A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hearing the heavenly symphony 167
most importantly the work of Marianna Schrader and Adelgundis
F ührkötter.18 Albert Derolez and Peter Dronke, especially in their introduction
to Liber diuinorum operum (1996), and Berschin and Schipperges
in their edition and translation of the Symphonia (1995), have refijined the
work of Schrader and Führkötter, notably by redating most of the Riesenkodex
to Hildegard’s lifetime. Klaper summarizes the state of the music in
his commentary for the Riesenkodex facsimile. All notated sources appear
to have been prepared at the Rupertsberg; employ a common style of neumation;
and place the neumes on four-line staves, with the f-line colored
red and the c-line yellow. Although surviving sources depict a fairly stable
melodic tradition, their frequent erasures and emendations sometimes
cause particular problems for editors. It is often difffijicult to say whether
variants are “mistakes” or difffering scribal preferences. On the whole, and
with regard to the Symphonia, the state of variants and use of accidentals
suggest that Dendermonde should generally be preferred over the Riesenkodex;
each case, however, requires its own consideration.
Very useful for the study of Hildegard’s music and its contexts is her
correspondence, edited in Epistolarium, I–III, and translated into English
in Letters. William T. Flynn’s article, “‘The Soul is Symphonic’: Meditation
on Luke 15:25 and Hildegard of Bingen’s Letter 23,” demonstrates
ways in which Hildegard’s letters and other literature clarify her musical
perspectives.19 Anna Silvas compiled and translated a collection of texts
that illuminates the context of Hildegard’s music and liturgical understanding;
she included not only select letters, but also selections from the
chronicles and charters of the Disibodenberg, various documents from
Sponheim, the Life of Jutta, Hildegard’s vita (according to the edition
V. Hild.), and materials from the failed 13th-century attempt to have
Hildegard canonized.20
18 Marianna Schrader and Adelgundis Führkötter, Die Echtheit des Schrifttums der heiligen
Hildegard von Bingen (Cologne, 1956).
19 William T. Flynn, “‘The Soul is Symphonic’: Meditation on Luke 15:25 and Hildegard
of Bingen’s Letter 23,” in Music and Theology: Essays in Honor of Robin A. Leaver, ed. Daniel
Zager (Lanham, Md., 2007), pp. 1–8. See also Margot Fassler, “Hildegard’s Virtues—Angels
and Ideas—as found in Scivias and Some Related Musical Compositions,” in Unversehrt
und unverletzt. Hildegards Menschenbild und Kirchenverständnis heute, ed. Rainer Berndt
with Maura Zátonyi, Erudiri Sapientia, (Münster, forthcoming).
20 Anna Silvas, Jutta and Hildegard: The Biographical Sources (University Park, Penn.,
1998).