# Hildegard of Bingen



## Yardrax

I see her name dropped on these forums quite a bit. It's not a name I've seen prominently elsewhere so I'm wondering exactly why. I listened to a couple of things on Youtube, and well, it's monophonic chant. I mean it's nice I suppose, but I'm not really interested in listening to one unaccompanied line for any particular length of time. So, why is it that I keep seeing her name on these boards? Just exactly how much of an ignoramus am I for my failure to appreciate anything prior to the development of polyphony? Let the good people of TC decide.


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## Taggart

Certainly *not *an ignoramus. It's a matter of taste. In some ways, it depends what you've been used to. I grew up with (Gregorian) chant so I find it perfectly natural. I attend a church that uses missal tone chants, so again, I'm used to monophonic chant. I like folk song - including single voice stuff, so I'm used to monophony.

The importance of Hildegard is mainly because she is a woman and because she had the largest body of work of any medieval composer.


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## KenOC

Historically, Hildegard is famous for at least two reasons:

1 - She wrote the first "classical" music that can be identified with a particular person (or so it is said).

2 - She would be famous even without that. She was a composer, reformer, theologian, administrator, medicinal expert, political advisor, seer of visions, and ultimately a saint.

As for the music, well, such things are of course matters of taste. 

Ordo Virtutum ( c. 1151) 



Symphoniae armonie celestium revelationum (c. 1156)


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## Winterreisender

I would say that, given the simplicity of the textures in Hildegard's music (monophponic, as you rightly point out), there is much scope for interpretation. As a result, some recordings take a few liberties with the accompaniment to make the music that little bit deeper and more atmospheric (and perhaps authentic?), even with something as simple as a drone on the medieval fiddle or harp. I personally like that approach and would particularly recommend the recordings of Sequentia. They have done the complete works of Hildegard but "Canticles of Ecstasy" is my favourite.









Or perhaps the classic Hildegard recording is this one, "Feather on the Breath of God," by the Gothic Voices, where Emma Kirkby's crystal clear performance needs little accompaniment.









Here is a piece from that album:






Of course none of this would work if the melodies themselves weren't very beautiful, and I am of the opinion that they most certainly are.


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## Turangalîla

The span of Hildegard's work, in music, medicine, and religion, is phenomenal and worthy of the highest respect, and she is considered to be the first composer of what many of us call "art music".

But she is not famous just for that-many of her melodies are among the most beautiful things I've ever heard.


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## Kieran

That's fairly stunning...


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## Manxfeeder

Taggart said:


> The importance of Hildegard is mainly because she is a woman and because she had the largest body of any medieval composer.


She had the largest body?


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## Garlic

I had a similar reaction to the OP when I first heard her music. I don't know what changed but at some point something clicked. As Winterreisender says, interpretations can vary considerably so try different recordings. It may just not be to your taste, but I think it's very special music well worth making the effort for.


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## quack

Manxfeeder said:


> She had the largest body?


...while her contributions to music, medicine and theology can be in no way underestimated, scholars now believe that her true importance lies in her development of the "yo momma" joke. Pope Benedict acknowledged that significance in an encyclical commemorating her recognition as a Doctor of the church entitled "Yo momma superior is so fat she caused the great schism".


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## brianvds

To me, there is something quite magical and hypnotic about a melody with drone accompaniment, especially melodies as exotically beautiful as those of Hildegard. But I suppose it's a matter of taste. And by no means do I wish that the evolution of western music had stopped there. As far as I am concerned, I am very happy to live in a world where we can have both Hildegard and Prokofiev.


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## Ingélou

Thanks so much, CarterJohnsonPiano, for the YouTube clip you posted in #5. It is indeed absolutely 'magical & hypnotic', as brianvds says. I have embedded it on my FB page and listened to it 3 times today already. I am so grateful to Hildegarde - so often, one feels that female composers are included as tokens, but her talent* is beyond dispute.

(* Edit: and on reflection, 'genius' might not be too strong a word...)


