Hildegard von Bingen, 12th century "New Ager"

Synopsis

On today’s date in the year 1179, in the German convent of Ruppertsberg near Bingen, an 81-year-old abbess named Hildegard breathed her last. The 12th century was a time of great accomplishments in art, religion, and human thought, a kind of medieval Renaissance, and Hildegard of Bingen was one of the most remarkable women of that remarkable time.

And she recorded the precise moment it happened: “When I was 42 years and seven months old,” she writes, “a burning light of tremendous brightness coming from heaven poured into my entire mind, like a flame that does not burn but enkindles. All at once I was able to taste of the understanding the Psalter, the Evangelists, and the Books of the Old and New Testaments.”

Hildegard expressed her new awareness in music and is one of the earliest Western composers we know by name. She left a large body of highly original music. Largely forgotten for centuries by all but medieval specialists, in the late 20th century some recordings of Hildegard’s music sparked renewed interest, and her very old music seemed destined to resonate in a very new age.

Music Played in Today's Program

Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179) instrumental piece Sequentia BMG/Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 77353

Benedicamus Domino Anonymous 4 Harmonia Mundi 907200

On This Day

Births

• 1795 - Baptismal date of Italian opera composer Saverio Mercadante, in Altamura, near Bari;

• 1884 - American composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes, in Elmira, New York;

• 1917 - Korean-born German composer Isang Yun, in Tong Young (now Chung Mu);

Deaths

• 1179 - German mystic, writer and composer Hildegard von Bingen, age c. 81, in Rupertsburg (near Bingen);

• 1762 - Italian violinist and composer Francesco Geminiani, age 74, in Dublin;

• 1803 - Austrian composer Franz Xaver Sussmayr, who studied with Salieri and Mozart; Sussmayr completed Mozart's unfinished "Requiem";

Premieres

• 1872 - American premiere of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" at a Central Park concert given by the Theodore Thomas orchestra;

• 1931 - Delius: "A Song of Summer," in London;

• 1957 - Cowell: "Persian Set," at the Gulestan Palace in Tehran, Iran, by the Minneapolis Symphony, Antal Dorati conducting;

• 1982 - Steve Reich: "Tehillim" (orchestral version), by New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta;

Others

• 1966 - German tenor Fritz Wunderlich dies, age 35, from a fall in his home in Heidelberg.