Hildegard of Bingen and the Order of the Virtues
Julie Hotchin (ANU)
CIMF Pre-concert talk, 6 May 2015
Years after Hildegard’s death in 1179, an elderly nun - Hedwig - recounted an enduring
memory of the great visionary. Hedwig must have been quite young when Hildegard died,
yet she vividly recalled how the abbess always seemed to be perlustrata – ‘shining with
light’ – as on one occasion when she walked through the cloister and burst into song.
Hedwig’s affectionate memory offers us a revealing insight into Hildegard’s demeanour,
especially the spontaneity of her musical performance – literally bursting into song as she
walked – as a vocal expression of her ‘visionary conception’ of the relationship between
humanity on earth, and Christ and the angels in heaven. This image of the elderly nun,
suffused with light, also echoes Hildegard’s own recollections about the source of
inspiration for her music, and indeed all of her vast creative output – as the ‘voice of the
living light’, which she understood as the Holy Spirit working through her. It is for this reason
that she was known by contemporaries as the Sybil of the Rhine, a Sybil being an ancient
name for a seer or prophetess. To Hildegard, music was essentially prayer offered by people
in praise of God and the saints in heaven.
Hildegard is unique in the history of Western music. No other medieval composer has left
such a large body of varied and securely attributable works as her. She is the most prolific
composer of single voice chants known to us from the entire medieval period. Scholars now
also believe that she herself collected her works, both words and written music, and
supervised their initial circulation beyond her community at Rupertsberg. Her sacred songs
comprise two collections: a cycle of over 60 songs for Mass and Divine Office known as the
Symphony of the harmony of celestial revelations; and the songs that comprise the Ordo
Virtutum, or ‘The Play of the Virtues’ [that we will be treated to shortly]. Hildegard is
distinctive in both the large number of pieces she composed and their range and musical
style. [Her activities demonstrate the great importance she, and her community, placed on
the musical dimensions of their lives.]
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So, we may ask, who was this remarkable twelfth-century woman who has left such a
remarkable legacy? In the short time I have today I aim to give you an introduction to
Hildegard, her theology of music, and a brief introduction to the Order of Virtues. Whilst I
am not a musician or music scholar, I hope to give you a sense of her individual style and an
appreciation of her aims and purpose in composing this work.
A brief bit of biography:
Hildegard was born in 1098, in the Rhineland. She was the 10th and last child of her parents,
who offered her to the religious life as a tithe to God. In 1106, when Hildegard was only
eight, she was placed with teenage noblewoman, Jutta, as an anchoress or recluse at the
nearby monastery of Disibodenberg. The two women shared a cell, possibly sited near the
entrance of the newly constructed monastery, and were supported by the Benedictine
monks there.
Hildegard received her early education from Jutta, who instructed her in the Latin of the
Bible. Undoubtedly Hildegard also familiarized herself with other books of the bible and
religious literature, borrowing in later years, no doubt, from the library of the monks there.
It is also at this early age that Hildegard recalls first receiving the debilitating illnesses and
visions that were the hallmarks of her life. She referred to this radiance as a ‘reflection of
the living light’, within which she saw the complex symbols that fill her writings, imagery and
music.
Over the following 30 years the small community attracted many other women and after
Jutta’s death in 1136 Hildegard was elected as leader or magistra (teacher). Growing in
confidence, Hildegard completed her first theological treatise, Scivias by around 1148, and
bolstered by the ecclesiastic support for her claims to have received divine inspiration for
her visionary works, in 1151 she moved, with 20 nuns, from the relative isolation of
Disibodenberg to a more prominent and accessible site on the Rhine at Bingen.
The 1140s and 1150s, when Hildegard was in her mid-40s and 50s - was her most prolific
and fertile period. The majority of her musical compositions date to this period, emerging
out of impetus to create a distinct new communal identity at Rupertsberg. Hildegard’s
writings on natural history, on the medical properties of plants and minerals, and their
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application in cures for human ailments, also date to this time. Hildegard’s attention also
remained on the world beyond the Rupertsberg. Several preaching tours and a vast
correspondence competed with her time, as she sought to establish her monastery and lead
her growing number of nuns. The convent at Rupertsberg in fact proved so popular that
Hildegard founded another, across the Rhine at Eibingen, in the early 1160s. She remained
as superior at Rupertsberg until her death in 1179, at the venerable age of 81.
Hildegard was composing songs in the 1140s, and several of them, including the first version
of her liturgical drama, the Play of Virtues, formed the final section of Scivias. Hildegard
conceived and produced this treatise, the songs for divine worship and the play as an
integrated whole. These works share similar theological themes – how to live a just life,
celebration of the Virgin’s role in the incarnation of Christ and redemption of humanity, and
the path of repentance for all souls. The treatise, songs and play function together in the
framework of Hildegard’s thought and pedagogy. Hildegard intended all three to support a
particular educational program for her nuns, to instruct them in a moral life. Her music
shows the breadth of her creative expression and how she lent a distinctively female voice
to the celebration of the divine in the liturgy.
At this point it is useful to explore what I mean when I refer to Hildegard as ‘composing’.
She herself claimed that she received the inspiration for her music from the ‘living light’.
Late in life she related how she came to understand the workings of God, to record her
visions and her music:
‘But I in this vision understood and perceived without any human instruction the
writings of the prophets, of the Gospels, and the precepts of other saints and of
certain philosophers, and I expounded a number of their texts, although I scarcely
had any knowledge of literature, as the woman who taught me was not a scholar.
Then I the abovementioned vision I also composed and sang chant with melody, to
the praise of God and his saints, though I never studied human chant, and I did not
know how to tell the neumes [early music notation] by myself’.
Although she claims not have received formal training, the technical qualities of her
composition reveal that she was in fact quite skilled in music theory. It is possible that
Hildegard, meditating on her visions, uttered ‘songs’, in a state of high creative excitement.
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The rhythms running through her mind would have been those of the liturgy, the prayers
and psalms which she had committed to memory and recited daily since she was eight years
old. The structure of her music reflects and reinforces the words of her lyrics, so it seems
likely that she composed both in tandem, as she went. Her pieces could have been recorded
by someone at the time, probably a nun of the convent, and later organised into a
compilation.
Music, for Hildegard, was not limited to a gifted elite, but was quintessentially human;
mankind was not meant to live without it. All music aroused nostalgia for a return to Eden.
This is why, she argues, that ‘a person often sighs and moans upon hearing some melody,
recalling the nature of the celestial harmony’ that people have lost in this life. She
understands music as a way to create harmony between body and soul, and between
humanity on earth and the choirs of angels in heaven. Song is the divinely ordained praise
of God: ‘The body is the vestment of the spirit, which has a living voice, and so it is proper
for the body, in harmony with the soul, to use its voice to sing praises to God [. . .]’ creating
the ‘soul that is symphonic’.
The music we will hear tonight is preserved in a manuscript that was produced at
Rupertsberg in the last years of Hildegard’s life, around 1177 – 1180, under her supervision
and with the assistance of her nephew. The so-call Riesencodex, or giant manuscript, is a
collected works of all Hildegard’s output. The text and musical notation of the Ordo
Virtutum is on the final pages of the manuscript.
What is striking here, apart from the fact that Hildegard supervised the preservation of her
lyrics as part of this manuscript, is that her music is notated. Thus we have an indication of
how Hildegard herself wanted it to be performed. Although, as early music specialists will
advise, there are significant challenges in how to interpret the notation in terms of tone,
modulation and length of notes, nevertheless, performers are able to recapture the sense of
the sound as Hildegard intended it to be sung. And we certainly gain an appreciation of the
dramatic structure of the music and how it shapes the narrative of the play.
The Order of Virtues has been described as the first morality play. Hildegard adapted
traditional forms of liturgical drama and classical ideas about the battle between the virtues
and vices to craft a story about the journey of ‘everysoul’. The play depicts the struggle of a
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human soul that falls into sin and its subsequent conversion. Although scholars differ on the
actual context in which this drama may have been performed – as an allegory of a nun’s
profession and entrance into the community, to celebrate the convent’s move to
Rupertsberg, or for another particular occasion – all agree that the piece was performed by
Hildegard’s nuns, creating a dramatic morality play in which they performed their own
continuing process of conversion into virtue.
