O dulcis electe

Responsory for St. John the Evangelist [Dec. 27] (D 161v-162r, R 469vb-470ra Back to Table of Contents
by Hildegard of Bingen

R. O dulcis electe, qui in ardore ardentis effulsisti, radix, et qui in splendore Patris elucidasti mistica, et qui intrasti cubiculum castitatis in aurea civitate quam construxit rex, cum accepit sceptrum regionum: R. Prebe adiutorium peregrinis. V. Tu enim auxisti pluviam precessoribus tuis, qui miserunt illam in viriditate pigmentariorum. R. Prebe adiutorium peregrinis.

R. O chosen sweet, inflamed by Flame you gleamed, a root, and in the Father’s radiance you beamed the mysteries, and went into the bed of chastity within the golden City, constructed by the King when he received the scepter of the lands: R. To pilgrims lend your aid. V. For you have swelled the rain together with your predecessors, who cast it with the spicers’ viridity. R. To pilgrims lend your aid.

Latin collated from the transcription of Beverly Lomer and the edition of Barbara Newman; translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell.

Commentary: Themes and Theology
by Nathaniel M. Campbell

This responsory for St. John complements the imagery of its companion antiphon, O speculum columbe especially in its treatment of John’s special vocation—shared by Hildegard and her nuns—as a virgin contemplative. Like that antiphon, its opening is structured around three images, here arranged into three relative clauses (qui…): a gleaming root set aflame by the flaming Son; a mirroring beam of the Father’s mysteries; and the virgin’s destined home with that Son, the shining Lamb at the center of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:23). The pilgrims for whom the repetendum seeks John’s aid are the virgin nuns, making their way along the pilgrimage road of this life to the royal bedchamber in the golden City of God, where they will recline (as John did at the Last Supper) with their Bridegroom, Christ. (The bridal imagery returns in Hildegard’s compositions for virgins, especially the antiphon, O pulcre facies, and the “symphony,” O dulcissime amator.)

The burning heat and flame (ardore) of that virginal eroticism espoused to Christ, the Flame burning with love (ardentis), also connects to the sunlight of O speculum columbe—the paradox of seething passion sublimated into sweet repose, a classic move of twelfth-century monastic devotional literature. The imagery of light, gleaming and beaming (effulsisti…elucidasti), also connects this piece to Hildegard’s compositions for the prophets (O spectabiles viri and O vos felices radices). John’s sweet election is to be ingrafted into the root of light, knowledge, and being itself, to become a conduit (we might think of a fiber-optic cable) for Christ, the true Light declared in the prologue of his Gospel (John 1:9). This office of shining beacon and mirror of God is shared by all God’s chosen prophets and servants—in Hildegard’s typology, a line stretching from Adam to herself:

For with divine strength, prophecy began in God’s first work—Adam—throughout the time when the old law appeared with its harshness and then came to an end with the advent of the ardor of justice and truth. Prophecy has thus shown from generation to generation through the various ages of humankind, like a light in the darkness (John 1:5), and it will not rest from its sound until the world’s ending, offering words of multivalent signification because it is imbued with diverse mysteries by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration. For prophecy exists in humankind like the soul in the body, because as the soul is hidden within the body and the body is governed by it, so prophecy that comes from the spirit of God, who excels all creation, is invisible, and by it every failure is reproached and all who leave the path of righteousness are led back.
(…)
The prophets indeed had said that the woman who was to give birth ought to come forth from the act of charity, like the branch from the root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1)—and they all ascribed this virginal birth to the King, the Son of God. For when this woman enclosed the Son of God and humans saw and heard him in the likeness of their own image, they loved him more than if they had not seen him—for what humans see in shadow they cannot know in fullness. So too when the prophets spoke in the sound of shadow, they often passed through as if in shadow those things that nevertheless were all afterwards rendered in solid form among humans, because prophecy’s sound proceeds from the hidden mysteries of divinity.
     —Liber Divinorum Operum III.2.2-3^[1]

This combination of truth-revealing light and sound shines with echoes in Hildegard’s compositions for the apostles, O cohors milicie and O lucidissima apostolorum turba, precisely because proclaiming the Light is the Church’s mission. It is thus also a characteristic feature of Hildegard’s own synaesthetic visionary and prophetic experience—and so she invokes John’s visionary and contemplative gift when she describes “the extraordinary mystical vision” that provoked the writing of the Liber Divinorum Operum:

It was as if the inspiration of God were sprinkling drops of sweet rain into my soul’s knowing, the very same with which the Spirit instructed John the Evangelist when he drank in from the breast of Jesus the most profound of revelations. His sense at that time were so touched by the sacred Divinity that he revealed hidden mysteries and works, saying, “In the beginning was the Word…” (John 1:1), etc.
     —Vita S. Hildegardis (“Life of St. Hildegard”), II.16^[2]

These are the very same drops of rain celebrated in this responsory’s verse, as the beaming root bursts into bloom “with the spicers’ viridity” (in virditate pigmentariorum). The garden imagery (again recalled from O speculum columbe) is, in the literal sense, of the specialist’s herbarium or perhaps even apothecary, where one cultivates those particular plants renowned for their perfumes, spices, or special pigments (the range of meanings associated with pigmentum). But as with all of her natural images, Hildegard always has ready a spiritual extension—in this case, the spice-maker (pigmentarius) is her special term for bishops and priests, who produce the healing chrism and fragrant balm with which to anoint sinners for salvation:

The apostolic teaching shone around the head of the Church when the apostles first began to build her up by their preaching; moving through different places, they collected workers who would strengthen her in the Catholic faith and make themselves into priests and bishops and all the ecclesiastical orders (…). Therefore, the chrism-makers [pigmentarii] conform to that teaching (…). What does this mean? That [the apostles’] followers, who took their places, faithfully traverse streets and farms and cities and other places, regions and lands, carrying the health-giving chrisms [saluberrima pigmenta] and announcing the divine law to the people. (…) For they have this office that they may openly serve the bread of life to the people.
     —Scivias II.5.1^[3]

This description of the Church’s ministers as pigmentarii comes at the opening of the very same vision in Scivias that later centers on the order of virgins to which Hildegard and her nuns belonged, gleaming and beaming at the heart of Mother Church, singing the new song of the heavenly Jerusalem that John the Divine described in Revelation 14 (as discussed in the Commentary on O speculum columbe). St. John’s sweet rain nourished the Promised Land of the Church to spring forth the choicest blooms, redolent with salvific fragrance, shining like gemstones in the golden City’s walls (cf. Revelation 21) to declare the True Light (cf. John 1:8-9), and resounding with the Word’s purest voice.

Transcription and Music Notes
by Beverly Lomer

E mode
Range: A below the final to C above
Setting: Combination melismas, neumatic, and syllabic settings

This work is primarily organized by the final, E. The transcription phrasing follows the musical structure. The Verse departs somewhat from the grammatical punctuation by the final and employs the C below and the G above as tonal markers.

In those cases where phrases are too long to be fit on a single line, they are continued, and a tick barline has been placed at the conclusion. In some cases, singers might opt to phrase differently while keeping essentially within the outline by E. For example, the salutation, O dulcis electe, is quite long, and one might elect to separate out each of the words or to group as: O / dulcis electe.

Lines 7 and 8 on page 1 of the transcription contain four segments, each outlined by the final (et qui in splendore / patris elucidasti / mistica / et qui intrasti), which might be combined or separated differently. In particular, one could follow the textual syntax and begin One could also, a line with the final segment, et qui intrasti. Hildegard sometimes goes to the note below the final to initiate a phrase with a conjunction, such as et. However, in this case, the melody does not immediately move to the final, as it generally does when she employs this strategy. Intrasti also ends similarly to the line above (elucidasti), while the melody on cubiculum begins similarly to the other opening statements on et qui in splendore and mistica. The phrasing in the transcription thus preserves these musical structures, even when in conflict with the textual structures. (See the introductory article on the Music page on Hildegard’s use of rhetorical strategy, including repetition of beginning and ending phrases, for more information.)

