Deutsche Harm Mundi
1989
Hildegard Von Bingen: Symphoniae
About This Album
Symphoniae is a reissue of the 1985 Sequentia LP Symphoniae: Spiritual Songs, an epochal recording that did much to set off the whole Hildegard boom -- if one can use that word to describe the audiences for music by a medieval German abbess. It is largely the work of Sequentia co-director Barbara Thornton, who died in 1998; her creative partner Benjamin Bagby is heard on harps and on other instruments. She sings solo and leads small groups of other female singers. "Symphoniae" was a word Hildegard herself applied to a collection of her own music.

For those who have gone on to investigate other treatments of Hildegard's music, ranging from hyper-authentic to new age inspirational, it will be good to check in with the musicians who were really the first to spot the tremendous relevance of this woman-centered chant. And for those who are looking for a good place to start with Hildegard of Bingen, this disc is still easy to recommend. In both music and liner notes it gives a feel for the key traits of Hildegard's music: its wide, sudden melodic swings, its rhapsodic quality, the unusual locutions and involved, imaginative metaphors in her poetry, and some great imagery that could almost have come out of 1970s feminist literature.
Track List

O Quam Mirabilis, Antiphon
1.
O Pulchrae Facies, Antiphon For The Virgins
2.
O Virga Ac Diadema, Sequence
3.
Misc. Instrumental Pieces Associated With Hildegard Recordings
4.
O Clarissima Mater, Response
5.
Misc. Instrumental Pieces Associated With Hildegard Recordings
6.
Spiritui Sancto Honor Sit, Response
7.
O Virtus Sapientiae, Antiphon
8.
O Lucidissima Apostolorum, Response For The Apostles
9.
Misc. Instrumental Pieces Associated With Hildegard Recordings
10.
O Successores Fortissimi, Antiphon To The Confessors
11.
O Vis Eternitatis, Response
12.
Misc. Instrumental Pieces Associated With Hildegard Recordings
13.
Vos Flores Rosarum, Response For The Martyrs
14.

 
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