Questions from a Singer: Hildegard's music

Interview

Do you think the quilisma might indicate strong vibrato?

After all is said and done, we know next to nothing about the 'performance' of the quilisma, which is after all only a written symbol. The hard evidence is lacking, and even in the most recent Hildegard book, Stefan Morent & Marianne Richert Pfau, Der Klang des Himmels (Köln, 2005), they admit that we cannot say anything precise about the performance of such neumes (p.127). There is no definitive answer. See the recent article about the use of quilisma in Hildegard's music, by Maire-Noël Colette, in Études grégoriennes -- very stimulating. But in searching for answers, I would encourage you to look at the larger picture: Why were these signs employed in just these places? What is their relationship to the text being sung? I would never tell singers to use 'strong vibrato' under any circumstances because the result will always be a parody of bad opera singers. We need a subtler language.

Do you think the plica might indicate a held consonant?

Plica is – like quilisma – only a written symbol, trying to express something which the scribe perceived audibly. It often appears in conjunction with what we might call semi-vowels (m,n,l) which were earlier represented by liquescent neumes. I'm not sure what you mean by a 'held' consonant, but the plica can be used to notate one of these sung consonants / semi-vowels, often a point of transition between syllables.

How detached do you think the multiple punctii might have been? Would it have been primarily a function of the acoustic?

May I assume you mean here neumes such as bistropha, tristropha, etc? Following my earlier remarks: the notation gives clues to something sung and later perceived in a traditional, oral vocal culture, which in turn someone else (the scribe) wanted to depict in symbols. Of course all singing in liturgical contexts is always a function of the acoustic of the space where all the singers live and sing daily (Disibodenberg and then Rupertsberg, in HvB's case), but since we find these symbols in multiple ms. traditions we can assume it refers to a vocal usage which was common enough to be understood by everyone within that particular 'chant community' [see Max Haas: Musikalisches Denken im Mittelalter] and not necessarily a particular acoustic space.

I naturally like to move my hand and arm together with my fleshing out of the phrase, but [my teacher] discourages this due to the physical tension it places on the body. What is our opinion on this? What purpose do arm/hand gestures serve to you in the singing of this music?

All singers have their little body quirks, and most of these are totally unnecessary for the sound production; they simply make us 'feel' comfortable, effective, expressive, relaxed, whatever. But that feeling can be an illusion. Your teacher would know a great deal about this from his years of experience, and I agree with him that 'self-conducting' and other such movements are not contributing much but actually causing tension. They are also a big visual distraction to your listeners. Thankfully, such habits can be unlearned, and in fact I do have several really excellent colleagues who sing and 'flesh out the phrase' without the slightest tension or extraneous movement, and they are a living proof that this is possible. Having said this, bear in mind that music learned within an oral tradition does not require a 'conductor' -- all the participants have internalised every movement.

Where can I learn more about 12th century German Latin pronunciation and most importantly, accents?

All pronunciation guides which deal with texts before ca. 1250 are dealing in speculation. They are usually projecting backwards some bits of information we might have from the 14th and 15th centuries, which is a valid enough procedure but not definitive. We should be honest with ourselves that there is no foolproof guide to Latin pronunciation from Hildegard's time. We do the best we can, and of course singers who are native German speakers will, by definition, have more consistent vowel colours and more specific consonants than foreigners (whether Germanic, Romance, or Slavic-speaking, etc.). The anglophone singer generally has trouble with this aspect of being precise and consistent in Latin. But look: all kinds of singers (Brits, Germans, Australians, even the odd Japanese) can sing Country & Western songs very convincingly, so it is possible to achieve and integrate into the voice a previously unknown sound ideal.

What do you think of the use of the organ in providing a drone/drone with embellishments? Perhaps if this is not historically accurate, could it be valuable in connecting to a 21st century audience and in bringing a new interpretation to the music?

That is a question of taste and preference, and I can't give you an answer. There certainly was no organ in the church at the Rupertsberg, or any Benedictine monastery of the 12th century. We cannot rule out the presence of a small portative organ, but it's doubtful this was used in a liturgical context. If you really want to make a priority out of connecting to the 21st century audience, there are many, many more things you could do, but then that would become some other music. As for the 'new interpretation' of medieval music, you might pose the question: why not make a totally new music, inspired by medieval models? Why not Lady Gaga Hildegard? Before you go down that path, check out some of the embarrassing recordings people have already made. Consider the integrity of the commercial hot ensemble 'Gregorian', which tours non-stop. The sky's the limit.

Further, what do you think of the use of other instruments such as vielle, recorder, even gamba, in embellishing upon the melody?

The melody is already an embellishment on the text. To embellish the embellishment is a slippery slope. But that's just my opinion. In today's musical culture, as in life, it seems that 'everything goes with everything'. In that mind-set, why limit yourself? If this is the way you hear the music, let your imagination run wild. Don't lock yourself into an historical-performance ghetto if you have another agenda, a real calling. The solution to this requires clear priorities.

