Download E-SOURCE 12.3 and 12.4 Music of Hildegard of Bingen In addition

E-SOURCE 12.3 and 12.4
Music of Hildegard of Bingen
In addition to her writings on theology, medicine, and healing, and her mystical and
visionary writings, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) also composed music. One of her
most famous pieces was the Ordo virtutem (c. 1151), a liturgical drama or morality play
set to music, in which the soul and the virtues, parts sung by nuns, confront the devil, a
spoken part, played by a man.
Hildegard largely composed music for the nuns of her own monastery. Her
compositions are monophonic, with a single melody line, and mellismatic, often with
several notes per syllable. The range of her melodies, the intervals between the notes,
was quite daring for her time. The selections, below, give a sense of the breadth of
Hildegard’s repertoire.
Listen to The Rose Ensemble perform the music of Hildegard of Bingen [URL
HERE]. As you listen, consider these questions:
1) How does Hildegard ‘paint” the words of the text? Can you hear the angels in the
first selection soaring? How do the words in second selection work on a
metaphorical level? Do they evoke a spiritual view of the world, or one rooted in
nature? Or was Hildegard being intentionally ambiguous here?
2) What differences do you notice between the two pieces? What impact do you
imagine hearing such different settings would have had on the nuns who chanted
them? What about visitors to Hildegard’s monastery—often members of the
nobility and high clergy—who heard them?
12.3) ANTIPHON: ‘O GLORIOSISSIMI LUX’, Hildegard von Bingen
Most glorious angels, living high,
who just beneath divinity,
perceive with mystical darkness
the divine eyes of every creature, in burning desires,
whence you can by no means satisfy.
How glorious your form holds those joys,
which in you is untouched by every wicked sin,
which first arose in your company,
an angel having been lost (Satan, the fallen Angel),
who wanted to fly above and beyond,
hiding within the ‘wingdom’ of God, when, himself
full of turns and windings, plunged into ruin.
But he established the instruments of
his fall by taking
counsel of the regard of the finger
of God.
12.4) RESPONSORY: ‘O NOBILISSIMA VIRIDITAS’, Hildegard von Bingen
Antiphon: O most noble greenness,
you who are rooted in the sun,
and who shine in brilliant serenity
in a wheel that no earthly supremacy can grasp,
You are enriched in the embraces of divine ministries.
Verse: You grow red like the dawn
and burn like the flame of the sun.
Source: musical recording, The Rose Ensemble, Seasons of Angels, Harmony of the
Spheres (Saint Paul, MN, 2001), track 5) “Antiphon: ‘O Gloriosissimi lux’, Hildegard
von Bingen”, and track 13) “Responsory: ‘O nobilissima viriditas’, Hildegard von
Bingen”. Music and translations, under copyright of the Rose Ensemble, are used here
with permission.