Fiery spirit praise be to you who works through drums and psalteries.
Human minds blaze through you and the tabernacle of their souls contains their powers.
From where the will ascends and gives taste to the soul and desire is its light.
Intellect calls you with the sweetest voice and prepares rationally made dwellings for you which exude golden works.
Yet you always have a sword to cut away what the noxious apple offers through blackest murder.
When a mist covers will and desires in which the soul flies and circles aimlessly.
But the mind ties will and desire together.
Indeed when the spirit rouses itself because the evil eye and the jaws of villainy demand it you quickly consume it in your flame when you so wish.
But when rationality too through wicked deeds prostrates itself you bind it tight and break it when you wish to and restore it by the influx of experience.
And when wickedness draws its sword against you you plunge it back into its heart as you did with the first fallen angel when you flung the tower of his pride into hell.
And there you built another tower raised from publicans and sinners who confess to you their sins and their deeds.
So all creatures that have life through you praise you for you are the most precious ointment for broken and fetid wounds which you change into the most precious gems.
Now allow us all to gather in you and guide us on the path of righteousness.
I wrote this piece with the people of Ukraine in my heart. It is an anthem that honours the life and courage of those whose blood is spilt, whose lives are ruined. You are my grandfather, my father, mother, son.
I have revisited Hildegard’s original chant (see my previous post) and added new music inspired both by the chant and by Hildegard’s lingua ignota – a language that she invented to reinvigorate the words that were important in her world.
o red blood, that flowed down from that height which divinity touched: you are the flower that the winter of the serpent’s breath never withered
The next chant in this series is dedicated to all those suffering in Ukraine as a result of this bloody war. My grandmother was born in Zhytomyr and my heart is with all those who have lost loved ones and whose world has been turned upside.
Back in the twelfth century, Hildegard wrote this chant in memory of Saint Ursula. To me, the text is all too relevant for today’s events: “the winter of the serpent’s breath” is a pretty good way of describing it. And there is a message of comfort – you are the flower that will never wither.
As I work on a new revisiting for Project Hildegard, the people of Ukraine are very much in my thoughts. I share a previous piece from this project here, as it seems to me to be very appropriate:
o rex noster – the clouds weep
Our king is prompt to receive the blood of the innocents of whom the angels sing and make sound in praise but the clouds weep for the same blood. The tyrant however is suffocated by his own malice in the heavy sleep of death. But the clouds weep for the same blood. Glory be to the father and to the son and to the holy ghost. But the clouds weep for the same blood.
The text of this interesting antiphon includes five of Hildegard’s own made-up words from her Lingua Ignota. For my setting I have included a further nine of her words: curizan [jewelry settings], gragischon [bracelet], naczuon [necklace], naurizin [ring], oiralbruin [earrings], crizia [church], loiffol [people], scurinz [flame] and orschibuz [oak tree].
o orzchis [vast] Church, shielded with divine might and adorned with jacinth [curizan, naczuon, naurizin, gragischon, oiralbruin]: you are caldemia [the scent] of the stigmata of the loifolum [peoples] and a city of knowledge [crizia, orschibuz, loiffol, scurinz]. O, o, you are indeed crizanta [anointed] in the lofty sound; you are a chorzta [shining] jewel.
