Hildegard von Bingen - Vespers from Her Abbey

Album review

Regis' Hildegard von Bingen: Vespers from the Abbey features Hildegard's music performed on what could almost be considered an "original instrument," namely the choir that belongs to what is left of her own abbey. Hildegard was prioress of two abbeys, Rupertsberg and Eibingen, of which the former burned during the Thirty Years War and the latter wiped out by a lightning strike in 1889. The Hildegard Abbey was erected near the Eibingen site in 1904; it, too, burned in 1932, but was rebuilt in 1935 and stands as the requisite reliquary for Hildegard on this earth. This recording of the Benedictine Nuns of St. Hildegard Eibingen was made by the Freiburg Baroque Forum and originally released on the Ars Musici label under the title O vis aeternitatis. It arrives a little late to cash in on the Hildegard craze touched off in the early '90s by the writings of Creation Spirituality guru Matthew Fox. Although it is impossible to say that any recording of Hildegard accurately reflects the way her music was heard in the twelfth century, this is as close to the perceived tradition as one is likely to get. There is no fancy, sexy reverberation or hypnotic drones used here -- it's a straight-up performance of four of Hildegard's antiphons and two of her sequences given within the context of a typical Vespers service as sung by middle-aged German nuns. In a liturgical sense, this is a very complete service; it even includes the scripture reading from the first five verses of Chapter 21 of Revelation, as sung on a reciting tone. The singing is plain and undecorated, and the recording is almost of documentary quality, a little hiss and full of stray environmental sounds floating around the background. Chances are you won't notice them much, and while this is a very honest representation of Hildegard's music "as it really is," it may not sound much different from what you might hear at the convent nearest you. However, that is part of its charm.
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