This is Hildegard at her most poetic in an ode to Saint Maximinus, Bishop of Trier, whose feast day is coming up on May 29th. I’m really looking forward to revisiting it 🙂
The dove looked in through the lattices of the windows, where, before it, a balm exuded from the incandescent Maximinus. The heat of the sun burned, dazzling in the gloom, whence a jewel sprang forth in the building of the temple of the purest loving heart. This high tower, constructed of Lebanese wood and cypress, has been adorned with jacinth and diamonds, a city excelling the crafts of other builders. The swift deer ran to the fountain of clearest water flowing from the most powerful stone, irrigating sweet perfume. O you, who deal in paints and unguents, in the sweetest greenness of the gardens of the King, ascending on high when the holy sacrifice of the rams is complete. This artist shines among you, the wall of the temple, who longed for the wings of an eagle, kissing the wisdom that nourished him in the glorious fecundity of the Church.
O Maximinus, you are the mountain and the valley and in both a high building appears where the goat went with the elephant and wisdom was in rapture. You are strong and beautiful in ceremony, and in the shining of the altar, mounting like the smoke of perfumes to the column of praise. Where you intercede for the people who stretch towards the mirror of light to whom there is praise on high.
o felix apparicio cum in amico dei ruperto flama vite choruscavit ita quod caritas dei in corde eius fluxit timorem domini amplectens unde etiam agitio eius in supernis civibus floruit.
I have rerecorded this one with a new ending – following the Riesencodex. Many thanks to Els Janssens-Vanmunster for her advice 🙂
o felix apparicio cum in amico dei ruperto flama vite choruscavit ita quod caritas dei in corde eius fluxit timorem domini amplectens unde etiam agitio eius in supernis civibus floruit.
This one has a problematic ending. I have opted here for the version published by Beuroner Kunstverlag in their reference work of all Hildegard’s songs. However, neither the Riesencodex nor the Dendermonde manuscript actually ends like this. Both are different, and neither ends on E.
And if any Hildegard specialist out there can tell me what the symbol is that I’ve circled here on the Dendermonde manuscript, I’d be very grateful! Although it looks a bit like the symbol used for a flat, it’s clearly not that…
o felix apparicio cum in amico dei ruperto flama vite choruscavit ita quod caritas dei in corde eius fluxit timorem domini amplectens unde etiam agitio eius in supernis civibus floruit.
Didn’t expect this one to involve a cello riff – it kind of took on a life of its own 🙂
o clarissima – with cello groove
o clarissima mater sancta medicine tu ungenta per sanctum filium tuum infudisti in plangentia vulnera mortis que eva edificavit in tormenta animarum tu destruxisit mortem edificando vitam
