Hildegard von Bingen: Vox Cosmica

by Arianna Savall

supported by

freshmare This is an exceptionally inventive and stylistically sound re-imagining of Hildegaard's music. Something for the heart, something for the mind. Favorite track: Karitas Habundat.

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

€10 EUR or more
Original stereo master files in 192Khz/24Bit resolution (FLAC format). We will send you a download link manually by email.

Includes unlimited streaming of Hildegard von Bingen: Vox Cosmica via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

€18 EUR or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
CD in nice digipack cardboard packaging with matte finish, booklet printed on recycled paper. Cover picture by Leif Marcus, design by Tim+Tim, Berlin.

Includes unlimited streaming of Hildegard von Bingen: Vox Cosmica via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 3 days

7 remaining

€18 EUR or more
Full Digital Discography

Get all 4 Arianna Savall releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of El Cant de la Sibil.la & Draumkvedet, Hildegard von Bingen: Vox Cosmica, The Wind Rose, and Il Viaggio d'Amore. , and , .

Purchasable with gift card

€30 EUR or more (25% OFF)

1.	O tu suavissima virga 12:51	buy track
2.	Karitas Habundat 05:57	buy track
3.	Meditation I 04:54	buy track
4.	Planctus David 16:00	buy track
5.	Meditation II 04:09	buy track
6.	De Sancta Maria 10:26	buy track
7.	Meditation III 04:33	buy track
8.	O quam mirabilis 07:57	buy track
9.	Meditation IV 04:27	buy track
10.	O virtus Sapientie 06:21	buy track

about

Arianna Savall, Petter U. Johansen & Hirundo Maris: The mystic music of Hildegard von Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen was one of the most prominent women in medieval Europe. Her political, spiritual and artistic legacy has remained unique to this day. For good reason, she is still known to a wide public almost a thousand years after her death. The interest in Hildegard gained momentum after Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed her a Doctor of the Church. It is therefore to be welcomed that a young generation of musicians is exploring her works. Thanks to the Sequentia ensemble, Hildegard’s entrancing music has made it into the pop music charts since 1980. Initially, the aim was mainly to unveil the treasure of Hildegard’s compositions. As time has passed, not only has a great deal of knowledge about early music reading and performance practice been acquired, but also young musicians nowadays feel much more relaxed about developing their own views and interpretations of masterpieces, thus making valuable contributions from both a philological and musical standpoint.

This is precisely what we should expect when Arianna Savall, Petter Udland Johansen and their Hirundo Maris ensemble delve into Hildegard’s music. Vox Cosmica, the name of the CD, says it all, for Hildegard was convinced that the cosmos was a single sonorous whole held together by the harmony and love of a creator. His holy principles are transformed by Hildegard into sounds. Caritas and Sapientia are not sung,: instead, they raise their voices themselves. What better expression of those principles than Arianna Savall’s clear, warm, sensual and unpretentious soprano voice?

Her counterpart is is Petter Udland Johansen’s characterful tenor. Vox Cosmica goes beyond Hildegard of Bingen’s feminine spirituality to create a male antipode in Peter Abelard’s Laments of David. In both his tragic love for his pupil Héloise and his theology based on reason, Abelard is an antipode, if not the antipode of Hildegard: not only in his life and teachings, but also in the few intensely personal compositions that have survived. Whereas Hildegard refers to the great whole and the ideal, Abelard focuses on the specific and the individual. Hildegard knows no pain, while Abelard sings of it alone – and Petter Udland Johansen certainly brings that pain to its most heartfelt expression.

The musicians of Hirundo Maris, David Mayoral, Anke and Andreas Spindler, move effortlessly and knowledgeably through the complex manuscripts of both the medieval abbess and the love-stricken theologian. Yet they do not forget their own origins or our musical present. They join together Hildegard’s main chants to create touching units, contrasting them with Abelard, and threading it all together with musical meditations by Petter Udland Johansen. These meditations are intensely moving, shifting the timeframes almost imperceptibly from medieval music to the present, neither detaching from Hildegard’s material in a modernistic manner nor ingratiating in a cosy, stereotypical way to produce an esoteric feel-good atmosphere. Thus, rather than providing a contrast to medieval sounds, present-day music is allowed to flow logically from the latter. The aim is nothing less than a new unity of past and present, which in fact is timelessness. In this way, Hildegard’s and Abelard’s messages easily cross space and time, being felt in a very direct, emotionally authentic way. As to us, we can ask ourselves what remains foreign and what touches us.

Thomas Höft, Cologne, 28th September, 2014

credits

released January 1, 2019

Hirundo Maris
Arianna Savall – Voice, Medieval Harp, Italian Triple Harp, Lyra, Tibetan Singing Bowl
Petter Udland Johansen – Voice, Hardingfele, Lyra, Fiddle, Monochord
Andreas Spindler – Flutes, Fiddle, Romain Bells, Colascione, Tromba Marina, Voice
Anke Spindler – Nyckelharpa, Fiddles, Viola da Gamba, Voice
David Mayoral – Santur, Percussion, Romain Bells, Voice

license

about

Arianna Savall Basel, Switzerland

Soprano, historical harps and composer

Recommendations

contact / help

Contact Arianna Savall

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Arianna Savall recommends:

The Road Not Taken
by Petter Udland Johansen

Piano songs written, sung and played by Petter. Beautiful sound of a Bosendorfer grand in an old church. Highly recommended! Arianna Savall
go to album

If you like Arianna Savall, you may also like:

Josquin Desprez: In memoria mea
by Seconda Prat!ca

supported by 7 fans who also own “Hildegard von Bingen: Vox Cosmica”
go to album
Silver Ladders
by Mary Lattimore

supported by 6 fans who also own “Hildegard von Bingen: Vox Cosmica”

This album is a hauntingly soothing experience from start to finish. kohmmonkoh
go to album
Harmonice Mundi
by Viktor Töpelmann

supported by 6 fans who also own “Hildegard von Bingen: Vox Cosmica”
go to album
Moments Remixes
by Michael Vincent Waller

There’s a quiet beauty to this remix album of compositions by Michael Vincent Waller, with contributions from JLin, Prefuse 73, & more. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 1, 2024
go to album
Thinking of Blue Almonds Part One
by Lou Lyne & the Blue Almond Project

Somber, beautiful string meditations abound on the debut album by Oxford cellist and composer Lou Lyne and her ensemble. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 30, 2024
go to album