NEW audioCD

11,000 Virgins: Chants for the Feast of St. Ursula

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All the world loves Hildegard--and the four women of Anonymous 4 may be the best interpreters of her music since the 12th century. St. Ursula was the legendary daughter of a British king who, with her army of virgin companions, was martyred in Cologne, perhaps in the fifth century; Hildegard wrote these Chants for the Feast of St. Ursula for use in a highly solemn celebration along with other liturgical chants. It is in this context that Anonymous 4 presents this program, interspersing chants and psalmody with Hildegard's compositions, sometimes employing drones and polyphonic embellishment. The musical effect is a mixture of awesome reverence and earthly sensuousness. The combination of four different women's voices in perfect unison creates a richly colored sound that can lull or console or uplift. --David Vernier

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Hildegard Von Bingen - 11,000 Virgins (Chants For The Feast Of St. Ursula) / Anonymous 4 / Harmonia Mundi France Audio CD / HMU 907200 UPC 093046720025 /// Hildegard of Bingen (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; c. 1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history. She has been considered by scholars to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany. Hildegard's convent elected her as magistra (mother superior) in 1136. She founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. Hildegard wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal works, as well as letters, hymns, and antiphons for the liturgy. She wrote poems, and supervised miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. There are more surviving chants by Hildegard than by any other composer from the entire Middle Ages, and she is one of the few known composers to have written both the music and the words. One of her works, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play. She is noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota. Although the history of her formal canonization is complicated, regional calendars of the Roman Catholic church have listed her as a saint for centuries. On 10 May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI extended the liturgical cult of Hildegard to the entire Catholic Church in a process known as "equivalent canonization". On 7 October 2012, he named her a Doctor of the Church, in recognition of "her holiness of life and the originality of her teaching." // Label: Harmonia Mundi France – HMU 907200 Series: Production USA – HMU 907200 Format: CD, Album Country: Germany Released: Genre: Classical Style: Medieval /// Tracklist: Vigil 1 Antiphon: Auctori Vite Psalmis - Invitatory: Venite Exsultemus Domino Written-By – Karlsruhe LX (13th C.)* 8:54 2 Symphonia Virginum: O Dulcissime Amator Written-By – Hildegard of Bingen* 9:25 3 Hymn: Jesu Corona Virginum Written-By – Ahrweil Antiphoner (13th C.)* 2:52 4 Responsory: Spiritui Sancto Written-By – Hildegard of Bingen* 6:54 5 Versicle: Specie Tua Written-By – Karlsruhe LX* 0:28 6 Responsory: Favus Distillans Written-By – Hildegard of Bingen* 6:53 7 Benedicamus Domino Written-By – Engelberg 314 (14th C.)* 0:58 Lauds 8 Antiphon: Studium Divinitatis Written-By – Hildegard of Bingen* 1:12 9 Psalm 92: Dominus Regnavit / Studium Divinitatis Written-By – Ahrweil Antiphoner* 3:30 10 Sequence: O Ecclesia Written-By – Hildegard of Bingen* 10:12 11 Benedicamus Domino Written-By – Engelberg 314* 0:57 Vespers 12 Chapter: Domine Deus Meus Written-By – Berlin 40046 (13th C.)* 0:50 13 Brief Responsory: Mirabilis Deus Written-By – Karlsruhe LX* 1:13 14 Hymn: Cum Vox Sanguinis Written-By – Hildegard of Bingen* 8:10 15 Antiphon: O Rubor Sanguinis Written-By – Hildegard of Bingen* 1:38 16 Canticle: Magnificat Anima Mea / O Rubor Sanguinis Written-By – Ahrweil Antiphoner* 5:03 17 Hymn: Te Lucis Ante Terminum Written-By – Ahrweil Antiphoner* 2:02 18 Benedicamus Domino Written-By – Worcester F. 160 (13th C.)* 0:47 /// Choir – Anonymous 4 Liner Notes [The Legend of St. Ursula] – Johanna Maria Rose, Marsha Genensky Vocals [Anonymous 4] – Johanna Maria Rose, Marsha Genensky, Ruth Cunningham, Susan Hellauer, ISBN13: B0000007FU ISBN10: B0000007FU Material Type: audioCD