The repetendum is indicated at the end of the piece by the repetition of Prebe, as per the manuscript sources.

Further Resources for O eterne Deus

• Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia, ed. Barbara Newman (Cornell Univ. Press, 1988 / 1998), pp. 168 and 287-8.
• For a discography of this piece, see the comprehensive list by Pierre-F. Roberge: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - A discography

Footnotes

^[1] Liber diuinorum operum III.2-3: Latin text ed. A. Derolez and P. Dronke, CCCM 92 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), pp. 355-6; trans. Nathaniel M. Campbell, in St. Hildegard of Bingen, The Book of Divine Works (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, forthcoming). On this “treatise on prophecy” in the context of Hildegard’s own vocation, see Bernard McGinn, “‘Trumpets of the Mysteries of God’: Prophetesses in Late Medieval Christianity,” pp. 125-42, esp. 127-9, in Propheten und Prophezeiungen—Prophets and Prophecies, ed. Matthias Ridel and Tilo Schabert (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2005). ↩
^[2] Trans. by Anna Silvas in Jutta & Hildegard: The Biographical Sources (Brepols, 1998; Pennsylvania State Pres, 1999), p. 179; Latin text ed. Monika Klaes, Vita Sanctae Hildegardis—Leben der heiligen Hildegard (Fontes Christiani, Bd. 29; Herder, 1998), p. 172: “Et de Dei inspiratione in scientiam anime mee quasi gutte suavis pluvie spargebantur, quia et Spiritus sanctus Iohannem evagnelistam imbuit, cum de pectore Iesu profundissimam revelationem suxit, ubi sensus ipsius sancta divinitate ita tactus est, quod absconsa mysteria et opera aperuit, ‘In principio,’ inquiens, ‘erat verbum’ etc.” ↩
^[3] Scivias II.5.1: trans. Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (Paulist Press, 1994), pp. 202-3; Latin text in the edition of Führkötter and Carlevaris, CCCM 43 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978), pp. 177-8. ↩

O speculum columbe

Psalm antiphon for St. John the Evangelist [Dec. 27] (D 161v, R 469vb) Back to Table of Contents
by Hildegard of Bingen

O speculum columbe castissime forme, qui inspexisti misticam largitatem in purissimo fonte: O mira floriditas que numquam arescens cecidisti, quia altissimus plantator misit te: O suavissima quies amplexuum solis: tu es specialis filius Agni in electa amicicia nove sobolis.

O mirror of the dove— the chastest form— you gazed upon the mystic bounty within the clearest font: O wondrous, flourished bloom that never withered, never fell— the Most High Gardener has sent you forth: O sweet repose of sunshine’s warm embrace: the Lamb’s especial son you are within that privileged friendship of a new posterity.

Latin collated from the transcription of Beverly Lomer and the edition of Barbara Newman; translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell.

Commentary: Themes and Theology
by Nathaniel M. Campbell

St. John, the “beloved disciple” of Jesus in his eponymous Gospel (John 21:20-24), held a unique place not only among the Twelve but also in Hildegard’s understanding of their shared virginal and visionary charism. It was commonly accepted in the Middle Ages both that he was the same man as John of Patmos, the author of the Apocalypse; and that John’s particular gift was lifelong virginity, which marked him out for the special place “reclining nearest to Jesus” at the Last Supper (John 13:23) and as the Virgin Mary’s adoptive son beneath the beam of the Cross (John 19:26-7). In contrast to the bloody martyrdoms of the other eleven apostles, John’s martyrdom was the spiritual death of the desires of the flesh, marking him as the first representative of the monastic discipline of vowed virginity that came to receive the transferred crown of martyrdom in late antique and medieval Christianity.

The focus of this antiphon is Hildegard’s praise for her comrade in virginity, expressed in three particular symbolic images that articulate the special contemplative gift afforded “the new posterity” of the Order of Virgins within the Church. The first of these—the speculum columbe—expresses the idea that, in imitating the purity of the simple white Dove, the virgin contemplative receives from the Holy Spirit the gift of gazing upon divine mysteries at their font and source, unimpeded by the cloudiness and shadows that plague the person still wedded to the desires of the flesh. The absolute purity of the divine foreknowledge as the source of all being is only perfectly available through the chastest flesh of that divinity’s Incarnation, whose imitation the virgin contemplative seeks—Hildegard expresses similar ideas in her antiphon for the Virgin Mary, O splendidissima gemma. The music in this first part of the antiphon for St. John works to emphasize that the more chaste one is, the more pure the contemplation will be, by repeating the same motif on castissime and purissimo—a motif that itself reaches to the high C, the highest note in the piece.

For St. John, who lived with Jesus in the flesh, this gift of clearest contemplation came when he lay nearest to the Lord at the Last Supper. As he rested his head upon Christ’s breast, John drank from his heart—the fons sapientiae, the source of wisdom (Sirach/Ecclesiasticus 1:5)—in fulfillment of Christ’s words, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’,” (John 7:37-38).

This “living water” flows also to water the second symbolic image for John’s virginity, the flower. This was a common image in Hildegard’s pieces devoted to the Virgin Mary and her Son (see e.g. Hodie aperuit nobis or Ave generosa), but she gives it a unique treatment here by invoking, not just a flower, but very concept or idea of flowering (floriditas)—a state of perpetual, virginal flourishing that takes its root from its eternal planting by the arresting image of God the Gardener. This planting, however, is also the mission of a new and holy race.

Thus, the final image of John’s virginity triangulates the contemplative’s mirrored vision and the flower’s fertile blooming with the sunlight that embraces both. The warmth of this embrace echoes one of Hildegard’s frequent images to describe her own visionary experience of the Living Light (lux vivens) and its shadow, e.g. at the opening of Scivias: “Heaven was opened and a fiery light of exceeding brilliance came and permeated my whole brain, and inflamed my whole heart and my whole breast, not like a burning but like a warming flame, as the sun warms anything its rays touch.”^[1] This intimate embrace is that of the special friendship afforded to virgins as children of the Lamb, whose unblemished flesh they imitate so dearly.

In Hildegard’s schema of the three orders of the Church (Scivias II.5), her own order of Virgins holds the highest and most honored place, above both laity and clergy. In both that vision itself and the illustration of it in the Rupertsberg manuscript, the figure standing at the very heart of the towering image of Ecclesia is Virginitas (Virginity), her arms outstretched in the orans position, echoing the oblation of prayer offered by Mother Church herself:

This is Virginity, innocent of all foulness of human lust. Her mind is unbound by any shackle of corruption (…). She is also, as is shown you in this hidden and supernal light, the noble daughter of the celestial Jerusalem, the glory and honor of those who have shed their blood for love of virginity or in radiant humility preserved their virginity for the sake of Christ and died sweetly in peace. For she was betrothed to the Son of Almighty God, the King of all, and bore Him a noble brood [nobilissimam prolem], the elect choir of virgins, when she was strengthened in the peace of the Church.
     —Scivias II.5.6

The highest and particular office of this elect and noble virgin progeny was, for Hildegard, their service of song, as she envisioned the musical offering of prayer each day in the Benedictine opus Dei (“work of God”) as practically sacramental in its mediation of divine power (virtus) through human voices that echo in the golden halls of the Church.^[2] Moreover, it was St. John, in his role as revelator, who testified to this:

Hence, as you hear, all those who their desire keep their integrity for the sake of celestial love are called “daughters of Zion” in the celestial habitations; for in their love of virginity they imitated my Son, Who is the flower of virginity. Therefore the sounding echoes of the blessed spirits and the outpouring of voices and the winged decorations of happy minds and the golden vision of shining stones and jewels are all with them. How? Because the Son of God grants them this, that a sound goes forth from the Throne in which the whole choir of virgins joins in singing with great desire and harmonizing in the new song, as John, the beloved virgin, testifies, saying:

“And they sang, as it were, a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures and the ancients,” (Revelation 14:3). What does this mean? In those faithful ones who embrace chastity for a good purpose and preserve their virginity unstained for love of God, good will bursts forth wonderfully in praise of their Creator. How? In the dawn-light of virginity, which always surrounds the Son of God, steadfast praise is hidden; no worldly office and no tie of the law can resist it, and it sings in the voice of exultation (Ps. 41:5) a celestial song to the glory of God. How?

