Page 72 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

FiguRE 4.1
A twelfth-century illumination depicting Hildegard of Bingen receiving divine inspiration, perhaps a vision or a chant, directly from the heavens. To the right, her secretary, the monk Volmar, peeks in at her in amazement.
The Gregorian Chant of Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)
One of the most remarkable contributors to the repertoire of Gregorian chant was Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179; Figure 4.1), from whose fertile pen we received seventy-seven chants. Hildegard was the tenth child of noble parents who gave her to the Church as a tithe (a donation of a tenth of one’s worldly goods). She was educated by Benedictine nuns and then, at the age of fifty-two, founded her own convent near the small town of Bingen, Germany, on the west bank of the Rhine. Over time, Hildegard manifested her extraordinary intellect and imagination as a playwright, poet, musician, naturalist, pharmacologist, and visionary (Figure 4.2). Ironically, then, the first “Renaissance man” was really a medieval woman: Hildegard of Bingen.
Hildegard’s O rubor sanguinis (O Redness of Blood; see Listening Cue) possesses many qualities typical of her chants, and of chant gener- ally (Example 4.1). First, it sets a starkly vivid text, which Hildegard her- self created. Honoring St. Ursula and a group of 11,000 Christian women
believed slain by marauding Huns in the fourth or fifth century, the poem envisages martyred blood streaming in the heavens and virginal flowers unsullied by serpentine evil. Each phrase of text receives its own phrase of music, but the phrases are not of the same length. Occasionally a passage of syllabic singing (only one or two notes for each syllable of text; see “quod di- vinitas tetigit”) will give way to one of melismatic singing (many notes sung
to just one syllable; see the twenty-nine notes for “num” of “numquam”). Even today some pop singers such as Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, and Beyoncé are referred to as “melismatic singers” owing to their pen- chant for spinning out just one syllable with many, many notes.
Hildegard’s chant O rubor sanguinis is sweeping yet solidly grounded tonally, as each phrase ends with the first (tonic) or fifth (dominant) degree of the scale, with D or A (colored red in the Example 4.1). Notice, too, that after an initial jump (D to A), the chant proceeds mostly in stepwise mo- tion (neighboring pitches). This was, after all, choral music to be sung by the full community of musically unsophisticated nuns or monks, so it had to be easy. Finally, as with most chants, this piece has no overt rhythm or meter. The unaccompanied, monophonic line and the absence of pulsat- ing rhythm allow a restful, meditative mood to develop. Hildegard did not see herself as an “artist” as we think of one today but, in the spirit of medi- eval anonymity, as a mere vessel through which divine revelation came to earth. Indeed, she styled herself as simply “a feather floating on the breath of God.”
FiguRE 4.2
(upper frame) A vision of Hildegard revealing how a fantastic winged figure of God the Father, the Son, and the Mystical Lamb killed the serpent Satan with a blazing sword. (lower frame) Hildegard (center) receives the vision and reports it to her secretary (left). This manuscript dates from the twelfth century. <
50 chapter four music in the middle ages and renaissance
Copyright 201 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
56797_ch04_ptg01.indd 50 29/08/14 3:33 PM
<
Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY
Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY