Music/Text of Hildegard of Bingen: ever appropriate for Mass?
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Is it ever appropriate to sing the music and texts of Hildegard of Bingen at Mass?

    (I don't have an opinion, but I'm just exploring the music of Hildegard and find that one of its promoters (at cpdl) is a group called Eya Music. Promoters of St. Francis of Assisi don't make the saint bad, even if they don't sometimes understand him, so can the same be said for Hildegard? What should one know about her life and work to sing this properly? Is it more appropriate for (say) Carmelite nuns in cloister than ordinary parish work?


    On a tangentially related topic....does anyone have a Carmelite Ordo? I'm trying to plan for next year's Walk for Life West Coast, and one of the Masses that day is usually at a Carmelite Convent.
    Thanked by 1Chrism
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,947
    I can't say for the preconciliar Mass, but she was beatified in 1326 and was declared a Doctor of the Church by equivalent canonization in 2012 by Benedict XVI, so she is approved for teaching, as it were.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Liam,

    Good to know.

    Here's a reservation, perhaps entirely unfounded. Once upon a time there was a foot-washing ceremony. Recently, that foot-washing ceremony has been a high-profile opportunity for a litmus test on all sorts of modern preoccupations/questions, although it certainly wasn't created as such.

    Should her music be sung by the ladies of the choir, or by anyone in the choir, or .....?
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,947
    I don't see any credible foundation for segregating texts/music of composers by the sex of the composer and singers.
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  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    No.... you misunderstand my reservation.

    In the choir I now lead, there is a standing practice (I inherited) of having the direct words of Christ "Father, if it be possible....", "Do you know what I've done for you? I have given you an example ..." sung by the gentlemen of the choir only. If the folks at Eya are correct (and I'm correct in my understanding, neither of which is a given) Hildegard brings a uniquely feminine lens to the faith. Is it proper to acknowledge that lens by having only high voices, female high voices, sing the texts or the melodies.

    In a well-formed parish which practices the faith, the part of Christ (in the Passion) can neither be spoken nor sung by a woman. That's not "segregating... by the sex of the composer or singers", it's respecting the integrity of the priestly office and the person of Christ.

    Thanked by 1hilluminar
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,947
    Well, if you don't only have women singing The Magnificat, you have your answer that the principle involved in the priestly words of the Gospel of the Passion does not translate outside that context. Likewise the canticles of the women of the Hebrew Scriptures.
    Thanked by 2ServiamScores tomjaw
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,768
    I don't see the Hildegard-specific problem: surely your gentlemen aren't forbidden to sing the direct speech of the Magnificat?

    For 2012 we sang O successores with mixed voices in fauxbourdon à l'anglaise.
    Thanked by 2ServiamScores tomjaw
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Thank you.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,372
    Did St Hildegard write any music intended for the Mass? Perhaps some sequences, which however are not in the current or recent Missals. Theologically, as she was declared a Doctor by Benedict XVI I think we need have no qualms. (Her cultus was approved by Pope John XXII who canonised Thomas Aquinas.) Stylistically we are in descant territory, where my ears have been unable to discern words for over 50 years now (audiologists at the time dismissed my problem as not worth bothering about yet). I read that all her music is for her own texts, maybe there are some hymns suitable for Communion.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,725
    Even if they are her own texts, so we’re the hymns of Aquinas. It seems to me that a mystic doctor of the church might have a few texts worth singing…
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Hawkins,

    I don't know her texts or her tunes well enough to know if any were intended for Mass. I would guess not.

    "Descant" territory! I got my ears tested nearly 30 years ago, and was told that I was missing small sections of my upper register, but the audiologist was surprised I could tell. Now I wear hearing aids. On the other hand, if the melodies are in "descant" territory, would that mean that they must be sung in that register?

    Serviam,

    Indeed, I agree she might.



  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,916
    It’s not “her” text, but there’s a Gregorian setting of the Kyriale attributed to Hildegard, which is transcribed in the “ Sacred Music” section of the ICKSP website. So that piece, at least, seems sanctioned. (I sang this with everyone’s favorite Aussie board member, Jes, at an Epiphany Vigil Mass many moons ago. It was beautiful.)
    Thanked by 1Chris Garton-Zavesky
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Stimson,

    It can't be all that many moons ago.
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