That song, which was not heard before the Only-Begotten of God, the true flower of virginity [verus flos virginitatis], returned in the body from earth to Heaven and sat again on the right hand of the Father, has a swift course and makes itself heard wonderfully in new liberty. (…) This new and unheard-of mystery resounded in Heaven in honor of virginity, before the majesty of God (for God could do this) and before the four wheels that rolled into the four corners of the earth bearing the truth of justice and the humanity of the Savior like the living creatures in the new Law, and before those ancients who were imbued with the Holy Spirit and showed the path of righteousness to the people under the old Law.
     —Scivias II.5.7-8

Commentary: Music and Rhetoric
by Beverly Lomer

Mode: E
Range: G below the final to C a sixth above the final
Setting: neumatic, with some longer segments and selected melismas

This antiphon displays a somewhat unusual modal configuration. While it is in E mode, E is never used as a grammatical marker, as is common in Hildegard’s work. Rather, it begins with the pitch E and moves immediately to C as the primary outlining tone. G is used as a secondary outlining pitch, and the melody does not return to E until the final note.

The salutation, O speculum columbe, is rather long, and for ease of reading, is divided into two lines, with a tick barline at the end of line 2 of the transcription. Lines 5 and 6 are similarly structured. Phrases are otherwise self-contained on a single line, with two additional exceptions: lines 8 and 9 on page 1, and lines 10 (page 1) and 1 (page 2). O mira floriditas can be grouped with que numquam aresens cecidisti, and quia altissimus can be sung as one phrase with plantator misit te. The lines have been separated in the transcription, however, based on similarities in melodic units. O mira floriditas and quia altissumus contain almost identical melodies, and the melodic lines on que numquam... and plantatator... are also somewhat parallel structures. Singers should feel free to choose how much, if any, separation they wish to employ.

In this piece, Hildegard uses C a third below the final as the primary phrase marker. C an octave above appears on select key words, a strategy familiar in Hildegard’s works. The use of the high C and its characteristic motive serves to link certain ideas. It first appears on castissime (“most chaste”) and a few lines later on purissimo (“most pure”), linking the two key themes of human chastity and divine purity in Hildegard’s theology. Thus it is also sounded on filius (“son”) and agni (“Lamb”), directly connecting John’s pure chastity with that of Jesus. Finally, the C motive echoes multiple times to reinforce this link on electa amicicia (John’s “chosen friendship” with Jesus) and nove sobolis (the “new race” of virginity forged in that friendship).

Further Resources for O speculum columbe

• Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia, ed. Barbara Newman (Cornell Univ. Press, 1988 / 1998), pp. 166 and 287.
• For a discography of this piece, see the comprehensive list by Pierre-F. Roberge: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - A discography

Footnotes

^[1] All quotations from Scivias are from the translation of Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (Paulist Press, 1994); Latin text in the edition of Führkötter and Carlevaris, CCCM 43 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978). ↩
^[2] See Nathaniel M. Campbell, “Imago expandit splendorem suum: Hildegard of Bingen’s Visio-Theological Designs in the Rupertsberg Scivias Manuscript,” Eikón / Imago 4 (2013, Vol. 2, No. 2), pp. 1-68, esp. pp. 57-61; available online here. ↩

O lucidissima apostolorum turba

Responsory for the Apostles (D 161r-v, R 469va, Scivias III.13.4b) Back to Table of Contents
by Hildegard of Bingen

R. O lucidissima apostolorum turba, surgens in vera agnitione et aperiens clausuram magisterii diaboli, abluendo captivos in fonte viventis aque, tu es clarissima lux in nigerrimis tenebris, fortissimumque genus columnarum, sponsam Agni sustentans in omnibus ornamentis R. ipsius,[1] per cuius gaudium ipsa mater et virgo est vexillata. V. Agnus enim inmaculatus est sponsus ipsius sponse inmaculate R. ipsius, per cuius gaudium ipsa mater et virgo est vexillata.

R. O luminous apostles’ band— to recognize the truth you rise and open wide the schoolhouse prison of the devil’s mastery, to wash its captives clean within the font of living water— you are a brilliant light within the darkest shadows, the strongest kind of pillars the Lamb’s Bride to uphold in all the ornament R. of him through whose rejoicing that Mother Virgin bears her banner. V. For the spotless Lamb’s the Bridegroom of that spotless Bride R. of him through whose rejoicing that Mother Virgin bears her banner.

Latin collated from the transcription of Beverly Lomer and the edition of Barbara Newman; translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell.
^[1] Normally, the manuscripts of Hildegard’s music indicate the final portion of the respond that is to be repeated as the repetendum or refrain by copying out the first few notes/words after the verse (the medieval version of a coda). However, both manuscripts lack any indication of the repetendum for this responsory. In her edition, Newman assumed the final phrase, per cuius...vexillata, would have served that role (Symphonia, pp. 164 and 286). However, such an assumption would violate the musical grammar, as per cuius begins on the high octave g rather than the final of the mode, G, and thus could not begin a new choral phrase after the final solo notes of the verse (immaculate, ending on the final G); see further in Beverly Lomer’s Notes on the music below. If we are to conjecture a repetendum for this piece, the only musically appropriate place to begin it is on the prior word, ipsius, which begins on the final G. Because our edition privileges the musical grammar, we have allowed this transgression of textual propriety to stand.

Commentary: Themes and Theology
by Nathaniel M. Campbell

This responsory gleams with images of the light of truth shattering the darkness of ignorance, thus developing one of the themes of its companion antiphon, O cohors milicie, for the idols overturned by the apostolic guard’s mighty shout in the latter might be thought of as the guardians of the Devil’s darkened classroom in this piece. The epistemological blindness sown by that diabolical instruction is countered by the true teaching mission of the apostles, as described in the explication of the lost “core connections” of a people without a city in the parable in Scivias III.7.7 (for which see the commentary on O cohors milicie):

And so, going forth, they made their way among the faithless peoples who did not have core connections [umbilicos], which is to say the sign of the knowledge of holy innocence and justice, and whose city, which is to say the instrument of God’s law, had been destroyed by faithlessness. And to these they announced the words of salvation and of the true faith in Christ. And thus they brought back many of this throng to the knowledge of God and led them to the core [umbilicum], which is to say the font of baptism, where they received the holiness that they lost by their proud transgressions. And they built the holy city of the commandments of God, thus rebuilding the city which the seducer the Devil had taken from them in Adam, and restored it to them in the faith that leads to salvation.^[1]

Scivias II.4:
Tower of the Church
Rupertsberg MS,
fol. 60r.

In this responsory, Hildegard roots this apostolic mission of rebuilding the city in images drawn from her frequent visions of Ecclesia, the Mother Church. In particular, the light of apostolic teaching gleams from the Holy Spirit’s anointing fire at Pentecost, which in Scivias II.4.1 supports the Church as a tower, immense and round, of gleaming white stone. Though the preceding vision (II.3) had introduced the figure of Mother Church as she cries out to conceive and give birth to her children in the cleansing waters of baptism, it is in this one that she is strengthened and her children confirmed by the anointing of the sacrament of Confirmation:

After the illumination of baptism, which rose with the Sun of Justice Who sanctified the world by His own washing, the new Bride of the Lamb was adorned and confirmed in the fire of the ardor of the Holy Spirit for the perfection of her beauty. So also each of the faithful who is regenerated by the Spirit and water should be decorated and confirmed by the anointing of a bishop [superioris doctoris], so that he will be strengthened in all his members toward achieving beatitude and find himself most perfectly adorned with the full fruits of highest justice.
     —Scivias II.4.1

Much of Hildegard’s emphasis in this vision of the confirmed citadel of the Church falls on the vital role of the bishops—the absolute successors of the apostles—as teachers. In the passage just quoted and at several other points in the vision, she uses the term “superior teacher” (superior doctor) for the office of bishop, and ties it directly to the the apostolic teaching that reveals the Trinity (three windows shining at the top of the tower). She again invokes the military metaphor that would reappear in O cohors milicie to describe that apostolic mission against the “ravening wolves” of the pagans, “so that by fighting they constructed the Church and strengthened her with strong virtues to build up the faith and adorned her with many brilliances [multimodis coruscationibus ornauerunt]” (Scivias III.4.3).

