Jack Price

MUHL 186 (2019) Study Sheet

Composer (and dates): Hildegard von Bingen

Title: O Rubor Sanguinis
Genre (and sometimes subgenre): Chant: antiphon for the Magnificat
Period: Medieval
Century: mid 12th
Date of composition, if known: not known

Notes on developments in music in music history associated with this piece

● Music now notated on a clef which denotes exact pitch
○ No longer just in neums which show relative pitch
● Music is still not metered: notation does not show exact rhythm
● Few major composers of this time because most are anonymous
Notes on cultural context. Where (or for what institution) was it composed?
● To be sung in Hildegard’s convent as a part of the Liturgy
What was the main job of the person who composed it? Who performed it?
● Hildegard ran a monastery for women and composed sacred music
○ daughter of a wealthy family who sent her to a church where she heard monks
singing in the divine office from a cell / room
● This would be sung by the members of the monastery
○ One of the three types of people: the type that prays
● Some of her music was composed for the Pope
● One of the only composers of this period who was not anonymous
Who listened to it? Is it sacred or secular? Is it public or private? For
professionals or amateurs? Who paid for it? Is it in a manuscript or a printed
Score?
● Sacred
● Listened to by others in the monastery (who also sing it)
● Manuscript (printing not invented yet)
● Monastery makes money, via paid services / donations t
Words to describe the music (see “words about music” documents):
Melody (make sure to indicate what part of the tune you are talking about –
the beginning; the end; the subject of a fugue, the first theme):
● Melismatic runs and moments in the beginning and end
● Largely neumatic
● Large stepwise runs
● In D minor
● Not many leaps
● Range of a 10th
Rhythm and meter:
● Specific rhythm not notated
● No meter
● Either syllables given equal-ish time or each note
 ○ Up to performer, depends on section of the music
● Phrasing from lines of words
Text (& text-music relations) if relevant:
● Piece functions as a recitation tone for the Antiphon
● Word painting: discussion of flow mirrored by flow of notes
● Blood of virgins = purity
● As an Antiphon for the Magnificat this was sung before/after the Magnificat was sung by
the members of the church
● Mostly neumatic
Form:
● No written repetition: through-composed
● Can be phrased by lines in original chant
Texture:
● Monophonic: one voice
● No accompaniment
Features of required performance / text-music relations:
● Single singer
Observations on which features of the piece are typical of its time period:
This could include: new genres, forms, notations, compositional techniques,
performance contexts, instrumentation, etc.
● Typically, pieces of this period are written by anonymous composers: this one is not
● No written rhythm at this time: all pieces non-metric
● Monophonic
○ The only polyphony that has existed so far is improvised
■ Until Leonin and Late 12th / Early 13th century
● Written with neumes
○ No exact rhythm
● Lots of chant music
● Clef created that gives exact pitch
○ Red lines for certain pitch (f, c)
● Mostly all written music is vocal music