Some years after their composition in the late 1930s, Barber was encouraged to arrange two of his four songs, Op 13, for choir, and these were published in 1961. One of them was Gerard Manley Hopkins’ A nun takes the veil ‘Heaven-haven’ (Barber reversed Hopkins’ title). The sustained solo line and spread piano chords are transformed into a largely homophonic setting, one of great poise and reflection.

from notes by Meurig Bowen © 2015

Samuel Barber was such a special friend to me that I find it difficult to express the depth of admiration and affection I had for him over the many years of our friendship. He had an aristocratic nature and a wonderful sense of humor. He had, as well, a special love for the old songs—both classical and light—from the era of his famous aunt, the contralto Louise Homer, who sang with Caruso, Gluck, McCormack and Melba. Some of my happiest musical memories are of the house concerts he and Gian Carlo Menotti organized at ‘Capricorn’, their home in Mount Kisco, New York. A cross-section of the artistic world gathered there—Leontyne Price, Rudolf Nureyev, Thomas Schippers, John Browning, W H Auden and Chester Kallman, Stephen Spender, Aaron Copland and Maria Callas, to name but a few. When Samuel Barber died in 1981 he left the world a major legacy of twentieth-century American music. Of the many beautiful songs written by Barber, one of the most famous is his 1941 setting of James Agee’s Sure on this shining night.

from notes by Robert White © 1997

Sure on this shining night, to a poem by James Agee, is one of his most perfect and ecstatic lyrics, the canonic melody between voice and piano and the warm, steadily pulsing harmonies creating a sense of rapt contemplation.

from notes by Calum MacDonald © 2007

Sure on this shining night, sur un poème de James Agee, compte parmi ses chansons les plus parfaites et les plus extatiques, la mélodie canonique (voix/piano) et les harmonies chaleureuses, à la pulsation régulière, créant un sentiment de contemplation ravie.

extrait des notes rédigées par Calum MacDonald © 2007
Français: Hypérion

Sure on this shining night auf ein Gedicht von James Agee ist eine seiner perfektesten und ekstatischsten lyrischen Äußerungen, deren kanonische Melodie von Singstimme und Klavier und warme, regelmäßig pulsierende Harmonien ein Gefühl versunkener Nachdenklichkeit vermitteln.

aus dem Begleittext von Calum MacDonald © 2007
Deutsch: Renate Wendel

Nocturne sets a poem by Frederick Prokosch. Its apparently peaceful opening is undercut by its fretful modulations, and as melancholy invades the music, the central section becomes an agonized appeal for rest and healing, and the return of the opening figuration at the end is now seen as a symbol of welcome oblivion in ‘the blind eternal night’.

from notes by Calum MacDonald © 2007

Nocturne met en musique un poème de Frederick Prokosch. Son ouverture en apparence paisible est sapée par des modulations maussades et, à mesure que la mélancolie s’intensifie, la section centrale se mue en un déchirant appel au repos et à l’apaisement; le retour de la figuration initiale, à la fin, est désormais perçu comme le symbole d’un oubli bienvenu dans l’«éternelle nuit aveugle».

extrait des notes rédigées par Calum MacDonald © 2007
Français: Hypérion

Nocturne setzt ein Gedicht von Frederick Prokosch. Sein scheinbar friedlicher Anfang wird von unruhigen Modulationen unterhöhlt, und sobald Melancholie in die Musik einzieht, wird der Mittelteil zu einem ängstlichen Flehen nach Ruhe und Heilung, und die Wiederkehr der einleitenden Figurationen am Ende lässt sich nun als Symbol willkommenen Vergessens im „blinden ewigen Licht“ verstehen.

aus dem Begleittext von Calum MacDonald © 2007
Deutsch: Renate Wendel

Song, opera and choral works represent over half of Samuel Barber’s output. Born in 1910, he started writing for the voice at a precocious age, and was encouraged by his aunt, Louise Homer, the Metropolitan Opera contralto, whose husband was the distinguished song composer Sidney Homer. Barber tells how she, after an exhausting day in the recording studio with the likes of Caruso and Galli-Curci, would often sing through his early songs, such as ‘Daisies’, written in 1927. Nocturne, the last of his Four Songs Op 13, was composed in 1940 to a poem by his friend Frederic Prokosch who, in his memoirs, Voices, relates how one day he heard Sir Thomas Beecham informally singing, to his own accompaniment, “my good friend Samuel Barber’s setting of my poem ‘Nocturne.’”

from notes by Richard Stokes © 2016