Meditation Chants
HILDEGARD von BINGEN
Norma Gentile

healingchants.com
medieval.org
classical.net

1995
Schoolkids Records Classicals SKR 1803-2
Ave Maria Press AMP 894-6

March, 1994 (#4)
April, 1994 (#1-3, 6-11)
January, 1995 (#5)
University Reformed Church, Ann Harbor, Michigan


Live recording

HILDEGARD von BINGEN

1 - O virtus sapientiae   [2:00]
2 - O viridissima virga   [4:07]
3 - O coruscans lux stellarum   [5:31]
4 - O rubor sanguinis   [1:38]
5 - O viriditas digiti Dei   [5:57]
6 - Kyrie   [2:35]
7 - O Jerusalem   [10:39]
8 - Spiritus Sanctus vivificans vita   [4:48]
9 - O ignis spiritus paracliti   [6:40]
10 - O Ecclesia   [9:11]
11 - O nobilissima viriditas   [6:30]




Norma Gentile • soprano, Tibetian singing bowls


Drone chorus:

Gerald Siclovan
Mary M. Miller
Lynn Heberlein
Gene Hsu
Andrew Knepley
Frances Tashnick
Linda Britt
Adam Kasha
David Bell
Sarah Newland
Marilyn Gouin





Meditation Chants of Hildegard von Bingen

"All of Creation is a song of praise to God...All of Creation is a symphony...which is joy and jubilation."

"The word stands for the body, but the symphony stands for the Spirit."

"The body is the garment of the soul and it is the soul which gives life to the voice. That's why the body must raise its voice in harmony with the soul for the praise of God."

Hildegard of Bingen

A mystic and abbess who founded two monasteries for women, Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) wrote seven books on the subject of medicine, theology, herbology, biology and botany, as well as two biographies of saints. She included seventy-seven songs, all of them sacred monophonic chants, all with Latin texts, in her first theological book, Scivias.

The tenth child of a noble family, she came to live in a hermitage (along with a young woman known to her family) at the age of eight. In 1136 she was elected abbess of a growing group of women which was adjunct to a men's Benedictine monastery. Throughout her life she experienced unusual clairvoyance and visionary experiences. She suppressed these until about 1141, when she was commanded, through a vision, to write and speak about her knowledge and insights gained from these experiences. Failing to do so, she became seriously ill, and did not arise from her bed until she began in earnest to write her first book, entitled Scivias.

This book is based on a series of twenty-six visions, the last one a musical rendering of the final vision, in which she experienced a "sound like the voice of a multitude singing in harmony, in praise of the celestial hierarchy." This song cycle is entitled the Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum or Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations. These chants were intended for use in daily worship services, and were shared with other monasteries and Cathedrals. Hildegard's understanding of music may be characterized best by her own words, "symphonialis est anima" or "the soul is symphonic".