A distant precursor of Diderot and the creators of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Herrad of Landsberg, abbess of the monastery of Mont Sainte-Odile at Hohenburg on the banks of the Rhine, compiled between 1159 and 1175 an encyclopaedia covering every aspect of human knowledge: the Hortus deliciarum or ‘garden of delights’. Amid sacred history, mythology, geography and much else, she gave prominence to music, thus making this superbly illuminated volume an essential source for the new tendencies that were beginning to emerge in the sacred chant of her time, the fertile twelfth century which witnessed the birth of both polyphony and liturgical drama, and which was also rich in forceful feminine personalities like Herrad hrself – women such as Heloise and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Or such as that other celebrated abbess, Hildegard of Bingen, the author of indescribably beautiful poems and melodies which still speak to us across the centuries. This richly varied programme built around these two exceptional women, Hildegard and Herrad, alongside excerpts from their own manuscripts, also offers a selection of repertories that they very probably knew, to form a new ‘garden of delights’, tended by an Ensemble Discantus in more inspired form than ever with their skilful blend of female vocal timbres.
