A lifesize statue of Hildegard of Bingen overlooking the Rhine Valley at the Hildegard Abbey in Bingen
"There is the music of the Heaven in all things and we have forgotten how to hear it until we sing" Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
Wonder, Love, and Praise #841 and 842, Voices Found #105
Hildegard loved to sing. She composed ethereal chant for her community's liturgies. Her music energized their worship. It was life-giving for the Sisters. Sadly, her song has been dormant for centuries, hidden in monasteries and accessible only in medieval manuscripts, sung by a few monks and nuns.
Good news! Hildegard's chant is now available to all! Now the whole Church can sing with her! You can find her setting of the Kyrie, transcribed into modern notation, in the Episcopal hymnal supplement, Wonder, Love, and Praise published in 1997. Her antiphon, Laus Trinitati (Praise to You Holy Trinity), is published in modern notation in the most recent authorized Episcopal hymnal supplement, Voices Found (2003). Sing with the Abbess!
Kyrie may be sung during penitential liturgies, especially at the beginning of a Eucharist. With its florid melismas, Hildegard's music is appropriate for a soloist or a small group of trained singers. Bells or an improvised drone may accompany it, so there are optional suggestions in the hymnal. It is not known if Hildegard used multiple voices or instruments, but in other Abbeys at that time, composers were experimenting with early polyphony, called organum (vocal instrumental lines sung or played parallel to the main chant at the octave, the fifth, or the fourth) It is certainly possible that such parallel voices were improvised at Hildegard'sAbbey. There are performance suggestions in the Leader's Guide to Wonder, Love, and Praise.
Kyrie is the only movement of the Ordinary of the Mass that Hildegard set. That text can be sung in liturgies for either the Office or the Mass. Hildegard composed most of her liturgical music for the Divine Office, or daily prayers, services which her nuns could offer without a male priest as leader. We can assume that the nuns sang Hildegard's Kyrie as part of the Office.
Kyrie is preserved with much of her other work in the Riesencodex, a huge medieval manuscript. It is the later of two manuscripts that preserve Hildegard's music. She, herself, supervised the production of that manuscript at the end of her life, toward the beginning of the 12th century. It remained at her Abbey for many centuries until it was almost lost in war.
A photo of the Riesencodex
Missa de Sancta Hildegard
Although Hildegard did not set any other Mass movements, I used some of her melodies to create simple musical settings of the Sursum Corda (EOM 123) and the Agnus Dei (EOM 144) at the request of the Rev. Paulette Schiff and the women's group at St. Mark's. Those pieces are published in Enriching Our Music 2 as part of my Missa de Sancta Hildegard. If you would like to sing a setting of the Mass inspired by Hildegard, you could use the original Kyrie or my simpler arrangement of it, both in in Wonder Love and Praise. Hildegard's Laus Trinitati, (Voices Found # 105) could serve as the song of praise with the Sursum Corda and Agnus from the Missa de Sancta Hildegard published in Enriching Our Music 2
For more information and performance suggestions please see:
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