne Price with the composer himself at the piano, the most enduringly popular of the settings has long been one where Barber depicts the mutual contentment of a monk and his pet cat in affectionately jazzy terms.