It is said that the “Sibyl of the Rhine’s” composition of lyrical poetry goes back to at least the 1140s. She compiled it in the early 1150s under the title Symphonia armoniæ celestium revelationum. P. Dronke has proposed that the two manuscripts cited above represent the Symphonia cycle in two states of development5. Of these, the first (Dendermonde MS 9, which Hildegard offered to the Cistercian monastery of Villers) may have included the drama Ordo virtutum at the beginning as an integral part of the cycle. The second (D-WIl 2) excludes the Ordo along with two other small items (O frondens and Laus Trinitati), and shows the cycle somewhat reshaped. The latter volume, the Riesenkodex, had been copied in Hildegard’s scriptorium in the monastery on the Rupertsberg (it consists of 481 460 x 290 mm. pages, written in two columns), where it was kept from the beginning. It is really a collected edition of Hildegard’s works, except her scientific writings, which contains her entire trilogy, in addition to various letters and her main lyrical works (Symphonia). The order of appearance of the works in the manuscript is such that the items dedicated to the Holy Spirit precede those for the Virgin Mary. The items to St Ursula and her 11,000 virgins come under the heading of “Virgins”; it also has additional items (mostly sequences and hymns), such as, for example, the works for the Trier saints (Matthias, Eucharius and Maximinus), the item for Boniface, and O viridissima, labelled “the most brilliant of Hildegard’s compositions to the Virgin Mary.” Curiously, the images and allegories used to refer to the Mary are among the richest and most varied of her work, in accordance with the importance the feminine element played. For example, the Virgin is seen as the redeemer of Eve’s original sin (Ave/Eva), or as the flowered branch of the tree of Jesse (wordplay Virgo=Virgin/Virga=Branch), or as the dawn above which Jesus’ sun rises.
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“A woman’s pleasure is like sunlight, sweet, continuous and smooth as it diffuses into the earth which it warms and makes fertile. If it burns more strongly with its constant rays it would burn the fruits instead of ripening them.In the same way, the loving
pleasure of a woman possesses a smooth strength, sweet and constant that lets it conceive and ripen the son in its belly.”
—Hildegard
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Symphonia
The music of Hildegard, which totals approximately 155 essentially liturgical and always monodic works, is closely linked to her poetic output, both in its lyrical and dramatic character.
Her main work is that known as the Symphonia armoniæ celestium revelationum, which comprises 77 poems and spiritual chants composed for her community at Rupertsberg. Of these, 44 are antiphons, 17 responds in prose, eight hymns (four of them for the Office), one kyrie (which is the exception to the rule that the majority of the texts Hildegard set to music were taken from her literary works), and seven sequences for the mass.
The works contained in the Symphonia form a liturgical cycle, the majority bearing designations to specific feasts (sequences for the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit, St Eucharius and St Maximinus). Most feasts have a pair of items (antiphon-respond), and some, especially those for the locally revered saints are more elaborate (such as St Rupert, which has three antiphons and a sequence, St Disibod, two antiphons, two responds and a sequence, St Ursula and her 11,000 virgins, on 21 October, two responds, hymn and sequence, etc.).
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