From: All Things Are Set Ablaze
$50.00
From: All Things Are Set Ablaze is an excerpt of a more extended work. The text is by Hildegard von Bingen, compiled and annotated by Joel Phillip Friedman, and based upon translations by Nathaniel Campbell and Barbara Newman. It is scored for vocal trio (soprano, soprano, & mezzo–soprano & hand percussion).
Description
We pick up the piece at its mid-point:
I imagine a modern Hildegard von Bingen, rising up and returning to tell us “you have lost your way and face destruction, listen to me now… or face the consequences.” She warns, in her own words: “All Things Are Set Ablaze… From Me!” My invented Hildegard is a mixture of the real and prescient woman of many enormous talents and startling visions, Wagner’s Valkyrie warrior Brünnhilde, the future prophesying Oracle of Delphi, and perhaps even a badass Wonder Woman. Most of the words I set are Hildegard’s own, in English translations by Medieval Latin scholars Nathaniel Campbell and Barbara Newman. If Hildegard’s writings initially had…a slightly different context… they do speak with potent currency today. I have added some non-Hildegard text: short cautionary Latin fragments (e.g. “Monitum… Praedictum… Ignifer… Audi me” – “A warning… Foretelling…Fire-bearing… Listen to me!”), as well as, fittingly, a single line from Wagner’s opera Die Walküre – the famous Valkyrie war cry (“Hojotoho! hojotoho! heiaha! Heiaha!”). If Hildegard were to return today I imagine she would identify with Brünnhilde and join her singing those spirited words! You will hear All Things Are Set Ablaze starting at its middle, slower section. As the piece’s opening music returns at the end, you will hear a portion of it. The work has been trimmed to be proportional with the rest of the program. For more info about this work click here.
Materials (score & parts) are available as downloadable PDFs files.