In both that vision and this responsory, Hildegard sees the powerful girding and strong columns of the Church as irradiated by the divine light of truth, perhaps like the stone tracery in which windowpanes are set. The beauty of the Church’s adornment is intertwined with the lightsome power of her teachers: “Just as gold is adorned by having precious stones set into it, so baptism is adorned with the chrism given to those baptized in the faith by the hand of the bishop [superioris doctoris]” (Scivias III.4.6). The gleam of bejeweled and golden adornment is also the gleam of the Holy Spirit’s fire, which “enkindled [the apostles’] hearts as the sun” and “passed through them and showed the bright sunlight of their teaching” (Scivias III.4.8). As the fire of Pentecost brought fully into the light the apostolic mission that had previously been hidden in timidity, so confirmation at the hands of a bishop—a teacher—sets alight the grace first kindled in baptism:

Therefore, a person who has received the mystery of regeneration unto life has not taken possession of the fullness of churchly ornaments unless he is anointed in this way, as the Church is adorned by the glorious Holy Spirit. And as the Church is perfected by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, a believer ought to be confirmed by the anointing of the bishop [principalis doctoris], who is the reverend master [formidabilis magister] in the honor of the Holy Spirit; for the Holy Spirit by its fire brings forth and kindles sure doctrine in the Christian people.
     —Scivias III.4.9

As the Scivias symphony continues its movement through the ranks of the celestial hierarchy, the initial ministry of the apostles as historical teachers and preachers of God’s true reality becomes the bedrock upon which Christ’s Bride, the Church, stands tall, entrusted with his banner of victory. Successive choirs will water that tower’s verdant grown with their blood and blossom as roses upon its walls (the martyrs) and continue that apostolic ministry within the sacerdotal offices (the confessors), while the dawn light will gleam green and beauteous with Hildegard’s own choir of virgins. This responsory forms the transition point by allowing the individual lights of the apostles to coalesce into Mother Church’s singular, joyous beacon.

In that regard, this responsory should also be read in conjunction with Hildegard’s antiphons dedicated solely to the Church in Symphonia 66-69. The first two form a pair that first lament “the savage wolf” snatching away her children (O virgo Eccleisa) before rejoicing at her victory over the “vile snake” (Nunc gaudeant). The turning point in that battle comes at the end of O virgo Ecclesia as “the Savior’s precious blood...seals his bridegroom’s promise to the Church with the banner of the king.” Meanwhile, the third piece, O orzchis Ecclesia, uses words drawn from Hildegard’s Lingua Ignota (“Unknown Language”) to describe the Church in an arresting amalgam of images: immense, enfortressed, bejeweled and gleaming, redolent of the balm that heals the wounds of her people, a city of sciences and knowledge anointed with soaring song.^[2] The final antiphon, O choruscans lux stellarum, again conjoins bridal imagery with glittering light to invite the Church to “flee the cavern of the ancient destroyer” and “come into the palace of the King.”

Transcription and Music Notes
by Beverly Lomer

G mode
Range: C below the final to B an octave and a third above the final
Setting: Melismatic and neumatic

O lucidissima is a responsory of praise for the apostles as the pillars of the Church, who support her as the Bride of the Lamb. It opens with a two part melismatic salutation: O lucidissma, which begins on the final and finishes on F; followed by apostolorum turba, which begins and ends with the pitch F.

While Hildegard’s usual practice is to outline key phrases and words with the final or fifth of the mode, in this piece she shifts from G to F, with occasional excursions into other pitch areas. The word surgens is a fulcrum that connects the salutation to the beginning of the narrative, with the melody dipping down a third to D, while the subsequent phrase, in vera agnitione, ends on F. The next segment, et aperiens, also commences with D and is completed on F. Note the placement of tick barlines on lines 3, 5 and 8 of the first page of the transcription. These are intended to clarify the phrases, as the melodies are too long to place on one line as per our usual methodology.

If one keeps in mind the stylistic shifts between G and F as outlining pitches, the phrasing after the salutation and opening of the narrative should be fairly straightforward, with one exception. On page 3 of the transcription, the text sense would appear to break between ipsius (line 3) and per cuius (line 4), as ipsius properly belongs with the previous phrase, in omnibus ornamentis. However, per cuius gaudium might alternatively function as an elliptical connector, which Hildegard frequently employs. The musical grammar of the melodic line interrupts the textual grammar: to end one phrase with the high G on ipsius and begin a new one with the liquescent on per makes less musical sense than the grouping we have chosen. We have included a tick barline on the main staff after est (line 5) to indicate that that a break should not be made after gaudium ipsa, i.e. lines 4-5 are a single phrase.

In this segment there is also a significant difference between the sources, as shown in the ossia staves. Given that per cuius gaudium ipsa ends on D, the Riesenkodex version (in the ossia staff) might make more sense for mater et virgo est, which ends on F, in line with the general use of G and F as alternating outline tones in this piece. On the other hand, the Dendermonde rendition of the next segment, the melismatic vexillata, adheres more closely to the use of G and F as tonal markers; the Riesenkodex ending of the respond on pitch B seems odd. We would recommend following R for mater et virgo est and D for vexillata.

It is our policy to add no editorial ficta. In this piece, there are a number of iterations of the tritone (interval of F to B, B to F). While the B flat is notated in some of these iterations, it is not in all, as medieval singers would have known to add them. We recommend judiciously applying additional B flats.

Further Resources for O lucidissima apostolorum turba

• Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia, ed. Barbara Newman (Cornell Univ. Press, 1988 / 1998), pp. 164 and 286-7.
• For a discography of this piece, see the comprehensive list by Pierre-F. Roberge: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - A discography

Footnotes to the Commentaries

^[1] All quotes from Scivias adapted from the trans. of Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (New York: Paulist Press, 1990); Latin text ed. Führkötter and Carlevaris, CCCM 43 and 43a (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978). ↩
^[2] See further discussion in Nathaniel M. Campbell, “Imago expandit splendorem suum: Hildegard of Bingen’s Visio-Theological Designs in the Rupertsberg Scivias Manuscript,” Eikón / Imago 4 (2013, Vol. 2, No. 2), esp. pp. 60-1; accessible online here. ↩

O cohors milicie

Psalm antiphon for the Apostles (D 160v-161r, R 469rb-va, Scivias III.13.4a) Back to Table of Contents
by Hildegard of Bingen

O cohors milicie floris virge non spinate, tu sonus orbis terre circuiens regiones insanorum sensuum epulantium cum porcis, quos[1] expugnasti per infusum adiutorem ponentis[2] radices in tabernacula pleni operis Verbi Patris. Tu etiam nobilis es gens Salvatoris, intrans viam regenerationis aque per Agnum, qui te misit in gladio inter sevissimos canes, qui suam gloriam destruxerunt in operibus digitorum suorum, statuentes non manufactum in subiectionem manuum suarum, in qua non invenerunt eum.

O cohort of the guard of the thornless branch’s flower: You are the sound of all the world, surrounding all the places where the senseless sensuous are feasting with the swine that you subdue by the Comforter, the Aide poured out of the Father’s Word that plants the roots that grow into the tabernacles of his fulfilled work. You are the Savior’s noble race, entering upon the way of birth anew of water through the Lamb, who’s sent you with the sword among the wildest dogs— their glory they themselves destroy within the works of their own fingers, as the One Not Made by hand they rate as subject to the works of their own hands, in which they cannot find him.

