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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.