“Historical Anthology of Music by Women”
A woman of the Middle Ages did not have many ways in which to distinguish herself. She could contract an expedient marriage; she could enter the church and rise to some degree in its hierarchy; or she could develop renown in the healing and occult arts. If we count the spiritual marriage of a nun as a Bride of Christ, Hildegard von Bingen distinguished herself in all three of these areas and more.
In her middle and late years, Hildegard was the abbess of a Benedictine monastery in the Rhineland. The Benedictines—the musicians of the Roman Catholic church— provided the rich atmosphere for her creativity and were the community that performed her compositions on festal days. Her many gifts included prophecy, the composition of the first morality play in the Western world (Ordo Virtutum, or Order of Virtues), correspondence with such notables of the time as Frederick Barbarossa and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the writing of poetry and philosophy, and the compilation of a compendium of herbals for healing. Significantly, her musical compositions are among the most precious of her gifts to the world.
Her compositions do not conform to the linguistic and musical designs of her time. Hildegard used free texts and did not adhere strictly to the strophic form, in which all the stanzas of the text are sung to the same music rather than to a different melody for each verse. What distinguished her use of strophes was the elasticity and freedom with which she elaborated them. Inclined often toward melismatic style, she used as many as eleven notes to a syllable.
Hildegard’s antiphons to the Virgin Mary give us some insight into the depth of her musical vision. “De Sancta Maria,” #13 in the modern edition of her music cited below, is a chant sequence. It is both syllabic and neumatic and is written in the Aeolian mode. At “guttis pluviae” the change in clefs is especially notable and is possibly necessitated by a register change. It has certain strophic elements, but it is not written in a clear strophic form.
O virgin, as well, the diadem of the crimson royal purple of the king who in your gate like as a breastplate
You, becoming verdant, bloomed through all the changes which Adam brought forth in every race of man.
Hail, hail, from your womb all life proceeded which Adam had stripped from his sons.
O flower, you were not to put forth from the dew, neither from the drops of rain, nor from the air which flowed from above, but the divine clarity brought you forth a most noble virgin.
O virgin, God foresaw your flowering in the first day of his creatures. And from the Word, he made your golden matter.
O most noble virgin, o how great it is, in his strength from the side of man God produced the form of woman, which he made a mirror of all to his adornment and an honor to all of his creatures.
For that, the heavenly sounds celebrate and all the earth wonders, O most laudable Mary, whom God has certainly loved.
O how certainly it is to be bewailed and lamented because the sorrow from the guilt through the craftiness of the serpent has flowed in women.
But now, a woman alone whom God has made Mother of all, has expelled through her womb the disaster of ignorance and has manifested the full grief of her race.
But, O morning star, from your womb a new sun has exploded, banishing every guilt of Eve and has brought through you a greater blessing because Eve harmed man.
Whence, O Salvatrix, you have brought forward a new human light, gather together the limbs of your son to heavenly harmony.
“In Evangelium,” #44, is written in the Dorian mode with a frequently flatted B, suggesting the Aeolian mode. It is syllabic but does have some melismatic elements.
O redness of blood, Thou which has flowed down from the highest, which the Godhead has touched, Thou art the flower that the winter chill from out of the breath of the serpent surely has not wounded.
Hildegard was consecrated to her religious order by her parents, Hildebert and Mathilde, as a tithe because she was their tenth and last child. To her, serving God was foremost; one of Hildegard’s most striking ways of doing so was through writing music. (In the Ordo Virtutum, Diabolus has no musical lines to sing, but only shouts his words. This is Hildegard’s way of expressing the Devil’s separation from God.) Like the mystics who preceded and followed her—Tauler, Meister Eckhart, and Jakob Boehme—Hildegard moved toward unity with God by the mystic’s path. Her compositions—musical, medical, theological, philosophical—were all part of that path. For the twelfth century she was a truly remarkable woman; she is also a model for the century in which we live.
Recordings
A Feather on the Breath of God. MHS 4889 M.
Hymns and Sequences. Gothic Voices Ensemble. Hyperion A66039 (same recorded performance as above).
Music for the Mass by Nun Composers. “Kyrie.” University of Arkansas Schola Cantorum. Leonarda LPI-115, 1982.
Further Reading
Hildegard von Bingen. Lieder, edited by Prudentia Barth, Immaculata Ritscher, and Joseph Schmidt-Gorg. Salzburg: Otto Miiller Verlag, 1969. (Includes extensive textual and musical commentary and all extant scores.)
“De Sancta Maria,” “In Evangelium,” and “Kyrie” reprinted by permission of the publisher from Hildegard von Bingen, Lieder, edited by Prudentia Barth, Immaculata Ritscher, and Joseph Schmidt-Görg (Salzburg: Otto Müller Verlag, 1969).
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