Latin collated from the transcription of Beverly Lomer and the edition of Barbara Newman; translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell.
^[1] quos: This is the reading of R (in both Scivias [fol. 133ra] and Symphonia [fol. 469r]); D reads quas (as can be seen in the transcription below). Newman prefers quas, with reference to regiones; however, we have gone with quos, with reference to porcis; for the symbolic reference of the swine, see “Commentary: Themes and Theology” below. ↩
^[2] ponentis: Newman (Symphonia, p. 162) emends to ponens, parallel to circuiens, with tu as the subject; Barth and Ritscher, in their edition of Hildegard’s Lieder (Salzburg: Otto Müller Verlag, 1969; p. 67), emend to ponentem, modifying adiutorem. Both emendations make better sense of the text, but the reading of the manuscripts (and the editors of Scivias in CCCM 43) as ponentis is unanimous, if difficult, as the only genitive nouns that ponentis could modify come at the end of the phrase (Verbi Patris). Such separation, however, encases the objects and action of the participle between it and its subject, making the entire phrase, then, a modifier of adiutorem: “the Aide of the Father’s Word that plants…” In addition, the setting of the third syllable to neumes (see transcription below) makes its retention necessary. ↩

Commentary: Themes and Theology
by Nathaniel M. Campbell

In this first of two pieces devoted to the choir of apostles in the celestial symphony of Scivias III.13, Hildegard begins the next phase of salvation history—the evangelistic campaigns of the apostolic Church to overcome the sinful indulgences of flesh and idolatry, to restore the world to the new, real life of the Savior. The imagery is dense with Hildegard’s symbolic vocabulary, drawing on both a range of scriptural allusions (catalogued in Newman, ed., Symphonia, pp. 285-6) and, as with the other pieces of this song cycle, images already deployed throughout Scivias to tell the story of salvation. The apostolic band’s world-wide sound, for example, hearkens to Psalm 18:1-5, as the sound of the heavens that “tell of the glory of the Lord…goes out into all the earth.” The opening allusion, meanwhile, to Christ as the flower of the Virgin’s thornless branch points immediately back to O tu suavissima virga, the responsory that is the second piece in the Scivias symphony (III.13.1b).

The overarching image for the apostolic mission in this antiphon, however, is military—but their cohort is a spiritual army, not a worldly one; as soldiers in Christ’s militia (see 1 Timothy 1:18 and 2 Timothy 2:3), led by their Captain (see the refrain and versicle of O vos felices radices), they fight in the armor of God and with the sword of the Holy Spirit (see Ephesians 6:11-17), who is their adjutant general, poured out upon them at Pentecost (infusum adiutorem).^[1] Fundamentally, the enemy against which this guard of Christ wages war is the ignorance of sin, by which fallen humanity mistakes the selfish appearances of pride for true reality. In the first half of the antiphon, their Gospel-laden shout around the world offers the real rootedness “of the full work” of God, in contrast to the mindless (literally, insane) self-indulgence of the epicure—as Barbara Newman notes, a possible allusion to the Prodigal Son, who in his darkest hour would gladly have eaten the pigs’ fodder (Luke 15:15-16; Symphonia, p. 286). In the second half of the antiphon, the enemy is more insidious—the false reality worshiped by the idolater.

The military image is governed, moreover, by this contrast of what the world falsely takes to be reality—the works of its own hands—with the truth preached by the apostles—a God unmade, uncontainable, undiscoverable by the works of human hands; as Newman notes, this is the “unknown god” of St. Paul’s sermon at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17; Symphonia, p. 286). This is not an army that trusts itself to the material sword—for it is upon the physical blade that they will fall, martyrs dying in the example of Christ. There is an intentional ambiguity in the phrase, qui te misit in gladio, “he sent you with the sword,” as the army of Christ wins its battle for eternal life with a spiritual sword precisely when it undergoes death to the world. One might alternatively translate in gladio as “to the sword,” i.e. to martyrdom at the hands of the idolaters of the last part of the antiphon. However, the preposition in is often used in the Vulgate’s idiom to show ablative of means; moreover, Newman notes this as a possible reference to Christ’s command to the disciples to buy swords (Luke 22:36; Symphonia, pp. 163 and 286), which comports with other references in Scivias (discussed below) to the apostles exacting divine judgment upon the unbelievers. Ultimately, Hildegard intends both meanings simultaneously—the contrast of the material sword (like the manufactured idols) upon which apostles would die with the spiritual sword that they wield in delivering the ultimate judgment of eternal life or death.^[2]

The scriptural sources for Hildegard’s language in the polemic against idolatry are often, like the context of this antiphon, directed against the gentiles, e.g. Wisdom 13-15 (especially 13:10, 14:8, and 15:11-17) and Psalm 134(135):15-18. The author of Wisdom is especially concerned about idolatry as a root sin, for its fundamental failure to recognize the true reality of God leads to all of the other failures of sin. Worshipping something man-made, inanimate, without life, dead, can only bring with it death, not the new life of “the Savior’s noble race” and its apostolic vanguard. As Hildegard puts it in Scivias I.4.11: “Let all who are still foul with this infidelity forsake their stupidity and be converted in faith to Him Who broke the Devil’s snares, laying aside old ignorance and embracing new life.”^[3] The connection between recognizing the truth and the life that comes with it is made explicit in the companion responsory to this antiphon, O lucidissima apostolorum turba.

The condemnation of idols also draws upon other internal references in Scivias, specifically in articulating the execution of judgment by God’s Jealousy or Zeal (zelus) in III.5. Thus, Hildegard describes the Israelites’ own disastrous turn to an idol, the golden calf in Exodus 32, and its consequences for their glory:

Another [evil deed] arose among that people of Mine; though they knew Me and saw My miraculous deeds, they adored the idol in Horeb, and therefore the crown fell from their head. And the law of God on the two stone tablets was corrupted by them, and therefore they fell from their glory and happiness, and my vengeance fell on them.
     —Scivias III.5.18

Just two chapters later (in ch. 20), that zealous vengeance falls upon those who harm the Church:

Therefore, in My Jealousy, I remove and cast out the iniquity of anyone who, like a dog, despises the Church, which flowers in Me, and of anyone who in insane wickedness destroys a place consecrated to Me or any rights which properly belong to My temple.

We begin to see here how images scattered throughout Scivias—in this case, the idolaters’ loss of glory, the flowering of the Church in Christ, and the dogs—have coalesced in the antiphon for the apostles.

The most important resonances that this antiphon recapitulates come in two parables that Hildegard used in Part III of Scivias to tell the story of the Incarnation and the apostolic Church. We have already looked at the beginning of one of these parables (III.9.17) in relation to the responsory for the patriarchs and prophets, O vos felices radices, which directly precedes this antiphon in the Scivias symphony. This parable is used to illustrate Hildegard’s exegesis of Song of Songs 4:4 in relation to the Tower of the Church, the dominant image of the ninth vision:

The strong tower is the strength of Christ Jesus the Son of God, and in it the conquering hosts of the faithful are tested without defeat. No adversary can boast of prevailing over them, for they hold fast to Christ, true God and Man, through Whom in the Second Coming all your children will gloriously attain adulthood in salvation. To this end the pure Incarnation was foretold by the prophets and adorned by precious gems of virtue. And it was manifested through the world for the salvation of believers through those bulwarks of apostolic doctrine who planted the justice of the True Light, as the following parable shows:

A certain lord had a marble city (…). And he spoke a single word to the waters of the sea, commanding them to rise above the mountaintops. And, this being done, he told the flames of the fire to burn on the altars of small tabernacles; and when they did, the tabernacles grew so high that they rapidly overtopped the city. Which is to say:
(…)
But after the Word of God became incarnate, the Heavenly Father gave a sign to his apostles, who, though human, were set apart from the common people, like pure streams diverted from the other waters that flow in a plain. He told them to flow forth into the world in a flood of true faith, overturning and wearing away [deprimentes et conterentes] the great divisions of pride and idol-worship [exaltatione culturae idolorum], that all by their preaching might know the true God and forsake their infidelity. And when this faith was strengthened in the people, the Provider [procurator] for all gently spoke to His elect, whose minds glowed with the flame kindled by the glowing hearts of those touched by the fiery tongues of the Holy Spirit. And he told them to despise the world and contemplate celestial life, and not to refuse to be humble and poor in spirit, but to dwell in humility so as to prepare themselves for treasure in Heaven. And those martyrs and virgins and other self-rejecters who did despise transitory things and worked in humility, meditating in lofty zeal on God’s wise precepts, ascended in that self-denial to the love of heavenly things. (…)

