Vespers of the Blessed Virgin
In Festis B. Mariæ Virginis
Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)
ARS CHORALIS COELN
dir.
Maria Jonas
Voice
Karolina Brachman, Stefanie Brijoux, Sylvia Dörnemann, Maria Jonas, Petra Koerdt, Uta Kirsten, Maria Jonas,Elodie Mourot, Pamela Petsch, Cora Schmeiser, Amanda Simmons, Christine Wehler
Flutes
Lucia Mense
Fiddle
Susanne Ansorg
Portative organ
Bettina Strübel
Hildegard of Bingen and the context of her songs
Hildegard of Bingen was an extraordinary woman in her time. The Rhenish abbess wrote a plethora of works that deal with questions of theology, with her own visions, and with music. Hildegard was the first female German naturalist, the first female physician and healer, author, composer, painter, theologist, and abbess of the Benedictine convent Rupertsberg on the Rhine, which she founded. As a leading spiritual personality of her time, she gave advice and instruction to popes and emperors, and was not afraid to criticize their decisions. Already during her lifetime she was referred to as the “prophetissa teutonica,” the Sibyl of the Rhine.
Hildegard dedicated most of her hymns, antiphons, and responses to Mary, the Virgin and Mother of God, who stood at the center of Hildegard’s veneration, and who was the embodiment of the “prima materia” (original matter). Materia: a key word for Hildegard, for in it is contained the word “mater,” i.e., “mother.” And without this “prima materia,” even God’s creation was not possible, so Hildegard’s view of the creation.
Ever since we started singing Hildegard’s songs, a question that has occupied us intensely is that of where and when her music would have been performed.
In the monasteries, the liturgy of the hours has from time immemorial determined the daily sequence of events. During the Middle Ages, the day was divided into eight phases, each of which was assigned its own liturgical songs. For our program we have chosen one of the major hours, the Vespers, which was prayed at the setting of the sun. At its center stands the daily Magnificat – the song of praise to Mary. It can be assumed that Hildegard’s songs were also performed during Vesper services in her convent, since Hildegard of Bingen’s compositions are without doubt liturgical music and found use in the celebration of the divine service and the liturgy of the hours.
In striving for a historical performance practice, it is therefore important to remember that performances with liturgical music outside the context of the divine service were entirely unknown in the twelfth century. Basing this program on the structure of the Vesper service – with songs by Hildegard of Bingen and with the corresponding psalms and their psalm tones – may help us as well as the listeners to experience, to feel, and perhaps even to understand these contexts.
Two Marian offices from two thirteenth-century antiphonals of the Cologne Diocese and Cathedral Library served us as the framework. They were sung on 15 August, the Feast of the Assumption, the most important Marian feast in the year of Cologne’s Convent of the Order of Saint Clare.
