Dilettante Music

Abbess Hildegard of Bingen led an extraordinary life. Few women in medieval Europe could match single endeavors from the varied list of her accomplishments: abbess; poetess (sanctioned by the Pope); mystic; composer of music; correspondent to Frederick Barbarossa, Bernard de Clairvaux, and Eleanor of Aquitaine; scholar of medicine; astrology; ethics; and natural history. For her elite band of nuns at the Abbey of Rupertsberg, Hildegard wrote a complete liturgical cycle of ecstatic hymns, the Symphonia. To it she also appended a complete liturgical drama, the Ordo Virtutum. Hildegard's Ordo (a rite rather than a play) has often been called the "first Morality Play," but its intense mixture of sacred music, drama, and ritual is sui generis. The Ordo Virtutum presents a prayerful and emotional allegory of temptation, sin, and the victory of repentance, a celebration of the entire monastic ideal; its music bristles with Hildegard's characteristic melodic motifs, and with dramatic, large-scale modal shifts. The play may have been part of the 1151 consecration rites for Hildegard's new Abbey, and may also have served in the solemn (and public) liturgy of veiling the convent's new nuns.

The drama of the Ordo Virtutum, for which Hildegard composed both the lyrical Latin text and the music, centers on the struggles of Anima (Soul). At the beginning, this Soul (a type of Everyman) blissfully resides within the company of the Virtues, yet she hears the voice of the Devil tempting her to the world's pleasures. Hildegard's Devil character does not sing, as she thought song a purely divine ability, but he persuasively speaks and shouts. The Virtues try to support the Soul, but she leaves them, perhaps even physically running out of the church. The second large section contains an extended counterpoint between the Devil's rude words and the lyrical songs of the Virtues. All 16 of the Virtues and their Queen Humility define themselves in solo song, followed by choral celebrations of each Virtue. Often, their texts are quite sensual and the melodies lush, as the Virtue Chastity's depiction of the "king's embrace" and the centerpiece choral "Flos campi" that follows it. Soul eventually returns, repenting of her sins; the Virtues led by Victory bind the Devil in chains, while Chastity steps on his head. The play concludes with a bizarre and mystical chorus of praise, sung in unison by the Virtues, Patriarchs, and Souls Still Imprisoned in Bodies, their voices presenting the words of the wounded Christ himself. ~ All Music Guide