And so a thousand bucklers [Song of Songs 4:4], perfect defenses of faith perfected in new grace, hang from the Son of God. And the first shepherds of the Church follow His example and despise themselves for the hope of Heaven; they pour out their blood to protect the Catholic faith from the fiery darts of the Devil, which wound human souls. And the many virtues of the armor of the heavenly militia [caelestis militiae], which follow in the other elect, help them to love God in this world.
     —Scivias III.9.16-17

The Pillar of
the Trinity,
Scivias III.7
Rupertsberg MS,
fol. 172r

This parable provides the connection between the image of the growing tabernacles and the apostolic mission as the heavenly militia. Other images in this antiphon, meanwhile, are found united in another parable from Part III that Hildegard uses to tell the story of Christ and the early Church in relationship to the Pillar of the Trinity in Vision Seven. This pillar’s three steel-colored edges, sharp as swords, cut into the hearts of unbelievers and heretics, slaying their wickedness (III.7.3-6); their sharpness is then transformed, in the parable that follows in ch. 7, into a fire-producing flint-stone (igneus lapis), which connects Christ the Whetstone of the responsory for prophets, O vos felices radices, into the fire of the Holy Spirit setting alight the apostolic Church. Here is the text of the parable:

And then the lord used his flint to produce a violent fire, which ran through his messengers with such heat that all their veins were inflamed and all timid indolence was stricken from them, as quickly as something poured over a dry skin runs off it. And so at last they remembered all the things they had learned and heard from their lord; and they went forth to the people who did not have a core connection [qui umbilcos non habet] and whose cities had been destroyed, and announced to them their lord’s command. For some of these they reestablished their cores and rebuilt their cities; but others they did not so treat, but slew them like pigs and divided them. And therefore that flint is respected by the whole world, and terrifies and slays all the sins of human flesh.

And here are selections from the parable’s explication that illuminate this antiphon’s images of the apostolic mission (other portions are discussed in relation to its companion responsory, O lucidissima):

And, because the apostles had been taught by the Son, the Holy Spirit bathed [perfudit] them in Its fire, so that with their souls and bodies they spoke in many tongues; and, because their souls ruled their bodies, they cried out so that the whole world [totus orbis terrarum] was shaken by their voices [in vocibus eorum].

And the Holy Spirit took their human fear from them, so that no dread was in them, and they would never fear human savagery [saevitiam hominum] when they spoke the word of God; all such timidity was taken from them so ardently and so quickly that they became firm and not soft, and dead to all adversity that could befall them. (…)

But there were some who did not believe, and did not choose to receive the faith of baptism and the protection of God’s command; and these, reading the signs, the apostles passed by and condemned to death for their hardness and unbelief. For in their crimes and the filth of their carnal pollutions, wallowing in fornication and adultery as a pig wallows in the mud, they were not willing to be converted to the true faith, and therefore they were divided and separated from life.

And thus the Son of God was shown throughout the whole world by many and wondrous signs, ineffably begotten of the Father in His Divinity and then miraculously born of the Virgin in time. (…) For the true Word of God bears testimony to the Holy Trinity and to life-giving salvation through the water of regeneration [per aquam regenerationis] (…).

Finally, in the following chapter (III.7.8), Hildegard summarizes the purpose of the apostolic Gospel:

They cried aloud that God the Father had completed the work whereby He created Man for heavenly happiness, of which he was then robbed. Man was made from the mud of the earth to stand upright, but by his own will had bent down toward the earth again; but now by grace he is able to stand upright a second time through the incarnate Son of God. And, enlightened and confirmed by the Holy Spirit, so as not to perish in perdition but be saved in redemption, he has been restored to eternal glory.

The last pieces of the puzzle now fall into place: to feast with the pigs is to wallow in the muddy indulgences of the flesh, cut off and disconnected from God, turned away from the true glory of worshipping him and into the idolatrous self-absorption of sin. To be reconnected to that umbilical cord of true life is to enter the path of rebirth, the regeneration of the waters of baptism; and the good news of that truth rings out throughout the world in the fiery sound of the apostles’ voices. To ignore that message, however—to remain with the dogs and pigs, bent over and infatuated with earthly and man-made things and ignoring the heavenly works of God—comes with judgment, as the spiritual sword of the Lord’s messengers makes the disconnection from God permanent.

Commentary: Music and Rhetoric
by Beverly Lomer

G mode
Range: C below the final to C, an octave and a fourth above the final
Setting: melismatic (melismas are relatively short) and neumatic

In this piece, G remains primary, but the tonal focus makes several shifts.

The antiphon begins with an extended salutation, broken up into three melodic subunits: O cohors milicie floris virge non spinate. The first phrase, O cohors milicie, is outlined by G, the final of the mode. The second phrase begins a third higher on B, and the third starts with D, the fifth above the final and the second most important tone in this mode.

The next line (page 1, line 4: tu sonus), which initiates the narrative, commences and concludes on that secondary tone of the fifth, D. This strategy tends to highlight the notion of the voice of the apostles, as sound and voice are significant themes in Hildegard’s theology. The segment continues with orbis terre circuiens regiones, beginning on G and ending on D. A tick barline has been inserted in the transcription after regiones, in accordance with musical grammatical propriety. However, the text continues with insanorum sensuum. That phrase begins with G, and the melody is the same fragment that opens the song on O, used also on orbis and again on the first part of insanorum. This suggests that melodically, the lines should be grouped as transcribed, with the tick barlines observed; the text edited by Nathaniel Campbell has followed the punctuation of the song’s appearance in Scivias III.13.4 in R (fol. 133ra) in breaking between terre and circuiens. The last word of the group, sensuum, receives a somewhat heightened treatment with the outline by A.

On the next line, G again becomes the fulcrum for epulantium cum porcis, but the following phrase, quas/quos expugnasti, departs to either C or D, depending on the manuscript. Given that C is not a particularly key tone in the G mode, I would suggest the Riesenkodex version for quos expugnasti, which is found on the ossia staff above the line. Note also a text difference between the manuscripts, explained in note 1 above. The text continues with per infusum adiutorem, which ends on E; this tone is related to A, and Hildegard performs a neat transition to the next section, in which A becomes a temporary focal point.

With the conclusion of verbi patris, the pitch center returns to G. Note that a tick barline has been inserted after salvatoris to indicate that it should be grouped with the previous line. Again, the manuscript discrepancy suggests that R is more likely. The barline appears only on the main staff, as the music notation program would not permit one on the ossia—the reason remains mysterious.

On page 3 of the transcription, we encounter a long musical segment on qui te misit in gladio inter sevissimos canes. Syntactically, this is one idea, but it is quite long. A tick barline is placed after canes, but it would also be appropriate to breathe after gladio. Julia Smucker confirms this observation, stating that the entire phrase is too long too sing on one breath. Interestingly, the melody reaches to the piece’s highest note, C an octave and a fourth above the final, to add force to the word, gladio.

The melody shifts again briefly to A as the outlining tone and then moves to incorporate E as a key pitch. E never achieves full prominence, as it is only used to begin rather than end phrases. The last line begins with E but the final ending is on the final G.

