Origin of Fire [Import]

Hildegard of Bingen (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 8, 2005)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Harmonia Mundi Fr.
• ASIN: B0006OBW8E
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,676 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #36 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Featured Performers, A-Z > A to B
  • #82 in Music > Classical > Historical Periods > Early Music > Vocal & Song > General AAS
  • #83 in Music > Classical > Historical Periods > Early Music > General

Track Listings

1. Hymn - Veni Creator Spiritus

2. Sequence - Veni Spiritus Eternorum

3. Antiphon - O Quam Mirabilis Est

4. Vision 1 - The Fire Of Creation

5. Vision 1 - The Fire Of Creation

6. Sequence - O Ignis Spiritus Paracliti

7. Vision 2 - Wisdom And Her Sisters

8. Vision 2 - Wisdom And Her Sisters

9. Responsory - O Felix Anima

10. Vision 3 - The Fiery Spirit

11. Vision 3 - The Fiery Spirit

12. Hymn - O Ignee Spiritus

13. Vision 4 - Love

14. Vision 4 - Love

15. Antiphon - Caritas Habundat In Omnia

16. Antiphon - O Eterne Deus

17. Hymn - Beata Nobis Gaudia

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The bad news is that this is Anonymous 4's final recording. The good news is that it's one of their best. Aside from a pair of brief 9th-century chants that flank the main program, the disc focuses on the music of Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th-century Benedictine nun whose liturgical works broke new ground in their visionary texts, rich imagery, and melodic range. The selections here relate to themes associated with the Holy Spirit--the fire of creation, wisdom, the life-giving spirit, and love. The imagery of Hildegard's visionary texts is replete with references to the basic elements--air, earth, fire, and water. The results are boldly original, at least within the restricted confines of chant, which offer compelling listening experiences as performed in the lustrous tones of Anonymous 4. The program includes a pair of Hildegard's most-rhapsodic extended visionary pieces, the consoling "O spirit of fire, bringer of comfort," and "I am the great and fiery power," whose soaring opening musical lines still can shock. Harmonia Mundi, as usual, captures the purity of Anonymous 4's singing in vivid sonics and provides deluxe production values, including a profusely illustrated booklet, with full texts and translations. --Dan Davis

Interview with Marsha Genensky of Anonymous 4
Anonymous 4's Marsha Genensky speaks about the ensemble's swan song in our special interview.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Literary scholarship and musical prowess May 19, 2008

By Fabiano Seixas Fernandes

Format:Audio CD

At first, to be quite honest, this record did little for me: singing did not sound as enticing as in 11,000 Virgins, and there's very little music of Hildegard in it. Only 6 out of the 17 tracks have been set to music by her; opening and close hymns are not hers (neither text nor music), and Hildegard's visions (which make up most of the program) were set to music by A4, who borrowed recitation tones from different sources.
However, with A4, music is not the only factor to be taken into account. ORIGIN OF FIRE is primarily not a presentation of Hildegard's music, but of a specific aspect of her visions--this is why near half of the program is chanting: chanting is not all-the-way musical; it is first and foremost a form of recitation, i.e. of bringing a text to one's attention. The listener who really wants to enjoy this record needs to focus on liner notes and text as well. By the way, this record's liner notes are, as is always the case with A4, clear and comprehensive.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A good CD January 15, 2008

By Laqueus contritus est

Format:Audio CD

Let's start out with some limitations:
1. If you're looking for an excellent translation and commentary on these works of St. Hildegard, you ought not buy this album (the booklet is generally unhelpful, and the translations are absurd).
2. If you are looking for a huge collection of St. Hildegard's music, you ought to think about buying the 11,000 Virgins album before this one.

BUT,
Anonymous 4 is definitely my favorite interpreter of the Hildegard texts. They take very little liberty with the musical notation for Hildegard's music, almost interpreting it with Solesmes-like conservativism. This lets the melody speak for itself. Moreover, they don't fool around with musical instruments that would have been forbidden from the monasteries of her time.
In this CD, Anonymous does some original and amazing work, interpreting not only the music of St. Hildegard, but also trying to bring the texts from her visionary works to life. If you can read and hear Latin, this is going to be a real treat--just don't bother with the translations in the book! They do original settings of Invitatory reciting tones and lection tones (the ones used in the Divine Office) to sing the texts, such as they might be sung if they were included in the Office of Matins. This gives the CD a quasi-liturgical style which, of course, matches with the lifestyle that St. Hildegard would have lived.

St Hildegard, pray for me!

