ECM New Series: Hildegard von Bingen — Ordo Virtutum, Ensemble Belcanto / Dietburg Spohr Audio CD

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Product Details:

• Product Type: Audio CD
• Brand / Label: ECM New Series
• Composer: Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179)
• Director: Dietburg Spohr (mezzo-soprano)
• Ensemble: Ensemble Belcanto
• Release Year: 2013
• Genre: Classical, Medieval Sacred Music
• Style: Medieval Music Drama, Plainchant, Liturgical
• Catalog Number: ECM 2219 / 476 4633
• UPC: 028947646334
• Condition: Factory Sealed

Product Features

• Format: CD
• Discs: 1
• Packaging: Digipak (cardboard sleeve), factory shrink-wrapped
• Printed in Germany (LC 02516)

Cast

• Andréa Baader — Sopran
• Edith Murasov — Mezzosopran
• Rica Rauch — Alt
• Martina Scharstein — Sopran
• Dietburg Spohr — Mezzosopran
• Benjamin Cromme — Sprechstimme
• Lilith Reid — Sprechstimme
• Selina Drews — Mädchensopran (girl soprano)

Overview

The Ordo Virtutum ("Play of the Virtues") is the oldest surviving morality play set to music — composed by Hildegard von Bingen in the 12th century and unique in the medieval repertoire for being both a drama and a complete musical work. Its subject is the struggle for a human soul between the Virtues (voiced by women) and the Devil (spoken, not sung — the one voice in the work that cannot access the divine register of melody). The Ensemble Belcanto under Dietburg Spohr brings this rare work to disc for ECM New Series in 2013, in a performance of focused, unadorned intensity that suits both the label's aesthetic and the music's demands.

ECM New Series has been the most consistently rewarding label for this repertoire since the 1990s, and the production values here are exactly what you expect: clean acoustic, close-recorded voices, no unnecessary reverb, and a detailed booklet. Dietburg Spohr — herself a mezzo-soprano who takes a singing role in the performance — leads an ensemble of six voices plus two spoken roles, keeping the forces small and the texture transparent.

The Ordo Virtutum is not easy listening in the conventional sense, but it is genuinely moving once you settle into its world. For collectors of medieval music, ECM releases, and plainchant-influenced sacred vocal music, this is an important and beautifully produced disc.

Interesting Facts

• Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179) was a German Benedictine abbess, visionary, composer, theologian, and healer — one of the most remarkably documented figures of the Middle Ages, and the only medieval composer whose biography is known in significant detail.
• The Ordo Virtutum is believed to have been composed around 1151 for the consecration of the new church at Hildegard's convent at Rupertsberg; it is the earliest surviving example of a musical morality play.
• In the work, only the Devil speaks rather than sings — a deliberate theological point: the Devil, having fallen from divine harmony, has lost the ability to sing. All other characters, including the struggling Soul, use Hildegard's characteristic melismatic plainchant.
• Hildegard's music was largely unknown outside specialist circles until the 1980s; a wave of recordings and popular interest in the early music revival brought her to wider attention and made her one of the best-selling medieval composers on disc.
• ECM New Series, the classical imprint of ECM Records founded by Manfred Eicher, has built a catalogue particularly strong in early music alongside contemporary classical works; its recordings of Hildegard, Arvo Pärt, and Kurtág have become catalogue landmarks.
• Dietburg Spohr is a German mezzo-soprano and director who has focused specifically on medieval and early music performance with female-voice ensembles; her work with Ensemble Belcanto has produced a series of recordings notable for their directness and lack of scholarly hedging.

Publishers

℗ & © 2013 ECM Records GmbH, München. An ECM Production. Printed in Germany. LC 02516.

Heard this work before or discovering Hildegard for the first time? A brief note helps other early music listeners find it.