Hildegard of Bingen's (1098-1179) visionary works and chants demonstrate
an
artistic synthesis the likes of which cannot be rivaled. Hildegard's
ORDO VIRTUTUM is the earliest extant mystery play to survive in written
form in Europe. Even today, Hildegard's love of giving artistic form to
her ideas, as well as creating dramatic productions, is impressive --
like when she lets the Virtutes (the virtues), Anima (the soul), and the
Diabolus (the devil) perform and sing: Hildegard's vision of a
sounding divine order.
With our recording, we would like to document some of the characteristic
features of our interpretation of ORDO VIRTUTUM, features which we have
developed over many years of intense work in the field of medieval
music:
- Lucia Mense (recorder and traverse flute) mimes the role of the devil, while improvising suitable music in both a medieval as well as contemporary manner.
- The devil speaks through Anima, the soul. Cora Schmeiser, an outstanding singer and performer, plays this double role.
- We are the first ensemble to utilize the concept of absolute pitch levels when singing ORDO VIRTUTUM: In the twelfth century, the notation of pitch was a rather new and innovative practice. The musical staff had just recently been invented. The only chromatic tone which could be notated within this system was b-flat. This led to a notated practice of relative pitch levels, which did not reflect the actual sounding tones. Through intense research, the director of the ensemble, Maria Jonas, was able to create a transcription which comes at least close to corresponding to the sound at that time. Therefore, in our recording, several songs from the ORDO will be heard for the first time as they may have sounded in Hildegard's time.
- Lucia Mense (recorder and traverse flute) mimes the role of the devil, while improvising suitable music in both a medieval as well as contemporary manner.
- The devil speaks through Anima, the soul. Cora Schmeiser, an outstanding singer and performer, plays this double role.
- We are the first ensemble to utilize the concept of absolute pitch levels when singing ORDO VIRTUTUM: In the twelfth century, the notation of pitch was a rather new and innovative practice. The musical staff had just recently been invented. The only chromatic tone which could be notated within this system was b-flat. This led to a notated practice of relative pitch levels, which did not reflect the actual sounding tones. Through intense research, the director of the ensemble, Maria Jonas, was able to create a transcription which comes at least close to corresponding to the sound at that time. Therefore, in our recording, several songs from the ORDO will be heard for the first time as they may have sounded in Hildegard's time.
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