Hermit Songs

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Hermit Songs is a cycle of ten songs for voice and piano by Samuel Barber. Written in 1953 on a grant from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, it takes as its basis a collection of anonymous poems written by Irish monks and scholars from the 8th to the 13th centuries. The poems were translated by W. H. Auden, Chester Kallman, Howard Mumford Jones, and Sean O'Faolain.

The Hermit Songs were given their premiere in 1953 by Leontyne Price; Barber himself accompanied the performance.

[edit] See also

Masterworks Portrait, Samuel Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915; Dover Beach; Hermit Songs; Andromache's Farewell. Various artists.