Medieval Medieval

The Medieval Muse
Ancient music for voices & harp
Haunting and sensuous songs from the first millennium and the early Middle
Ages include the uplifting visions expressed in music by the first known woman
composer, Abbess Hildegard of Bingen, the voice of the ninth-century lyric
poet Notker and the magnificent tenth-century ‘Song of the Sybil’.
1 Ricercar Francesco Spinacino c.1507
7 O Ecclesia Hildegard of Bingen
2 O viridissima virga Hildegard of Bingen
8 Audi mirabilia late 13th century
3 Missus Gabriel late 13th century
9 Veni sancte spiritus 16th century
4 Columba aspexit Hildegard of Bingen
10Quid tu virgo Notker of Gall c.840–912
5 Dies Irae 13th century
11Song of the Sibyl 10th century
6 Ricercar Joan Ambrosio Dalza c.1508
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CDG1259 Booklet 4pp v1.indd 1
The
Medieval
Muse
Ancient music for voices & harp
15/12/2011 22:30
The Medieval Muse
One of the greatest of all musical visionaries was Hildegard of Bingen, born
900 years ago in the little village of Bemersheim, near Alzey, in western
Germany. As a nun, playwright, poetess, herbalist, naturalist and composer,
she was one of the most extraordinary creative personalities of the Middle
Ages. From her youth she experienced mystical visions of such power that
their vivid imagery and musical overtones transcend the centuries between
her time and our own. Known as the ‘Sibyl of the Rhine’ she recounted
her visions in a book she called ‘Scivias’ (‘Know the Ways’), and her inspired
songs were collected in a work entitled ‘The symphony of the harmony of
celestial revelations’.
‘In the third year of my life I saw so great a brightness that my soul
trembled ... I kept seeing this way until my fortieth year when I was forced
by a great pressure of pains to write about the visions I had seen and
heard. I brought forth songs with their melody, in praise of God and the
saints, without being taught by anyone, and I sang them too, even though
I had never learned either musical notation or any kind of singing’.
Hildegard was responsible for both the texts and melodies of her songs.
CDG1259 Booklet 4pp v1.indd 2
Ancient music for voices & harp
‘When the words come’, she wrote, ‘they are merely empty shells without
the music. They live as they are sung, for the words are the body and the
music the spirit’. Both the music and lyrics are extraordinarily free. ‘My new
song must float like a feather on the breath of God’.
One of the most important influences on Hildegard’s poetic style was the
lyric verse of the monk Notker (c.840–912) sometimes known as Balbulus
(‘the stammerer’). He wrote exquisite new texts which were fitted to existing
plainsong melodies, resulting in works which then took on a new life of
their own. In ‘Quid tu virgo’ Rachel is asked why she weeps, and replies
that she has lost her beloved son; but she receives comfort through the
prophecy of the coming of the kingdom of God: ‘Is he, then, to be lamented
who has gained the heavenly kingdom?’
The remainder of the programme consists of anonymous medieval music
and concludes with the epic and hypnotic ‘Song of the Sybil’.
15/12/2011 22:30