Further Resources for O cohors milicie

• Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia, ed. Barbara Newman (Cornell Univ. Press, 1988 / 1998), pp. 162 and 285-6.
• For a discography of this piece, see the comprehensive list by Pierre-F. Roberge: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - A discography

Footnotes to Commentaries

^[1] Although Hildegard’s first contact with St. Bernard of Clairvaux came by letter in 1147 while he was in the Rhineland preaching the Second Crusade, is unlikely that she knew of his exhortative treatise for the fledgling Knights Templer, In Praise of the New Knighthood (De laude novae militiae), in which he expropriated the traditional language of spiritual battle used to describe the monastic life in order to justify the physical warfare of the Crusaders. The brief epistolary relationship between the Visionary and Mellifluous Doctors ended curtly, with little evidence of any meaningful or personal contact—see John Van Engen, “Letters and the Public Persona of Hildegard,” in Hildegard von Bingen in ihrem historischen Umfeld, ed. Alfred Haverkamp (Mainz: Trierer Historische Forschungen, 2000), pp. 375-418, esp. 381-2; for a more sympathetic comparison of the two figures, see Beverly Mayne Kienzle’s “Introduction,” pp. 14-22, in Hildegard of Bingen, Homilies on the Gospels (Cistercian Publications / Liturgical Press, 2011). ↩
^[2] The two swords that the disciples bring to Jesus in Luke 22:38 were commonly understood in medieval political theory to refer to a material sword (the authority of secular government) and a spiritual sword (the authority of the Church); whether the Pope, as the supreme ruler of Christendom, could wield both was a central point of dispute. ↩
^[3] All quotes from Scivias adapted from the trans. of Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (New York: Paulist Press, 1990); Latin text ed. Führkötter and Carlevaris, CCCM 43 and 43a (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978). ↩

O vos felices radices

Responsory for Patriarchs and Prophets (D 160r-v, R 469r, Scivias III.13.3b)Back to Table of Contents
by Hildegard of Bingen

R. O vos felices radices cum quibus opus miraculorum et non opus criminum per torrens iter perspicue umbre plantatum est, et o tu ruminans ignea vox, precurrens limantem lapidem subvertentem abyssum: R. Gaudete in capite vestro. V. Gaudete in illo quem non viderunt in terris multi qui ipsum ardenter vocaverunt. R. Gaudete in capite vestro.

R. O merry roots with whom the work of miracles— but not the work of crimes— was planted by a journey rushing, tearing forth, a path of shade perlucid; and you, O voice of ruminating fire, forerunner of the whetstone, the Rock that overthrows th’ abyss: R. Rejoice in him, your captain! V. Rejoice in him whom most on earth have never seen— yet ardently they’ve called on him. R. Rejoice in him, your captain!

Latin collated from the transcription of Beverly Lomer and the edition of Barbara Newman; translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell.

Commentary: Themes and Theology
by Nathaniel M. Campbell

This responsory follows closely in imagery and theme its companion antiphon, O spectabiles viri, in the choir of patriarchs and prophets in the heavenly symphony of Scivias III.13. In particular, it advances on the antiphon’s use of the Stem of Jesse’s prefiguration and root of the Virgin’s blossoming, living branch to address the prophets as their own roots upon the tree of life. This image again draws on Hildegard’s vision of the Pillar of the Word of God in Scivias III.4, from whose root sprung Abraham and the successive branches of the prophets (text in italics is from the initial description of the vision):

Scivias III.4: The Pillar
of the Word of God.
Rupertsberg MS, fol. 145v.

And from the edge which faces East, branches grow out from the root to the summit. This is to say that when God first became known through the just Law, branches appeared on that eastern edge, which was the time of the patriarchs and prophets. For this sharp-edged pillar of Divinity carries on the work from its root [ab initio radicis], which is the good beginning in the minds of the elect, to its summit [ad cacumen eius], which is the manifestation of the Son of Man, Who is all justice.

And therefore, at the root you see Abraham sitting on the first branch; for the time of inspiration by God began with Abraham, when he obeyed God and with a tranquil mind departed from his country. Then Moses on the second; for after this God inspired Moses to plant the Law, and so foreshadow the Son of the Most High. Then Joshua on the third; for he afterward had the spirit of the Lord in him in order to strengthen the custom of the Law as God commanded.

And then you see the rest of the patriarchs and prophets, one above the other on each branch, sitting in the order in which they succeeded each other in time; for God inspired each patriarch and prophet in his own time to nurture his particular shoot toward the height of his commands, and all in their day reposed on the disposition and order of the justice He showed them, faithful and obedient to the divine majesty as it showed itself in their times.

They are all looking toward the edge of the pillar that faces the North, marveling at the things to come that they can see upon it in the spirit [in spiritu]. For they were all alerted in their souls by the Holy Spirit, and so turned and saw how the Gospel doctrine repulsed the Devil by the strength of the Son of God. They spoke of His Incarnation, and marveled at how He came from the heart of the Father and the womb of a virgin and showed Himself with great wonders both by Himself and by His followers, who wonderfully imitated Him in new grace and trod the transitory underfoot, greatly thirsting for the joys of the eternal.
     —Scivias III.4.7-8^[1]

Yet, in classic Hildegardian style, the operative force coursing through those roots in this responsory is synaesthetically and paradoxically aligned with the light of their foreshadowing prophecy. The path taken by the light as it travels along those roots—almost as if they were fiber-optic cables—is also Israel’s journey (iter), their pilgrimage from bondage in Egypt, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land, the classic figuration and foreshadowing of the spiritual journey of humankind. The growth of those roots into “the fulfilled work of the Father’s Word” is taken up in the next chorus of the Scivias symphony, the antiphon for the Apostles, O cohors milicie, where the contrast between good works and bad is also found in a polemic against idolatry.

Scivias III.13: Symphonia in
Heaven: Choir of Patriarchs
and Prophets (detail).
Rupertsberg MS, fol. 229r

Before the apostles, however, there is one final prophetic voice whose fire illuminates the last steps of that shadowed path. As it enters Palestine at the time of the Emperor Augustus, the voice crying in the wilderness is that of John the Baptist, singled out in this responsory (as in the roundel of the choir of patriarchs and prophets in illustration of the heavenly symphony in the Rupertsberg Scivias manuscript) for his particular role at the cusp of the Incarnation’s dawning light. His is a voice that ruminates upon all of his predecessors—that fertile, organic image embraced by early Christians of “chewing the cud” (like the clean animals of Jewish dietary law, notes Barbara Newman: Symphonia, p. 285) of the Hebrew scriptures in order to plumb the depths of their revelation of the Word of God. Here, John’s is also the “voice of fire” (ignea vox), perhaps struck alight by the sparks scattered by Hildegard’s unique reinterpretation (inspired, perhaps, by the sharp edges of the Pillar of the Word) of the foretold Christ as a rock or stone (lapis) in Psalm 117(118):22, Isaiah 22:16-17, and St. Peter’s sermon in Acts 4:11—for rather than simply the corner-stone of the temple, this Rock is a whetstone used for grinding and polishing (limans). Christ the grinding whetstone wears away the imperfections of sin in the materials of the new temple as he overthrows the rough, rocky ramparts of the abyss.

Moreover, the image of the stone—as likewise the image of the mountain from this responsory’s antiphonal companion, O spectabiles viri—connects the choir of patriarchs and prophets in Scivias III.13 into the story of salvation history told in the preceding twelve visions, as Christ the cornerstone is one of the key images the feeds into the third part’s depiction of that story as a grand edifice. As with the other pieces of the Scivias symphony cycle, these recapitulate in musical verse the themes of the rest of the work. In particular, we find here resonances with an additional parable that Hildegard used within the exegesis of her vision of the Tower of the Church (III.9.17), to tell the story of the Incarnation. Although the bulk of the parable addresses the apostolic Church (its remainder can be found discussed in connection with O cohors milicie), because the patriarchs and prophets foreshadow the Church, this one is rooted within their prophecy. Here, the lord’s city is their company:

A certain lord had a marble city; he cried out loudly upon it and inscribed its inner walls with many carvings, from which it produced the sharpest filing of the unpolished stones [acutissimam limationem impolitorum lapidum]. (…) Which is to say:

This lord is the One Whom no other ever excelled in dominion. He alone is over all things and in all things, for nothing is before Him or after Him; and so He is Lord of all. He had in His power this noble city, the company of the prophets, who were strong and constant against the raging tempests of the world. And when the Lord cried out upon them, He filled them with the Holy Spirit, and stirred them up to bring forth His mysteries in obscure words, as a distant sound is heard when the words cannot yet be made out. But the true Word, the incarnate Son of God, followed on the sound of their prophecy. And when the Lord infused their understanding with the spirit of wisdom, He inscribed many things in their hearts; and thus they prophesied by their sense of the Spirit the mysteries of God in the present and future, and uttered in the Spirit harsh words against wicked human behavior. And so they moved the hard hearts of the Jews to mildness and compassion and good works.
     —Scivias III.9.17

Finally, this stone is also, in the refrain and versicle, the prophets’ head and captain (caput), and the thrice-repeated vocative dispels any gloom their shadowed lives might have suffered—Rejoice! The versicle is thus infused with the hope of unseen salvation for the many on earth who never saw the Incarnate Word, yet with the burning desire of their hearts had ever called upon him (an allusion to Thomas’ doubt and Christ’s reassurance in John 20:29). Implicitly, the vocative of the second respond expands, as often in Hildegard’s responsories, to include not just the audience of patriarchs and prophets, but of all humankind and especially her own community of religious women, in whose Captain she urges: Rejoice!