The central character in the play, Anima is at once a particular and universal soul. She is the
centre of a conflict between the Devil and the Virtues. To give a brief outline of the
dramatic action: the play opens with the virtues being introduced to the prophets. Anima is
introduced, and is at first happy although she soon falls into discouragement and is seduced
through the influence of the devil. There is a long middle section in which the virtues
introduce themselves and stake their claims against the taunts of the devil, and expound on
their qualities. Anima then returns, weakened and bruised, and repents her ways. Humbled,
she calls on the virtues to assist her to overcome the devil’s snares, and with their aid the
devil is defeated and bound. In one sense what we see here is a community performance of
confession and forgiveness, in which the humble soul asks for and receives aid from the
virtues to overcome her sinful nature. The action then, is as much a drama for ‘everysoul’ as
for the particular souls of Hildegard’s nuns.
How does Hildegard understand the Virtues and what is their significance? The Virtues are
not just personifications of abstract qualities, but they are also attributes inhering in
divinity, whom they serve. Yet they also have an independent agency, assisting Anima in her
struggle. In the vision with which Hildegard concludes her Scivias, called the ‘Symphony of
the Blessed’, she describes how she heard
‘the Virtues sing in a wondrous manner to various types of music’ as they ‘spurred
one another on to secure the salvation of the people ensnared by the devil [. . .] so
that the faithful at last through repentance passed out of their sins and into Heaven.
And the sound was that of the voice of a multitude singing a musical performance
with harmony in praise of the celestial orders’.
We can imagine that she describes the uplifting sound of her own nuns here.
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The play includes 17 virtues, all of whom are imagined as female – although they will be
performed by both men and women tonight. When we add the role of Anima, we have 18
roles for women. Hildegard brought 20 nuns with her to Rupertsberg, so it is conceivable
that she designed the play to give each member of her community a role to sing. There is
one male role – the devil – possibly performed by the nuns’ priest (and we can imagine that
at times the nuns may have had some fun with the dramatic victory over the devil in the
final scenes of the play).
The virtues Hildegard selected for the play were drawn from many she introduces and
discusses in her other works. Each of the 17 virtues in the play have special meaning for
women living a monastic life – such as Humility, Chastity, Modesty, Charity, Discernment or
Discretion. When performing the drama at Rupertsberg then, we can imagine how the play
of the virtues also provided the women of Hildegard’s community with role models for
behaviour, and with instruction on the meaning and significance of particular virtues for the
difficult path of spiritual life.
The musical structure of play reinforces its underlying meanings. The styles of music for the
scenes set up a distinction between sorrowing for sin and rejoicing in victory. The Virtues
sing short elaborate songs in high modes, intended to echo their heavenly origins. Anima
shifts between happy and depressed, the tone and pace of her song reflecting her shifts in
emotion. The only figure who does not sing is the devil, who instead angrily interjects,
startles, and growls his challenge to the virtues and his inducements to Anima. This
juxtaposition of sound is intentional, for anger was thought to separate people from God.
An angry person could not hear the heavenly symphony, and an angry person had no voice.
So in presenting the devil as uttering growling, animal sounds, Hildegard shows him to be
discordant and inharmonious, trapped in his fundamental disobedience to God. Just as the
Virtues present role models for her nuns, so the character of the devil can be seen as a
warning to those who reject the right path.
I’d like to conclude with an observation on how the Ordo reflects Hildegard’s idea that music
can move the heart to change, to arouse the soul to repent. She writes:
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‘And as the power of God is everywhere and encompasses all things, [. . .] so to the
human intellect has great power to resound in living voices, and arouse sluggish
souls to vigilance by the song. [. . .]’
Thus we see here how Hildegard’s conception of song as embodied and physical, made by
the movement of breath through the body in a way that acts upon the soul, was thought to
effect change within the person. Music could soften a hard heart and turn it towards
heaven. She uses music to dramatise and evoke the nature of repentance, as Anima moves
away from pride and grows in humility. So in her distinctive style and with great
psychological insight, Hildegard presents us in the Order of Virtues with a lesson on
Everysoul’s cosmic struggle for good against evil. She encapsulates the teaching contained in
her lengthy visionary treatises and condenses it into dramatic performance that engages
‘hearts and minds’. We see in this the consummate skill of the teacher keen to shape the
lives of her community for the better. And although we may not necessarily relate to the
theological content of this moral drama, it does, nevertheless, prompt us to reflect on the
qualities that we each consider as virtuous for our own lives and how we can bring them
into being.
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