Hermitary - Gallery - Music

Hermits and Hermit Themes in Classical Music

Whereas solitude and the hermit are popular subjects of Western painting, the hermit is an occasional topic in Western poetry and music. Thus, when solitude and the hermit are treated in classical music, the subject is weighty and worthy of attention. Here are examples, the few characteristic works on solitude and eremitic themes in classical music.

For the sake of quick classification, a folk song on hermits appearing in the National Songbook, 1906, p. 32 (UK) carries an informal respectability as a classic. "Hope the Hermit" was composed by John Oxenford (1812-1877), derived from a seventeenth-century version. Thd treatment is light, the virtue of hope identified with the carefree hermit of lore.

The English Renaissance song "Like Hermit Poor"" by Nicholas Lanier (1588-1666), was published 1652. The song hearkens to virtues derived from medieval hermits, or the image thereof. T"Like Hermit P{oor" has been ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), though it hardly befits his known personality, and ascribed as well to Alfonso Ferrabosco (1575-1628), who resided in the Elizabethan court as violist.p>

With Henry Purcell (1659-1695), English Baroque reaches an apex in the composition of vocal music. Purcell's "O Solitude" is derived from a local English poem, Katherine Philips, who had translated part of the original poem by the French poet Marc-Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant. The lyrics provide a device for composing a lament in specific voices.

The Romantic Austrian composer Franz Schubert (1797-1828) is noted for his songs (leider), compositions of music and vocals, among them "Einsamkeit" or "Solitude," composed in 1818. The poem wil be reminiscent of romantic poetry in Englsih, but given the sircumstances of Schubert's life and personality, the song is dark.

In the twentieth century, German composer Paul Hindemith () adapted the life of German Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald (1470-1528)to an opera, reflecting the torturous artistry of the painter of the famous Isenheim Altarpiece. Grunewald's altarpiece points to a new style neither classical nor baroque, laden with since of prophetic darkness and independent historical sentiment. Grunewald was notoriously independent, serving as painter in the court of bishoprics but leaving them to work on his own without direction. Hindimith's story picks up this latter period in Grunewald's life, where the latter's apparent sympath;y for the peasants in the contemporaneous Peasants' War (1524-25) in Germany is adapted by Hindemith in the ominous political rise of the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930s. Mathis der Maler, ("Matthias the Painter") was composed in 1935. Based on the music of the opera, Hindemith had composed a symphony the previous year (1934). The opera runs nearly two hours and a half, while the symphony runs less than thirty minutes.

American composed Samuel Barber (1910-1981) may be best known for his romantically tragic "Adagio for Strings," but his "Hermit Songs," poems collected from anonymous medieval Irish monks and scholars, is a musical triumph of eremitic expression mastered and thoughtfully assembled. "Hermit Songs" was first performed in 1953 at the U.S. Library of Congress with Barber himself pianist and Leontyne Price vocalist. The individual songs (text from https://songofamerica.net/song/hermit-songs-op-29):

1. "At St. Patrick’s Purgatory" (translated by Seán Ó Faoláin)
Pity me on my pilgrimage to Loch Derg! / O King of the churches and the bells— / bewailing your sores and your wounds, / but not a tear can I squeeze from my eyes! / Not moisten an eye / after so much sin! / Pity me, O King! What shall I do / with a heart that seeks only its own ease? / O only begotten Son by whom all men were made, / who shunned not the death by three wounds, / pity me on my pilgrimage to Loch Derg / and I with a heart not softer than a stone!
2. ”Church Bell at Night" (translated by Howard Mumford Jones)
Sweet little bell, struck on a windy night, / I would liefer [gladly] keep tryst with thee /than be with a light and foolish woman.
3. ”St. Ita’s Vision" (translated by Chester Kallman)
“I will take nothing from my Lord,” said she, / “unless He gives me His Son from Heaven / In the form of a Baby that I may nurse Him”. / So that Christ came down to her / in the form of a Baby and then she said: / “Infant Jesus, at my breast, / Nothing in this world is true / Save, O tiny nursling, You. / Infant Jesus at my breast, / By my heart every night, / You I nurse are not a churl/ But were begot on Mary the Jewess / By Heaven’s light. / Infant Jesus at my breast, What King is there but You who could / Give everlasting good? / Wherefore I give my food. / Sing to Him, maidens, sing your best! / There is none that has such right / To your song as Heaven’s King / Who every night / Is Infant Jesus at my breast.”
4. ”The Heavenly Banquet" (translated by Seán Ó Faoláin)
I would like to have the men of Heaven in my own house; / with vats of good cheer laid out for them. / I would like to have the three Mary’s, / their fame is so great. / I would like people from every corner of Heaven. / I would like them to be cheerful in their drinking. / I would like to have Jesus sitting here among them. / I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings. / I would like to be watching Heaven’s family / Drinking it through all eternity.
5. ”The Crucifixion" (translated by Howard Mumford Jones)
At the cry of the first bird / They began to crucify Thee, O Swan! / Never shall lament cease because of that. / It was like the parting of day from night. / Ah, sore was the suffering borne / By the body of Mary’s Son, / But sorer still to Him was the grief / Which for His sake / Came upon His Mother.
6. ”Sea Snatch" (translated by Kenneth H. Jackson)
It has broken us, it has crushed us, / it has drowned us, O King of the starbright / Kingdom of Heaven! / The wind has consumed us, swallowed us, / as timber is devoured by crimson fire from Heaven. / It has broken us, it has crushed us, / it has drowned us, O King of the starbright Kingdom of Heaven!
7. ”Promiscuity" (translated by Kenneth H. Jackson)
I do not know with whom Edan will sleep, / but I do know that fair Edan will not sleep alone.
8. The Monk and His Cat" (adapted by W. H. Auden)
Pangur, white Pangur, / How happy we are / Alone together, Scholar and cat. / Each has his own work to do daily; / For you it is hunting, for me, study. / Your shining eye watches the wall; / My feeble eye is fixed on a book. / You rejoice when your claws entrap a mouse; / I rejoice when my mind fathoms a problem. / Pleased with his own art / Neither hinders the other; / Thus we live ever / Without tedium and envy. / Pangur, white Pangur, / How happy we are, / Alone together, Scholar and cat.
9. ”The Praises of God" (translated by W. H. Auden)
How foolish the man who does not raise / His voice and praise with joyful words, / As he alone can, Heaven’s High King. / To whom the light birds with no soul but air, / All day, everywhere laudations sing.
10. ”The Desire for Hermitage" (translated by Seán Ó Faoláin)
Ah! To be all alone in a little cell / with nobody near me; / beloved that pilgrimage before the last pilgrimage to death. / Singing the passing hours to cloudy Heaven; / Feeding upon dry bread and water from the cold spring. / That will be an end to evil when I am alone / in a lovely little corner among tombs / far from the houses of the great. / Ah! To be all alone in a little cell, to be alone, all alone: / Alone I came into the world alone I shall go from it.