The Origin of Fire: Music and Visions of Hildegard von Bingen
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Composer: Anonymous 4Performer: Anonymous 4
Composer: Swiss Anonymous
Composer: Gregorian Chant
Composer: Hildegard von Bingen
Edition: Music CD
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 2005-02-08
Music Label: Harmonia Mundi Fr.
Soundtracks:
- Veni creator spiritus
- Veni spiritus eternorum alme, sequence (11th century)
- O quam mirabilis, antiphon
- Hildegard von Bingen Vision 1: The fire of creation: Et ego homo non calens, plainsong on a 4D reciting tone
- Hildegard von Bingen Vision 1: The fire of creation: Et audivi ex prefato vivente igne, texting of a 2-voice Consurge Christmas Matin
- O ignis spiritus Paraclitus, sequence
- Hildegard von Bingen Vision 2: Wisdeom and her sisters: Vidi etiam quasi in mesio prefate, plainsong on a 4E reciting tone
- Hildegard von Bingen Vision 2: Wisdeom and her sisters: Prima autem imago dicebat, texting of a Christmas Matins lection tone
- O felix anima, response for St Disibod
- Hildegard von Bingen Vision 3: The fiery spirit: Iterumque vocem de celo, plainsong
- Hildegard von Bingen Vision 3: The fiery spirit: Et imago hec dicebat, texting of a 2-voice Una cunctis leticie Christmas Matins lect
- O Ignis Spiritus, hymn
- Hildegard von Bingen Vision 4: Love: In vera visione spiritus vigilans corpore, plainsong on a tone 2 invitatory formula
- Hildegard von Bingen Vision 4: Love: Et audivi vocem mihi dicentem, texting of a 2-voice Christmas Matins lection tone
- Karitas habundat (Caritas abundat), antiphon
- O eterne Deus, antiphon
- Beata nobis gaudia, hymn
Music reviews of The Origin of Fire: Music and Visions of Hildegard von Bingen
Music Review: Gorgeous!
Rating: 5 Stars
Hildegard von Bingen is, in this listeners estimation, a very important composer in the Western canon. Some will say that this is simply because she put her name to work when so many contemporaries simply signed their work "anonymous." Others will say it simply because she is one of the few women composers of merit that we have discovered, and therefore we exaggerate her importance out of some misplaced political correctness. I reject both these charges sometimes levied against her. I think her work is lasting for more reasons than this. Most scholars admit her importance, include her work in the canon, and she is taught in most University history of music classes.
First, it is important to remember that Hildegard was (and is) thoroughly Catholic. Her legacy sometimes gets usurped by those with other agendas. Hildegard was sent to the convent to get her education and to become a nun, given by her parents as a tithe.
As a young child she was sickly and had religious visions and episodes. The old Catholic encyclopedia refers to her as a "seeress and prophetess" and both descriptions seem apt. It is perhaps because of her visions that her parents gave her as a tithe.
Hildegard it would seem took to the cloister like a fish to water. She was blessed with a great intellect. She was also long lived. In her time she wrote books on herbalism, painted sacred art, composed beautiful music, and wrote down her mystic visions. Some scholars have made the argument she was a polymath. She corresponded with Popes and even acted as a diplomat. She was a learned and holy woman who had power and influence in the Church, a matriarch who was venerated as a saint even shortly after her death. Her first biography was undertaken by contemporary monks, and that should communicate her importance at her time.
Some secularist scholars have posited the idea that she suffered from migraine headaches; that these account for her symptoms before having visions, and the visions themselves. Wether or not this is the case, the visions did occur, and this recording is entitled "Music and Visions" as a result. I see no reason to doubt their divine origin, and will take Hildegard's word at face value. The miraculous does occur, and the music on this disc I think is evidence.
Hildegard is one of my favorite characters from music history. Chronologically she seems to pop up right after Guido of Arezzo (the inventor of sol-fege and the staff who lived around 1000 AD). Hildegard lived around 1150 and used Guido's system of notation to great avail. Her works are lyrical, beautiful, sacred, and compelling.
I have been a fan of Anonymous 4 since undergraduate school when I had the good fortune to hear them live in a big stone Church. When one considers that it is most likely Hildegard's work was sung by her nuns in the cloister, this recording takes on an authenticity which is very appropriate. As I have a digital copy, I do not have the liner notes, but the recording certainly sounds like it was made in a sacred space (or a big stone room appropriately shaped). I do not think they can get that sort of sound by artificial means. It is a clean recording. The singing is perfect and, as always, perfectly in tune. One feels transported to an incense filled chapel in the 11th century, where priests gave a liturgy in Latin facing east with holy relics under the altar stone, and incense filling the sacred space. Perhaps there was a rood screen carved by a master craftsman separating the sanctuary from those in the chapel, who could hear but barely see the nuns behind the grate singing gorgeous chants very much like this. The smoke from the candles and smell of the incense which is cut by rays of light shining through the stained glass. I can almost HEAR all of this in this recording. It makes me yearn for Church when Church was Church, before the rise of the banal, the folk guitars, and the modernism.
Of course, most of the music on this disc would not have been included in the liturgy. Some of it is Hildegard's visions set to music by Anonymous 4 themselves, and thus is as new as this recording itself. Still, the evocative nature of the recordings, and the authenticity there, remain. To be able to make a beautiful, creative, and new recording of music that is close to 1000 years old is a feat indeed. And the theme of pentecost tying the whole record together is brilliant. One can feel the devotion to the Holy Spirit. I do not know if these performers are believers at all but, for this believer, the work is highly evocative.
Truly a gorgeous record. Highly recommended.
Description of The Origin of Fire: Music and Visions of Hildegard von Bingen
The bad news is that this is Anonymous 4's final recording. The good news is that it's one of their best. Aside from a pair of brief 9th-century chants that flank the main program, the disc focuses on the music of Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th-century Benedictine nun whose liturgical works broke new ground in their visionary texts, rich imagery, and melodic range. The selections here relate to themes associated with the Holy Spirit--the fire of creation, wisdom, the life-giving spirit, and love. The imagery of Hildegard's visionary texts is replete with references to the basic elements--air, earth, fire, and water. The results are boldly original, at least within the restricted confines of chant, which offer compelling listening experiences as performed in the lustrous tones of Anonymous 4. The program includes a pair of Hildegard's most-rhapsodic extended visionary pieces, the consoling "O spirit of fire, bringer of comfort," and "I am the great and fiery power," whose soaring opening musical lines still can shock. Harmonia Mundi, as usual, captures the purity of Anonymous 4's singing in vivid sonics and provides deluxe production values, including a profusely illustrated booklet, with full texts and translations. --Dan Davis
Interview with Marsha Genensky of Anonymous 4 
Anonymous 4's Marsha Genensky speaks about the ensemble's swan song in our special interview.
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