The beautifully packaged recordings of medieval music ensemble La Reverdie seem partly arranged to support the erudite booklet essays of vocalist and group leader Ella de Mircovich, rather than the other way around. The intellectual scaffolding of the notes for this release of chants by Hildegard von Bingen is particularly intricate. But beyond the fact that some of Hildegard's chants are performed with instrumental accompaniment (the abbess having written in general terms about the uses of instruments in worship), it's ...
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The beautifully packaged recordings of medieval music ensemble La Reverdie seem partly arranged to support the erudite booklet essays of vocalist and group leader Ella de Mircovich, rather than the other way around. The intellectual scaffolding of the notes for this release of chants by Hildegard von Bingen is particularly intricate. But beyond the fact that some of Hildegard's chants are performed with instrumental accompaniment (the abbess having written in general terms about the uses of instruments in worship), it's hard to point to specific details of the performance that are shaped by de Mircovich's philosophical conception of the music, which ranges from neoplatonism to the writings of French philologist Georges Dumézil, a theorist of the roots of Indo-European societies. The chants performed here often touch on the theme of virginity, which, for de Mircovich, carries in Hildegard's music and career overtones of "(1) Royal Sacredness, (2) Warlike Strength, and (3) Fecundity." These reach back in...
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