- Date: ca. 1140 -1179
- Composer: Hildegard of Bingen
- Period: Medieval (1-1449)
Review
Hildegard of Bingen always maintained a poetic balance in her life and work between the mystical potencies of God and the very real manifestations of His power in the lives of His people. Her earliest writings were depictions of a series of mystical visions God gave her for her understanding of His very real work in the world. Her most accomplished piece of writing, the mystery play known as the Ordo Virtutum, treats of the interactions of God's Spirit (combined in the personae of the virtues) and the poor tempted soul of an earthly human. Hildegard also explored these topics in her shorter liturgical works. Thus, even music ostensibly dedicated to the Divine Trinity such as O eterne Deus can manifest deep concern for God's people on earth; the commmunion between God and the people is the central feature of this lovely antiphon.Hildegard composed several pieces of poetry and music expressely for the direct worship of the Trinitarian God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The manuscript sources for these pieces afford them the honor of gathering them first in the collections of Hildegard's music. And though O eterne Deus may be foregrounded in Hildegard's compositional life as a chant to the "everlasting God," it also deserves respect for its interest in the human members of God's church. The Latin text (which we can presumably attribute to Hildegard herself) asks God to shine His love on His people for the express purpose of making them into the people "created in His love"; this act will also allow God to understand the earthly troubles we face. The final lines of text ask God to remove our "needs" for the sake of Jesus so that those singing the prayer may be guided closer to salvation. Hildegard's text thus constantly moves between the divine spheres and the ranks of human interaction. The music she writes to set this text also vibrates between the upper and lower melodic spheres in a series of carefully crafted melodic arches; each phrase either occupies the Phrygian fifth E-B, the octave E-E', or moves just beyond the octave E-G'. Almost every one not only inhabits these powerful harmonic intervals, but also cadences with solemnity on the modal tonic. One phrase in the middle, however, deviates from the pattern and emphasizes the difficult tritone interval: it happens to be setting the text about human difficulties. ~ All Music Guide
