O Frondens Virga Hildegard von Bingen
O Frondens Virga
Hildegard von Bingen
Performed by Juliana Laverick
Psalm antiphon for the Virgin (D 155r) by Hildegard of Bingen
O frondens virga, | O blooming branch, |
Introduction
O Frondens Virga is from the 12th Century Dendermonde Manuscript, and can only be found in the this manuscript. The song was written by Hildegard von Bingen, and is said to be about the femininity in the divine, fertility, and the Virgin Mother, Mary. (1)
The song can be sung alone, in parts, or accompanied, and would have been performed in the Church or by others who studied her works.
Hildegard von Bingen
Hildegard was born in Germany. Hildegard was one of 10 Children, and being of a weak disposition her parents sent her to the Church in 1112. She joined with magistra Jutta of Sponheim, a noblewoman who lived the life of an ‘anchoress’. Jutta taught Hildegard how to read and write latin, understand the psalms, chant, and play the psaltery. In 1136, Jutta passed away and Hildegard was elected the new magistra. (2)
In 1141, Hildegard wrote that she had been given a vision from God.
And behold! In the forty-third year of my earthly course as I was gazing with great fear and trembling attention at a heavenly vision, I saw a great splendor in which resounded a voice from Heaven, saying to me, “O fragile human, ashes of ashes, and filth of filth! Say and write what you see and hear. But since you are timid in speaking, and simple in expounding, and untaught in writing, speak and write these things not by a human mouth, and not by the understanding of human invention, and not by the requirements of human composition, but as you see and hear them on high in the heavenly places in the wonders of God. Explain them in such a way that the hearer, receiving the words of his instructor, may expound them in those words, according to that will, vision and instruction. Thus, therefore, O human, speak these things that you see and hear. And write them not by yourself or any other human being, but by the will of Him Who knows, sees and disposes all things in the secrets of His mysteries.” It happened that, in the eleven hundred and forty-first year of the Incarnation of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, when I was forty-two years and seven months old, 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 . . . And immediately I knew the meaning of the exposition of the Scriptures, namely the Psalter, the Gospel and other catholic books of both the Old and the New Testaments, though I did not have the interpretation of the words or their texts or the division of the syllables or the knowledge of cases or tenses.(3)
Afterwards, Pope Eugenius III sanctioned her visions.
From there, Hildegard wrote three kinds of manuscripts; theological, medicinal, and musical. Her visions afforded her the ability to exert her education without too much reprimand. In 1150, she used this power to move her and her nuns to Robertsberg. She announced her vision, and after much in-active persuasion (She took to bed until they acquiesced to her demands), and help from Archbishop Henry of Mainz and the Marchioness Richardis von Strade, moved herself and 18 other nuns to her new planned monastery. (4)
From there her fame only grew. Her books on theology caught the attention of not just the Abbots and people of her community, but also the Pope and the Emperor. Soon her works were sought by the everyday man, politicians and religious figures across Europe.
She would remain a leading figure until her death in 1179. And though the church began the process to make her a saint, it was never competed. This did not stop the people of her community, and the followers of her writing, to proclaim her a saint in her own right. She still has a shrine dedicated to her in her church, and followers that practice in the modern era. (5)
O Frondens Virga
Music. To Hildegard, music was the way to commune between the world and the divine. 72 songs from the Benedictine nun survive today. One is O Frondens Virga.
O Frondens Virga is monophonic, of one melodic line, and are left open to interpretation. She uses neumes but without a staff, and while the interpretation of the music is left open, she pays very close attention to the position and relationship of her music to her text.
O Frondens Virga is from the Dendermonde manuscript, and was copied in Rupertsberg while she was alive.
The nuns would sing the songs of her manuscripts in the monastery, and they could be accompanied by the psaltery. An instrument Hildegard was familiar with.
Performance
I will be performing it on the harp using Beverly R. Lomer’s transcription. I will also be singing it.
Bibliography
1. http://www.hildegard-society.org/2014/10/o-frondens-virga-antiphon.html
2. Gottfried of Disibodenberg and Theodoric of Echternach, “The Life of the Saintly Hildegard”, trans. Hugh Feiss, OSB (Toronto: Peregrina Publishing Co., 1966), 26.
3. Hildegard of Bingen, “Scivias”, trans. Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop, with an introduction by Barbara J. Newman (New York and Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1990), Declaration, 59.
4. http://iawm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/lomer-hildegard.pdf
5. Alastair Minnis and Rosalynn Voaden, “Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition c. 1100 – c. 1500”, Brepols, Turnhent, Belgium 2010. 352.
Comments
Post a Comment