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## deprofundis

I like to post about a mather,do you preffer purist version of hildegard von Bingen, like the ones of naxos or you preffered the modern version of Hildegard von Bingen.I like '' visions'' on the angel label(a modern version) but i would like to says i pretty mutch like ''heavenly revelation'' on naxos, but the other one '' celestial harmonies'' was a bit borring even if it were the same folks that record ''heavenly revelation'' , jeremy summerly and the oxford camerata.

*What your cue on this, should medieval music stay in a purist format or your open to modernism like the ''vision'' cd?*


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## DavidA

Hildegard is the patron saint of independents and especially Hyperion. Hyperion's breakthrough was through the 12th century abbess whose name was barely heard at the time outside the Vatican library. Hyperion founder, Ted Perry, was driving his taxi cab one night Something he did to put bread on the table) when he heard an appealing sound on BBC Radio 3 and decided to record it.
He called Christopher Page, director of the Oxford-based Gothic Voices, and Emma Kirkby, the soprano, and arranged to meet them at the church of St Jude-onthe-Hill, Hampstead, on 14 September, 1981.
The resultant production, titled A Feather on the Breath of God, went on to sell in excess of half a million copies, and continues selling. One bookstore in Texas accounts for 1,000 discs every year. Hildegard was hauled out of the theologians' closet to become an icon for feminists, intellectuals and male fanciers of really formidable women. Our perception of medieval values was markedly altered by her re-emergence. She also wrote captivating noises.
On Hildegard's profits, Perry pursued dozens of lost composers, none of whom attained comparable penetration. He recorded symphonies by the abstruse Robert Simpson; a series of unplayed Victorian concertos; music by Cecil Coles, killed in the First World War. (From article by Norman Lebrecht)


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## DavidA

Ted Perry made so much money out of Hildegard that he used to say that Hildegard "paid for all my mistakes".


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## Gaspard de la Nuit

Wow, I'm listening to some of her works now. I feel so calm, it seems so refreshing. I'm used to listening to complex, over-stimulating music and it just seemed like a breath of fresh air.


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## Ilarion

brianvds said:


> To me, there is something quite magical and hypnotic about a melody with drone accompaniment, especially melodies as exotically beautiful as those of Hildegard. But I suppose it's a matter of taste. And by no means do I wish that the evolution of western music had stopped there. As far as I am concerned, I am very happy to live in a world where we can have both Hildegard and Prokofiev.


I like living in a world where both Hildegard and Shostakovich are tolerated 

Ps: Brianvds, methinks your avatar is cool(Bach and Schwarzenegger) :cheers:


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## Guest

*Hildegard*

The earliest composer in the West was Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179). Born the tenth child of a noble family, she was promised to the Church as a tithe (which means "tenth"). She was sent to the Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg and took the veil at the age of 15. She became the abbess in 1136. She knew only the monastic life for many years and had almost no contact with the outside world save for a single window until the middle of her life when she left the monastery and established a convent in Rupertsburg near Bingen in 1147. She suffered chronically from migraine headaches. Either the headaches themselves or the treatments caused her to have visions which she wrote down (I have reason to believe she may have taken treatments using ergot which contains LSD). She also wrote music and poetry around the 1150s and a morality play in 1151 called _Ordo virtutum_, the oldest known morality play. She was also an artist. She also wrote treatises on philosophy, medicine and science. She was a physician and healer-to many, a prophet (because her visions often foretold the future) and miracle-worker. She was also a skilled herbalist and an early botanist. She also invented her own coded language (one has to wonder how much she might have had to do with the *Voynich manuscript*, although written after her death, might have come down through her). Pope Eugene III loved her song, _Scivias_ ("Know the Ways of the Lord"), which he inherited from the venerated teacher, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and read the words in public. This gave her special papal approval no other women and even few men enjoyed.