37 of 48 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars My humble opinion..... December 27, 2005

By Adrien Caldwell

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

I gave this CD an above average rating. I did so because this is the 3rd CD that I have purchased from Anonymous 4 and to be quite honest they all sound the same to me. I personally feel that the style of Hildegard is heavy, crisp, intentional and complicated. It is unique compared to other styles of anicent choral music. Anonymous 4 has a very light, airy almost contemporary feel to whatever they sing. In the CD insert Anonymous 4 goes on to express how they prepared to sing the medeival music in latin with a German accent because that is where Hildegard was from, and that this is how she would have sung her music. But honestly I don't think one can tell. Like I said, this is my third CD from them and they all sound the same. Don't get me wrong ladies. You 4 have gorgeous voices but I have found that the albums by Sequentia that sing in Hildegard's von Bingen tradition to be more authentic. I recommend to those interested to try Chanticles of Extasy by Sequentia or any of Sequentia's albums. You'll understand what I mean after you compare them for yourselves.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars exquisite sound December 18, 2007

By M. Walsh

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you want to be inspired (what a great word - receive the breath of life), then listen to this wonderful version of the music of Hildegard of Bingen, Germany's most amazing medieval woman. Her spiritual and musical gifts are unified on this c.d. It takes me right back to Eibingen, Germany, where her bones are laid to rest in the lovely village church, across the vineyards from the Abbey named in her honor.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous! August 28, 2009

By bookscdsdvdsandcoolstuff VINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

Hildegard von Bingen is, in this listeners estimation, a very important composer in the Western canon. Some will say that this is simply because she put her name to work when so many contemporaries simply signed their work "anonymous." Others will say it simply because she is one of the few women composers of merit that we have discovered, and therefore we exaggerate her importance out of some misplaced political correctness. I reject both these charges sometimes levied against her. I think her work is lasting for more reasons than this. Most scholars admit her importance, include her work in the canon, and she is taught in most University history of music classes.

First, it is important to remember that Hildegard was (and is) thoroughly Catholic. Her legacy sometimes gets usurped by those with other agendas. Hildegard was sent to the convent to get her education and to become a nun, given by her parents as a tithe.

As a young child she was sickly and had religious visions and episodes. The old Catholic encyclopedia refers to her as a "seeress and prophetess" and both descriptions seem apt. It is perhaps because of her visions that her parents gave her as a tithe.

Hildegard it would seem took to the cloister like a fish to water. She was blessed with a great intellect. She was also long lived. In her time she wrote books on herbalism, painted sacred art, composed beautiful music, and wrote down her mystic visions. Some scholars have made the argument she was a polymath. She corresponded with Popes and even acted as a diplomat. She was a learned and holy woman who had power and influence in the Church, a matriarch who was venerated as a saint even shortly after her death.... Her first biography was undertaken by contemporary monks, and that should communicate her importance at her time.

Some secularist scholars have posited the idea that she suffered from migraine headaches; that these account for her symptoms before having visions, and the visions themselves. Wether or not this is the case, the visions did occur, and this recording is entitled "Music and Visions" as a result. I see no reason to doubt their divine origin, and will take Hildegard's word at face value. The miraculous does occur, and the music on this disc I think is evidence.

Hildegard is one of my favorite characters from music history. Chronologically she seems to pop up right after Guido of Arezzo (the inventor of sol-fege and the staff who lived around 1000 AD). Hildegard lived around 1150 and used Guido's system of notation to great avail. Her works are lyrical, beautiful, sacred, and compelling.

I have been a fan of Anonymous 4 since undergraduate school when I had the good fortune to hear them live in a big stone Church. When one considers that it is most likely Hildegard's work was sung by her nuns in the cloister, this recording takes on an authenticity which is very appropriate. As I have a digital copy, I do not have the liner notes, but the recording certainly sounds like it was made in a sacred space (or a big stone room appropriately shaped). I do not think they can get that sort of sound by artificial means. It is a clean recording. The singing is perfect and, as always, perfectly in tune. One feels transported to an incense filled chapel in the 11th century, where priests gave a liturgy in Latin facing east with holy relics under the altar stone, and incense filling the sacred space. Perhaps there was a rood screen carved by a master craftsman separating the sanctuary from those in the chapel, who could hear but barely see the nuns behind the grate singing gorgeous chants very much like this. The smoke from the candles and smell of the incense which is cut by rays of light shining through the stained glass. I can almost HEAR all of this in this recording. It makes me yearn for Church when Church was Church, before the rise of the banal, the folk guitars, and the modernism.

Of course, most of the music on this disc would not have been included in the liturgy. Some of it is Hildegard's visions set to music by Anonymous 4 themselves, and thus is as new as this recording itself. Still, the evocative nature of the recordings, and the authenticity there, remain. To be able to make a beautiful, creative, and new recording of music that is close to 1000 years old is a feat indeed. And the theme of pentecost tying the whole record together is brilliant. One can feel the devotion to the Holy Spirit. I do not know if these performers are believers at all but, for this believer, the work is highly evocative.

Truly a gorgeous record. Highly recommended. Read more ›