A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hildegard as musical hagiographer 205
It is the saint’s preparatory work that is celebrated in the repetendum:
Tu gloriosa in preparatione Dei.23 Hildegard set the repetendum as a joyous
melody with an extensive melisma of over 50 notes on the penultimate
syllable “o” of preparatione. Three times as long as the chant’s opening
melisma, the preparatione melisma emphasizes the chant’s highest note (g)
through repetition of the note itself and the melisma’s entire opening arc
(the rise to g and subsequent descent to G, bracketed in Example 2 as
A). This internal repetition not only highlights the word preparatione but
also echoes the earlier word plantationem, whose penultimate syllable “o”
descended in a like manner from e to G, after peaking on g (indicated in
Example 2 as A’). As the repetendum would have been chanted at least
twice, its repetitive preparatione melisma would have been the most
memorable part of the performance. Hildegard clearly wanted to emphasize
the preparatory work of St Disibod.
Like every good confessor, Disibod would have prepared for the Lord’s
coming with “loins girt and lamps burning” (Lk. 12:35–6).24 These verses
from Luke may have opened the Gospel reading for Disibod’s feast at the
Disibodenberg and Rupertsberg (as indicated in Engelberg 103, fol. 71r),
and related chants were likely sung as well (as in the Common of Confessors
in Engelberg 103, fol. 162r).25 But Hildegard’s line also brings to mind
the preparatory themes in Isaiah 40:3 (“prepare ye the way of the Lord”)
and in Ephesians 6:15 (“and your feet shod with the preparation of the
gospel of peace”).26 Like the wilderness prophet and precursor of Christ,
John the Baptist, and like the Christian who has “put on the armor of
God,” Disibod strengthened himself and his followers to stand fijirm—like
23 “You [are] glorious in the preparation of God.” In its epistolary context, the text
includes the “are” (es), while in its notated context as liturgical chant, it does not.
24 Biblia Sacra Vulgata: “sint lumbi vestri praecincti et lucernae ardentes et vos similes
hominibus expectantibus dominum suum quando revertatur a nuptiis ut cum venerit et
pulsaverit confestim aperiant ei beati servi illi quos cum venerit dominus invenerit vigilantes.”
Douay-Rheims translation, The Holy Bible (American Edition, 1899): “Let your loins be
girt, and lamps burning in your hands. And you yourselves like to men who wait for their
lord, when he shall return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they
may open to him immediately.”
25 E.g., the canticle antiphon: “Beatus ille seruus cum uenerit dominus eius et pulsauerit
ianuam et inuenerit eum uigilantem.” And the responsory for major feasts: “Sint lumbi
uestri precincti et lucerne ardentes in manibus uestris et uos similes hominibus expectantibus
dominum suum quando reuertatur a nuptiis. (Verse) Uigilate ergo quia nescitis qua
hora dominus uester uenturus sit.”
26 Is. 40:3, “parate viam Domini”; Eph. 6:15, “et calciati pedes in praeparatione evangelii
pacis,” Vulgate.