The Early Music Podcast: Hildegard von Bingen

What is so fascinating about some medieval nun’s songs?
This sixth episode takes us back, in a single move, to an early moment in the history of occidental music (the Middle-Ages, and more precisely the XIth century), but also at the very beginning of the “Early Music Movement” in the late 70s! Early Music, as we present it today, was born in the second half of the XXth century as an experimental, almost punk, approach to “classical music”. And who would be a better person to tell this story than someone who was there to see it?
Today’s guest, Benjamin Bagby, founded Ensemble Sequentia in 1977 with Barbara Thornton. That is around 800 years after the death of Abbess Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), known for her important work as a naturalist, poet, and her legacy as a mystic. During her long life as a nun, she also composed more than one hundred and fifty liturgical songs and melodies, making her one of the earliest composers of occidental music whose name we actually know! Her contribution as a composer was rediscovered in great part due to the works of Ensemble Sequentia.
RESOURCES
- Portrait of Hildegard von Bingen
- Hildegard von Bingen, Canticle, folio 0466, Codex de Wiesbaden
- The Life of Hildegard von Bingen, Classical Music
- The Music of Hildegard von Bingen, Classical Music
- Hildegard von Bingen, Liber Divinorum Operum
- Barbara Newman, Symphonia: a critical edition of the Symphonia harmoniae celestium revelationum, Cornell University
- Find below the YouTube playlist of the episode's resources and the music playlist of season 3 of the Early Music Podcast!
CREDITS
guest Benjamin Bagby, founder of Ensemble Sequentia
guest Benjamin Bagby, founder of Ensemble Sequentia
interview & editing Andrew Burn
production REMA
credits music
Platée, Act 1, Orage - Jean-Philippe Rameau
performed by Les Talens Lyriques, dir. Christophe Rousset
Camera Lucida 2014
All rights reserved - Courtesy of Les Talens Lyriques
Camera Lucida 2014
All rights reserved - Courtesy of Les Talens Lyriques
design Doretta Rinaldi
original drawings Vincent Flückiger
cover score Folio, Riesencodex, 1175–1190 (Landesbibliothek Wiesbaden, BM 3600 FY 29451)
music
Instrumental dance I & II & Instrumental lament - Hildegard von Bingen
performed by Ensemble Sequentia
Ordo Virtutum, Sony 1998
Instrumental piece II - Hildegard von Bingen
performed by Ensemble Sequentia
O Jerusalem, Sony 1997
Instrumental piece II - Hildegard von Bingen
performed by Ensemble Sequentia
Geistliche Gesänge, BMG 1985
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