A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hearing the heavenly symphony 185
Several theories exist about the origin and role of the music drama in
the liturgical life of Hildegard’s community. Peter Dronke proposed that it
was performed at the Rupertsberg dedication on May 1, 1152.68 He points
out that the drama requires 17 solo parts, a smaller group of lost souls,
and one person to play the Devil (a spoken role): a cast well suited to
Hildegard’s convent, with its 20 nuns of noble birth and the secretary and
provost Volmar in residence. Pamela Sheingorn argues that the drama—
a celebration of virginity—was composed for the consecration of nuns;
she notes textual parallels between it and the consecration ceremony
found in the Mainz pontifijical.69 Gunilla Iversen identifijies possible autobiographical
features present in the drama, with special attention paid to
Hildegard’s loss of her favorite nun, Richardis von Stade.70 Stefan Morent
suggests that it is naive to think that the Ordo was performed only once
or that it required Volmar or other men; he believes the music drama was
integral to monastic life, relating theologically to Hildegard’s cosmology.71
Fassler underscores the drama’s Eucharistic themes and proposes that it
was performed regularly, perhaps even once a month, as an exercise to
prepare the community for the reception of communion.72
In any case, the idea that the Ordo was a mere intellectual exercise on
Hildegard’s part has been roundly rejected, and numerous performances
with various types of staging have been offfered to enthusiastic audiences.
Dronke’s envisioning of the drama (1986), for example, has the Virtues on
a raised sedes, with the Devil at the foot of its steps. In the prologue, the
chorus of Prophets and Patriarchs walk up the steps, marveling at the Virtues
as they sing. Scholars and performers have noted parallels between
these characters and the fijigures in the illuminated manuscript of Scivias
from Hildegard’s convent; these paintings continue to influence costumes
and staging. In her famous letter in response to Tenxwind of Andernach,
Hildegard defended her nuns’ custom of wearing their hair loosened when
processing as brides of Christ, responding to an attack mentioning their
68 See, most recently, Dronke, Introduction to Ordo, p. 487.
69 Pamela Sheingorn, “The Virtues of Hildegard’s Ordo Virtutum; or, It Was a Woman’s
World,” in The Ordo Virtutum of Hildegard of Bingen: Critical Studies, ed. Audrey Ekdahl
Davidson (Kalamazoo, 1992), pp. 43–62.
70 Gunilla Iversen, “Réaliser une vision: La dernière vision de Scivias et le drame Ordo
virtutum de Hildegarde de Bingen,” Revue de Musicologie 86 (2000): 37–63.
71 Stefan Morent, “Ordo virtutum. Vom Spiel der Kräfte,” in Klang des Himmels, pp. 214–
52, esp. 214–18.
72 Fassler, “Music for the Love Feast,” pp. 92–117; and “The Female Voice: Hildegard of
Bingen and the Song of Songs,” in Scrolls of Love: Ruth and the Song of Songs, eds. Peter S.
Hawkins and Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg (New York, 2006), pp. 255–67.