The next record of Ensemble Organum needs you to exist!
New record of Ensemble Organum
Hildegard of Bingen “Vespers to Mary” – December 2024 at the Abbey of Noirlac
Come and participate in the great adventure of the ensemble Organum by helping us to make known the immense work of Hildegard de Bingen. The previous album of the ensemble devoted to Hildegard, the Lauds of Saint Ursula, was recorded in 1996.
28 years later, after this long time devoted to deepening the practice of medieval repertoires, Marcel Pérès proposes a new approach to this music, entitled by Hilde herself: The Symphony of Celestial Harmonies.
Holy, visionary, healer and composer, everything seems to have been said about Hildegard of Bingen, however, much remains to be discovered on her music. Particular attention has been given to the research on the vocal timbres in use in the nuns of this time including the use of the chest voice, deep register of women’s voices and on the interaction between acoustics, the consciousness of those who happen to be the sound source and the listener.
Hildegard’s music was placed in the context of the Benedictine traditions of the early 12th century, still well rooted in the Carolingian tradition, a synthesis between the Roman repertoire and the practical theory of Byzantine chant.
This program is part of research activities on the therapeutic potential of Late Antiquity religious songs in Hildegard de Bingen that Organum Ensemble and CIRMA have been conducting, in partnership with the University of Rennes2, and the Laboratoire ERRMECe – Groupe MEC-uP, Maison Internationale de la Recherche.
Hildegard, 35th doctor of the Church, 4th woman to be raised in 2012 to this distinction, after Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila and Teresa of Lisieux, is also the first composer whose music is officially recognized as a major teaching for humanity. Therein lies the wonder of this story: It took nine centuries for Hildegard to reveal the power of her teaching. This woman of the twelfth century has something very important to transmit to the world today.