Commentary: Music and Rhetoric
by Beverly Lomer

E mode
Range: A below the final to G an octave and a third above the final
Setting: neumatic and melismatic, with some extensive melismas

This responsory begins with the salutation, O vos felices radices, which is broken into two phrases. The second begins similarly to the first, as is typical of Hildegard’s style, but then ascends higher, to E an octave above the final. Textually, cum quibus makes more sense grouped with what follows, opus miraculorum. However, the melodic structure suggests that it be placed with radices. As our singer consultant, Julia Smucker, points out, grouping cum quibus with opus miraculorum creates a somewhat jarring downward octave leap mid-phrase. Hildegard not infrequently inserts ambiguity between text and melody. The solution we have adopted reflects this uncertainty by placing cum quibus on its own line, so that it can go either way according to individual preference. The salutation is followed by a series of clauses that are elaborately set, with long melismas on key words. The verb, plantatum est, is placed at the end of the verse section.

The melody ascends to C above the final in the first phrase, to E above the final in the second phrase; and it reaches its highest point, G an octave and a third above the final, on criminum. It attains the G from a leap and descends in one of the scalar passages that is idiomatic in this work. The melodic rise, coupled with the long melisma on criminum, places the rhetorical emphasis here.

The music begins to descend on per torrens, which contains two downward scale passages—a bit of word painting. The idiomatic treatment continues to perspicue umbre (“shade perlucid”), whose line extends down to the B below the final. The section ends with a 35-note melisma on plantatum est (“was planted”), which is also set low in the range. It is cleverly connected to O vos felices and radices by the repeated melodic motif that opens the work.

The conjunction et (page 2, line 1) that connects the larger statements that comprise the first verse is set to the final, E. While it might make sense to move this pitch to the next line, we have chosen to end the phrase plantatum est with it—but with a caveat of sorts. Et is enclosed in a bracket, which is intended to signify that it can go with either phrase, or be separated out. We prefer to place the conjunction at the end of the previous phrase because the leaps that initiate the second theme are so dramatic that they would be diluted by an opening on et. This separation of the conjunction from the phrase that follows is another example of the ways in which Hildegard often introduces ambiguous disjuncture between text and music. However, because that disjuncture runs counter to syntactical norms, one might prefer to follow textual over musical syntax in this and other songs where this type of ambiguity occurs. Julia Smucker, for example, prefers this latter option.

In the second part of the first verse, O tu ruminans ignea vox begins with a series of three leaps from the final to the highest G and is elaborately set with a dramatic scalar descent on ruminans. As Nathaniel indicates above, the idea of the fiery voice is another key element of the message. Similarly, limantem (a reference to Christ as the Rock/polishing whetstone), is given a lenthy, 45-note melisma that traverses most of the range of the song and also includes a leap upward to the high G and a scalar descent—again, rhetorical emphasis is the intent.

The use of lengthy melismas, leaps, and other embellishments in the first section of a piece is typical of Hildegard and is both in accord with and elaborates upon the rhetorical principle that the most important ideas are iterated first. In Hildegard’s hand, the key words are also the most ornate.

Most of the versicle following the respond is less elaborately set. Though leaps are used, the dramatic jumps to the highest pitch G are absent. The opening motif does not appear, and there are only two scalar descents, within the 37-note melisma on ardenter (“ardently”). Thus the primary rhetorical emphasis falls, unsurprisingly, on this adverb. Finally, the respond contains a 62-note melisma on vestro. This melisma includes some of the rhetorical devices already identified, but it does not reiterate the key melodic motives as a type of musical peroratio, or summing up, that is found in many of Hildegard’s works.

Technical Notes
by Beverly Lomer

E and B are the primary grammatical punctuating tones, as would be consistent for this mode. Most phrases are clearly outlined by one of these pitches. Some phrases are quite long, and some phrase breaks occur in the middle of a single word. Interestingly, this responsory contains quite a number of downward scale passages that span the octave, many of which do not involve key modal tones.

Regarding long text phrases, on page 1 of the transcription, lines 7 and 8 comprise one phrase (per torrens iter), and lines 9 and 10 also make one phrase (perspicue umbre). Tick barlines have been inserted on lines 8 and 10 to make this clear.

On page 2 of the transcription, the word limantem (lines 4 and 5) occupies two lines. The phrase break is made here after the pitch B at the end of line 4, and line 5 begins with E and ends on B, as is standard phrasing. It is, however, odd to find such clearly punctuated segments within a single word or phrase. According to Julia Smucker, the full two-line phrase can be sung on one breath with proper support. A similar situation is found on vestro in the respond (page 2, lines 9 and 10), though lengthy melismas in the responds are more common. The phrase break is made on at the octave leap on the final, E.

On page 3 of the transcription, the phrase, qui ipsum ardenter vocaverunt, although musically a single unit, is broken into two lines because of length. The line break occurs in the middle of the word ardenter, as there was no other good option.

In addition to phrasing, there are several other points to note about this piece. On page 2 of the transcription, the reader will note that there is a significant difference between the two manuscripts. As a singer, Julia prefers the Riesenkodex version; there are also textual reasons to prefer R's reading of page 2, line 6 (lapidem subvertentem abyssum) to D's (vertentem lapidem abyssum). The noun, lapidem, is modified by two participles—limantem in the previous line (“wearing away”) and [sub]vertentem (“[over]turning”). The first participle, limantem, idiomatically combines with lapidem to mean, “whetstone” or “filing stone.” The second participle, then, describes what the stone is doing, and takes abyssum as its object—overthrowing the abyss. Thus, it makes much more sense in terms of word order for [sub]vertentem to come between lapidem and abyssum. Nevertheless, following the principles of this project, we have printed the reading of D in the primary stave, with R in the secondary stave above it.

The respond has been fully written out here. While our usual practice is to indicate the beginning only, because the verse that follows the first respond begins with the same word, gaudete, it is clearer to give the entire respond both times.

Further Resources for O vos felices radices

• Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia, ed. Barbara Newman (Cornell Univ. Press, 1988 / 1998), pp. 160 and 285.
• For a discography of this piece, see the comprehensive list by Pierre-F. Roberge: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - A discography

Footnotes

^[1]All quotations from Scivias adapted from the trans. of Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (New York: Paulist Press, 1990); Latin text ed. Führkötter and Carlevaris, CCCM 43 and 43a (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978). ↩

NEC sees virtue of eclecticism in Hildegard adaptation

A recent article on Eden MacAdam-Somer, at the New England Conservatory.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2015/02/15/nec-sees-virtue-eclecticism-hildegard-adaptation/87nMlVMWJT0O0O31So1X2O/story.html

Renowned soprano and scholar Janet Youngdahl presents a “Celebration of Hildegard”

Visiting scholar and renowned soprano Janet Youngdahl will present a “Celebration of Hildegard” on Friday, Feb. 13 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. in the Carleton College (Northfield, Minnesota) Skinner Memorial Chapel. An early vocal music specialist, Youngdahl will present the music, writings and artwork of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), the visionary abbess and healer whose spiritual compositions are among the most astonishing and unique creations from the dynamic milieu of 12^th century Benedictine monasticism.

Full Story here:http://apps.carleton.edu/news/news/?story_id=1241458