Hildegard of Bingen: A feather on the breath of God (LP)

Listen: there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honour. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air bore it along. Thus am I 'A feather on the breath of God'.

That is how one of the most remarkable creative personalities of the Middle Ages describes herself. This recording draws upon Hildegard's large collection of music and poetry, the Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum--'The Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations'--which she continued to enlarge and enrich throughout her life. It contains some of the finest songs ever written in the Middle Ages, and a number of the most elaborate, the Sequences, are recorded here for the first time and is now available on vinyl.