Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum

By Hildegard of Bingen

Book Overview

For this revised edition of Hildegard's liturgical song cycle, Barbara Newman has redone her prose translations of the songs, updated the bibliography and discography, and made other minor changes. Also included is an essay by Marianne Richert Pfau which delineates the connection between music and text in the Symphonia.

Famous throughout Europe during her lifetime, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a composer and a poet, a writer on theological, scientific, and medical subjects, an abbess, and a visionary prophet. One of the very few female composers of the Middle Ages whose work has survived, Hildegard was neglected for centuries until her liturgical song cycle was rediscovered. Songs from it are now being performed regularly by early music groups, and more than twenty compact discs have been recorded.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801485479
• ISBN13: 9780801485473
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 0.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 8.4" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

This will keep you busy!

I haven't read the second edition, actually, but I did read the first (1988) and I'm using it at the moment. In addition to fabulous translations (literal and artistic) of Hildegard's poetry, Barbara Newman provides a great depth of description, background material, explanations, and information regarding Hildegard and her work. It's a sound scholarly reference and the poetry is breathtaking.