What is your knowledge or sources of vocal training in 12th century abbeys? Do you believe that those who sang Hildegard's music had much vocal training, or were they singing with purely untrained voices, however they best could?

I would ask you to keep your eyes open for an article I co-authored with Katarina Livljanic, 'The Silence of Medieval Singers', which was published 2018 in the Cambridge History of Medieval Music. Among other things, we discuss some vocal exercises which have survived, but from later medieval sources. They are uniformly of a virtuosic nature and attest to a very advanced art of solo singing: long phrases requiring complete mastery of the breath, an ambitus of up to 2 octaves, the ability to negotiate elaborate passages, rhetorical challenges. The surviving repertoires also attest to this. No one who has worked with Hildegard's melodies, or with solo chant from the Graduale, for that matter, would venture to say they were performed by 'untrained voices'. Were the goldsmiths untrained? The rhetoricians? The illuminators of manuscripts? The poets? The stone masons? The scribes? Why would we accept a level of haphazard amateurism in music – one of the most subtle art forms in every culture of the world – and yet expect excellence in the visual arts? Hildegard surrounded herself with noble girls from the wealthiest and most powerful local families; they were used to the best in everything, quality and refinement, and their experience of singing was certainly of the highest calibre.

Do you think the words and/or neumes were written on fascicles which have not since survived, or do you think that the music was kept alive purely through the oral tradition?

Hildegard's music was almost certainly kept alive purely through oral tradition and there is no reason to suspect it would have been otherwise. It would be fully in keeping with what we know about oral culture and the role of memory in medieval monasticism (see Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory). The written document is potentially the faulty one, and as soon as music is written down it begins to lose its coherence, it is subject to revision and interpretation. The surviving musical mss. of H's works date from late in her life or after her death: Dendermonde was copied for another house, at their request, and the Riesenkodex was part of the effort to compile her works with a view to achieving sainthood.

What do you think of modern editions which apply a modal rhythm to the music of e.g. Perotin's Beata Viscera. Do you think the music was ever sung with these rhythms, and do you think it is appropriate to sing it with these rhythms today, even if it was not done so in the time?

The notation of Perotin's works was probably carried out by scribes who were already trained in the notation of rhythmic modes. These were their notational tools. Perhaps they were notating something they actually heard, but we cannot know. Still, when the notation becomes inconsistent and unclear (fascicle X of the Florence ms., where 'Beata viscera' also is copied) we can surmise that the scribes were hearing something which they found they could not express effectively with the symbols they knew. It hints at a vocal tradition which was sometimes but not always sung in modal rhythm, and when one looks at the solo works of Perotin's contemporary Philippe le Chancelier (in the same ms.), it is obvious that this was the art of a magnificent group of subtle solo singers, whose vocal tradition was difficult to fix in symbols and therefore probably not in some dull, banal 6/8 time. This whole tyranny of modal rhythm is an unfortunate inheritance of German musicology and was championed by a group of idealistic transcribers such as Luther Dittmer, Friedrich Gennrich, Hans Tischler, and carried to extremes of unperformability by Gordon Anderson and Theodore Karp. The damage these well-meaning scholars have done to medieval music performance cannot be overstated. In their zeal and ambition to make published transcription, they forgot that this is actually music which has meaning and a text, performed by singers who were not idiots or sight-readers.

Do you think there was less rhythmic flexibility when the music was sung by multiple voices than when it was sung by a solo voice?

Generally this is the case in a monastic community (look at who sings psalms vs. who sings solo responsories) but in some medieval vocal cultures there was certainly a remarkably high level of group singing of monophonic song requiring rhythmic flexibility. The whole idea of 'flexibility' is totally linked to our slavish dependence on notation; in an intact oral culture the question simply never comes up.

Do you think the singers rehearsed the music before singing it in a service, or might it have been sung many times in many services and developed in that way?

Probably both. The members of the elite Schola Cantorum were singing all the time.

I have Barbara Thornton's notes "Table of Notational Symbols" and also the notes by another author on the Dendermonde Codex. Are there any other medieval chant notation sources you would recommend I become familiar with?

]A chant scholar would probably send you, first and foremost, to David Hiley's Western Plainchant: A Handbook, which is by far the best and most complete compendium of chant information and sources. It would take a lifetime just to work through this rich book.

What medieval chant history books would you recommend I read to learn more about the general context of Hildegard and her music?

Besides Hiley, the Hildegard book by Morent and Pfau (already cited above) is really quite good. But the single greatest book about medieval chant is Leo Treitler's With Voice and Pen. If you have digested and understood this book, everything else will fall into place, and you will have the tools for a critical discussion of all medieval song.

Is there any other advice you would like to give me regarding my Hildegard concert?

I'm sure I would have plenty more to say if I could hear a rehearsal. I'm looking forward to receiving a recording of the concert. Until then, I can only wish you all the best!