Hildegard von Bingen has become a ‘tabula rasa’ on which
today’s musicians can project their ideas and interpretations,
nudging us ever further into realms of personal adaptation with regard
to sound and performance content. This is, I hasten to add, not a
complaint. The last thing we want is the rarified world of ancient
musical memory being preserved in amber, but compare the 1981 Hyperion/Gothic
Voices hit Feather on the Breath of God (see review)
with the Decca Sinfonye/Stevie Wishart Hildegard (see review) from 2012 and ask yourself which one is getting
old the quickest.
This VocaMe frequently falls deeper into the ‘personal adaptation’
camp through the leadership of Michael Popp, who we have come across
before as part of the Estampie ensemble (see review), and who has had a long career in early music. He outlines
the path towards this recording in the booklet, the results arising
from the inspiring nature of the melodies and seeking to create a
recording which would be itself “a source of inspiration and
creativity.”
Beautifully sung and emerging from a halo of sweet resonance, the
vocal music is given contrast through the accompaniment of various
drones and other medieval sounding instruments. Added harmonies are
subtly interpolated, and while for instance the descending lines which
appear in the midst of the second half of O ignis Spiritus,
the hint of Eastern promise given to O spectabilis viri or
the close-harmony outings in Aer enim volat are all part of
21st century re-composition, the whole thing retains its
ancient character reasonably well. There is something of a tendency
towards ‘new age’-ness in the feel of the arrangements
and the way they have been recorded, but this is more in the engaging
ECM sense rather than anything vapid and lazy. This isn’t the
kind of disc which has masses of highlights, and you can experience
it as very pleasant in its entirety. I particularly like the atmospheric
instrumental ‘waves’ of O spectabilis viri and
the vocal arrangement of Tu rubes ut aurora.
The texts for each track are given in Latin, German and English in
the booklet, and the presentation is a very nicely made gatefold with
everything firmly attached and nothing tearing or falling out onto
the floor as soon as you open it. For Hi-Fi buffs, the final track,
a second version of the Studium Divinitatis, was made using
a ‘dummy head’ binaural recording technique which we are
advised to hear through headphones. I listen to most things through
headphones, and while the voices are spread differently with a greater
‘surround’ effect, the result is nice but not staggeringly
different to the rest of the disc. The girls all walk past the ‘Kunstkopf’
and retreat to somewhere else in the church for a further moment of
acoustic fun, though including giggles as a finale is never a good
idea.
Dominy Clements
