By Robert Baxter
CourierPostOnline.com
15-Jun-2008

The coarsening of our culture has been accompanied by a search for spiritual renewal. Nothing shows that better than the popularity of the ethereal music of Hildegard von Bingen, the abbess who composed a collection of choral music in the 12th century.

Naxos provides a handsome introduction to Hildegard's pure choral music with "Celestial Harmonies," a collection of responsories and antiphons from a collection of her music called "Symphoniae armonie celestium revelationum" ("Symphony of the Harmony of Heavenly Revelations"). The disc features eight works performed by the Oxford Camerata under Jeremy Summerly (8.557983 ).

By David Vernier
ClassicsToday.com
01-Jun-2008

We remember Hildegard if nothing else for her 1980s "revival", or perhaps from Anonymous 4's hit 1997 recording featuring "Chants for the Feast of St. Ursula" (with the provocative title 11,000 Virgins). Her writings, her prophecies and visions, her poetry and music, and her founding and nearly 30-year leadership of the convent at Rupertsberg established Hildegard as one of the more remarkable and influential figures of her time; the question today is how to best present her music--long sequences of unison chant--which of course was intended for worship and prayer, not for "performance". Some have answered that question by arranging the melodies--for string quartet (Kronos Quartet), brass ensemble (Empire Brass), solo voice and cello (Matt Haimovitz, Eileen Clark)--or even "reworking" them with added percussion, whistles, electronic sounds, and cellos (Richard Souther).

Some performers seek authenticity by employing only female voices, but there is good evidence that her music also would have been sung during her lifetime by men. So this program, its selections taken from Hildegard's collection of 77 "poetical-musical" works known as Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum (Symphony of the harmony of celestial revelations) and presented in their original, unadulterated form (no whistles, cellos, or tubas!), takes a very sensible and listener-friendly route: the eight responsories and antiphons alternate between one group of four women and one of four men. The contrast of timbres from track to track is a nice effect, and thanks to some very well-matched and impressively well-practiced voices, the inflections, phrasing, and even the smallest nuances of textual emphasis achieve the desired uniformity while retaining the interesting tonal character of four combined voices. (We shouldn't be surprised at the high level of technical and musical accomplishment demonstrated here--a glance at the list of singers reveals several of Britain's finest, most experienced and versatile choral musicians.)

Oxford's Chapel of Hertford College proves to be an ideal venue for this pure, unadorned, unaccompanied vocal music, and Jeremy Summerly's short but informative notes provide just enough details to give listeners new to this music a start in understanding the mystique of this fascinating and uniquely gifted celebrity from the 12th-century--a true Renaissance woman long before the Renaissance was invented.

By Geoff Brown
The Times
09-May-2008

Not sure what Hildegard would have thought of CDs, but I hope the 12th-century abbess would have enjoyed these responsories and antiphons, in a resonant accoustic ideal for this sensuous music and Jeremy Summerly's unaccompanied choir (trimmed to eight voices). For tingling excitement, nothing matches the sopranos' crazy leaps toward Heaven in the epic O cohors milittiae. Thoughtful performances.

By David Denton
01-May-2008

When the music of Hildegard von Bingen was rediscovered twenty-five years ago, she was marketed as a nun living her life locked away from the outside world.

Yet she was immensely gifted in the art of music, creating this collection known as the Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum. Now we have come to realise that she came from an aristocratic family and for much of the time she was an Abbess who surrounded herself with women from a similar background, the group living a peaceful life of relative luxury. Her collection was made from 77 songs and one music drama, and again with greater exposure we are learning that she wrote in a very styalised fashion. Put all of that behind us and this disc continues to weave its magic spell of ethereal repose. Eight works have been selected that offer a limited difference of mood, and are here performed by eight members of the Oxford Camerata, my long-standing favourite vocal group in the field of Early Music. As we progress through the programme they make us aware that any one of them could make a major solo career, that innate freshness in their voices being a joy to hear. They are directed by Jeremy Summerly, one of the UK’s leading authorities in this period of composition, and he returns the group to their favourite recording venue in the Chapel of Hertford College, Oxford, the choral sound there ideal for the music.