Hildegard von Bingen

1098 - 1179

It is interesting to note that for much of the early modern era and onwards, women composers were pushed into the background. Music was an intellectual and artistic pursuit for men.

Yet from the arrival of written music through to the early middle ages we see women taking a far more prominent role in the creation of music. We have already met the Troubadour Beatriz de Dia, The writer of songs Barbara Strozzi and we will encounter in due course, the Byzantine composer Kassia.

Today though we walk with another giant of mediaeval composition, Hildegard of Bingen. An Abbess who spent virtually her entire life in her abbey she is venerated as a saint and as well as composing music was a renowned poet and scholar. The catholic church recognises her as a saint.

For centuries her work went unrecognised only being brought to prominence in the late 1970s through the work of Philip Pickett and his New London Consort.

Here is one of her more intensely spiritual works, the Canticles Of Ecstasy: