Four Songs, Op. 13

Quick Facts

• Four Songs, Op. 13 is a set of four songs for piano and voice written between 1937-40:
  1. A Nun Takes the Veil – text by Gerard Manley Hopkins
  2. The Secrets of the Old – text by William Butler Yeats 
  3. Sure on this Shining Night – text by James Agee
  4. Nocturne – text by Frederic Prokosch¹

About the Piece

• “Sure on this Shining Night” is one of the composer’s most famous and frequently performed works. About 30 years after writing the song, Barber arranged the piece for choir, which is equally, if not more, popular than the original.
  • Barber would return to Agee’s writing for a later work, Knoxville, Summer of 1915, written in 1948.
  • Part of the appeal of “Sure on this Shining Night” is its evocation of 19th-century Lieder by masters of the genre such as Brahms and Robert Schumann.²
• Speaking of arrangements, Barber also later arranged a choral version of “A Nun Takes the Veil” and orchestrated “Nocturne.”³
• Unlike a song cycle, these four songs are not interconnected and are regularly performed as standalone pieces.

1. Barbara B. Heyman, “Barber, Samuel,” Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press (2001), accessed March 23, 2023, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000001994.
2. Stephanie Poxon, Ph.D., “Sure on This Shining Night (op. 13, no. 3),” Song of America, accessed March 23, 2023, https://songofamerica.net/song/sure-on-this-shining-night-op-13-no-3.
3. Barbara B. Heyman, “Barber, Samuel,” Grove Music Online.