How a 12th Century Polymath Nun Shapes the Modern Music Scene 🎵 🎧

Hildegard von Bingen is still going strong, 900 years after her time.

If you are into some of the things that I am into, then you might have had the YouTube algorithm recommend to you one channel in particular: Hildegard von Blingin’. With their aesthetically intriguing thumbnails that consistently juxtapose medieval illustrations with the names of trending pop songs, they stand out from the flood of video thumbnails for sure. Naturally, I had to click on one, and I have not gone back since.

The concept of this YouTube phenomenon, which gives birth to videos that rake in serious views — some were over 7 million views last time I checked — is simple, yet perfect. It belongs to the growing genre of Bardcore. In essence, the creator covers songs we all know and love, transforming them into a distinctive medieval style, complete with the appropriate historic instrumentation and creative lyric adaptation. As an example, here is a snippet from one of my favorites, “Jolene” by Dolly Parton:

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

I beg of thee, pray take not my lord

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

I fear, from thee, ‘twould take naught but a word

Although the Hildegard von Blingin’ channel does not have nearly as much content as I am willing to consume from them, with eleven uploads at the moment, it has carried many of us through the pandemic since its conception in May of 2020 with a cover of “What is Love” by Cornelius Link.

What is love? Lady thou woundest,

thou woundest, mine heart.

I know not what can granted be,

for doth not my freedom rest with thee?

What shall remain if we are twain?

Alack, I beseech.

There you go, that was another little excerpt from Bardcore for you. I appreciate that attention is paid to adapting the lyrics as well, instead of just the music.

Apart from that one channel, #Bardcore has grown massively on YouTube. There are covers popping up everywhere. All corners of the modern music scene — from Usher, to Billie’s Bad Guy, to the Macarena — are presented by this deliciously inventive community of creators.

“Where is the 12th century nun that I was promised in the title of this article?” you might be asking me right about now. All of this excitement around Bardcore just goes to show how much of an impact medieval music still has in our modern tastes. And although the theme of covering pop songs might be attractive now purely because of its novelty, one particular medieval composer’s music had already been appreciated in the modern world quite a bit before the pandemic hit.

Hildegard von Bingen (yes, unfortunately not Blingin’) was a German woman of many talents, whose music was rediscovered in 1979, when the New London Consort had what might have been the first English performance of her songs. Some time after, in 1982, an album of her music — titled “A Feather On The Breath Of God” was released by Hyperion Records. It went on to win the Early-Medieval Gramophone Award of that year, and excited the imagination of many listeners through the distinct sensuality and passion that Hildegard had imbued in her work.

She was seen to possess the spirit and intellectual curiosity of a Renaissance person 300 years before the Renaissance — and a woman at that! — due to her extensive multi-disciplinary efforts in her life as an abbess, artist, author, composer, mystic, pharmacist, poet, preacher, and theologian. She even inspired Grimes to lock herself in a dark room for three weeks to compose her 2012 album “Visions”.

Oh, and if all of that was not enough, she has also become a sort of unoffficial patron saint of beer, as she wrote the earliest surviving writings on the use of hops in beer.

Copyright: Sean Fenzl

Hildegard von Bingen’s popularity has not diminished despite the seeming discrepancy between modern music tastes and those of medieval abbesses. There are new interpretations of her musical output being created constantly.

One striking product of the 21st century’s interest in Hildegard has been
Anna-Maria Hefele’s “Canticles of Now”. The technological capabilities of the modern world are worked artfully into the fabric of the original compositions. On top of this, there are the additional improvisations scattered within the performance, involving field recordings from the streets of Palermo.

Of course, there is also Richard Souther’s 1994 album “Vision/The Music of Hildegard von Bingen” which presents a pretty, albeit less creative, interpretation. Luckily, more recent albums have made up for Souther’s lack of innovation ten-fold. Beside Hefele’s modern production, there is the impressively ambitious “Hildegurls: Electric Ordo Virtutum” from 2009, which repackaged the composer’s famous play, Ordo Virtutum, through electronic sonorities, rock rhythms, and incantatory drones.

The angle taken by “Hildegard” (2012) seems to bring together liturgical chants and New Age meditative music. The electronic sounds and percussion are used in surprising ways. It is perhaps best suited for a contemplative moment or as a soundtrack to prayer.

As you can see by now, Hildegard lends itself easily to a variety of creative interpretations, and there is a reason for that. Her music offers incredible flexibility because there are no musical markings relating to rhythm, tempo, or dynamics. The single monophonic lines put forth a strong musical foundation without the trappings of the characterizing elements, which are therefore decided on by each individual ensemble.

In this case, it is safe to say less is more, as the dearth of markings easily transcends the style of a single age, therefore allowing artists to create relevant, aesthetic art 900 years after the fact.

If you have some spare time on your hands in this second COVID-19 summer, you would be doing yourself a favor by checking out Hildegard’s music. She is also, in a sense, a pandemic icon. She was cloistered for the majority of her life, meaning that she did not leave the walls of her convent and did not have direct contact with the outside world for many years. In addition to this lockdown resemblance, she also suffered from severe migraines, which are said to have been the cause for the visions that provided her with her endless musical inspiration. I am sure that there are those of us who can relate to her isolation from the world and her struggles with headaches, though perhaps less so her musical genius.