She founded another convent in Eibingen and taught her nuns about the special role of the feminine in divinity that she had seen in her visions. She taught them that women were the only fit template for the image of god since male involvement in the Immaculate Conception was non-existent but could never have happened without a woman. She would not allow her ladies to languish but made sure they were educated in science as well as religion. They learned such arts as painting and copying manuscripts including illuminating the margins. They were taught to read, write and sing music as well as learning musical instruments. They also learned to weave and tend to flocks of sheep and goats in order to be as self-sufficient as possible. Her convents even had piped-in water! She taught her nuns to bathe regularly in warm water at a time when bathing was actually seen as unhealthy! She also had the convents make their own beer which the nuns drank because Hildegard felt the water in its natural state was unsafe for consumption (she was right).

Her music was unlike anything else the Church was producing. For example, she did not write plainchant but in her own unique style which was highly original and well written. She was a known composer in her time when most written music was published anonymously:





























Hildegard of Bingen.









An example of Hildegard's written music.

While women were forbidden by canon law to preach, Hildegard continued to lecture, publish works and as well as carry on a voluminous correspondence with popes, archbishops, rulers and ordinary clergy she had met. Her self-education must have been extensive, her intellect very high (she was regarded in her own time as a polymath) and her spirit fearless. She even opposed the Church when she gave permission for a revolutionary who had died to be buried at the Rupertsburg abbey cemetery in 1178. When the Church overruled her, she protested that the man's sins were already absolved. The Church sent people to exhume the body. Hildegard had the grave markers removed prior to their arrival so that they would not be able to locate his grave. Angered, the canons placed the abbey under interdict meaning that, among other things, music was banned there. Hildegard vigorously protested saying that the banning of music was itself a sin but still she would not give in and identify the man's grave. After some months, the Church gave up and lifted the interdict in March of 1179. In September of that year, Hildegard von Bingen passed from the world at the age of 81, a remarkably long life for a time when men died of "natural causes" in their 30s and 40s and few women lived long enough to see their 50s-a testament to her philosophy and practice of hygiene and healthy living. She was never officially made a saint but is often referred to as one.









Another likeness of Hildegard, a.k.a. Sybil of the Rhine.


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## Nereffid

Nicely done.

As an addendum, let me note that in 2012 Pope Benedict made Hildegard a saint by granting her "equivalent canonization", meaning that although she didn't go through the formal canonization process, her veneration on a local level gets generalized to the entire Church. Later that year the pope declared Hildegard a Doctor of the Church, which recognises the importance of her writings.


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## gravitas

Do you know the Sequentia recordings? I have Gothic Voices and Anonymous 4 and love them....


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## millionrainbows

Wow, that must be why I like her music so much: she was tripping on ergot when she wrote it! Thus, this is the first "psychedelic" music.

I don't think the biograph emphasizes the danger she was under; she could easily have been killed.


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## millionrainbows

Check this one out, it's one of my favorites.

~


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## regenmusic

I remember reading about other early composers who were also polyartists/polymaths, but I forget who they are right now. I did start a thread of this aspect of composers who also did other arts or sciences.


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## Larkenfield

She was _wonderful_... and she could do something so entirely heartfelt and soulful with_ one_ melodic line when it might take others writing four part polyphony. She was an original.


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## Guest

Larkenfield said:


> She was _wonderful_... and she could do something so entirely heartfelt and soulful with_ one_ melodic line when it might take others writing four part polyphony. She was an original.


That kind of polyphony didn't exist in her day. Leonin is often attributed as the composer who invented organum--the earliest type of polyphony. He was a contemporary of Hildegard although she was older by about half a century. While Leonin's music was a change from plainchant, it certainly sounds like plainchant was the dominant influence. Hildegard, on the other hand, was composing what I believe to be a more advanced form of organum totally divorced from plainchant. Yet she is not given credit as the originator of organum.

Leonin was a mentor to Perotin who was born in the generation following Hildegard's death and sounds like his teacher. Hildegard's melodic lines were drawn out with exuberance that I don't hear in Leonin and Perotin. Don't get me wrong--I love Leonin's material and it was very innovative but Hildegard's music produces a more visceral response in me. It soars in a way I don't hear with either Leonin or Perotin and he was heralded as a great master by his student known to us today only as Anonymous IV (so now you know where the name came from, if you already didn't).


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## Manxfeeder

millionrainbows said:


> Check this one out, it's one of my favorites.
> 
> ~


Rats. I can't get it to load. What is the title?


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## millionrainbows

This is the first recording of hers that I heard.You have to be familiar with other Gregorian chant, and have a very good ear, to tell the difference in von Bingen and other run-of-the-mill chant. It makes me think that much of the chant out there is not really creative in the way von Bingen's was. Listen to how well-constructed her melody is! Follow it closely, and realize how good it is!


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## Mandryka

If you're interested in Hildegard's chant, she set psalms which have been recorded rather well here









From the excellent essay in the booklet



> Hildegard's music is intended to add a greater degree of contemplation to the liturgy. It often takes the form of a slow and solemn declamation destined to permit the listener to absorb each word and to plant in his mind the burgeoning image which, as it comes to life may be contemplated. It is music that is the very opposite of Cistercian music, the rules of which had been defined thirty years before. The modal scales, both authentic and plagal, used by Hildegard exceed the limited ranges dictated by Guy d'Eu, the theorist of the order of Citeaux. The chromaticisms and the changes of the final of the mode are other "irregularities" denounced by the Cistercians. From this point of view it was not, perhaps, without a certain sense of humour that Hildegard presented the Cistercian monastery of Villers with her volume of Symphonies - the manuscript we have used for this recording.
> 
> Her work reveals the great preoccupations of the musicians of her time and reflects a tradition of singing that came to grief in the 12th century when melodies began to be written in staff notation. It then became necessary to indicate the exact tenor of the degrees and certain combinations could hardly be justified by the theorists. Although certain features had been sanctified by custom, such as the frequent instability of the modes of D in which the alteration of the second note seems to shift them into the modes of E, some extremists declared them irregular and therefore to be banned. These variations must often have been present in Carolingian chant - they still exist in Byzantine chant -9 but some 12th century thinkers found them difficult to comprehend. Thus the work of Hildegard appears, in the ecclesiastic context of her time, like a vigorously traditional new song. She uses the quintessence of the post-Carolingian musical language shaped by the force of numbers whose musical role in the 12th century could be clearly enunciated thanks to the mastery of diastematic notation (in which the degrees of the scale were defined). It was, in a noble sense, an admirable synthesis of a tradition of musical language and its rationalisation by numbers at the service of a text that paved the way to the most exalted liturgical contemplation.
> 
> MARCEL PERES


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## philoctetes

I don't listen to chant, Leonin, or Perotin, but I love Hildegard. There is something different, more exciting and uplifting. I may be talking over my head but it seems that Hildegard's use of dominant vs subdominant intervals, combined with great rhythmic flow, was way ahead of her time. She doesn't need polyphony to grab my attention. 

But I must admit I am simply ruined by Barbara Thorton's recordings (I have the whole set) and rarely venture to other performers. So of course Mandryka comes up with something I gotta hear, just as I've been exploring Peres on Spotify... good timing.

PS Peres is really good. Thanks Mandryka.


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## Mandryka

I'm glad you're enjoying it. 

Just a word of warning to people. It is CHANT. It isn't music full of melismas with an unfeasibly wide ambitas, charged with suppressed sexuality, which is what people expect from Hildegard.


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## philoctetes

Mandryka said:


> I'm glad you're enjoying it.
> 
> Just a word of warning to people. It is CHANT. It isn't music full of melismas with an unfeasibly wide ambitas, charged with suppressed sexuality, which is what people expect from Hildegard.


It's not what expect from Peres either. No men growling like throat singers...


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## Mandryka

A rather different approach to Hildegard's chant can be heard hear


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## millionrainbows

@Mandryka, thanks for posting the booklet essay in your post #28. That explains everything! :tiphat:


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