Hildegard of Bingen’s genre system of «Symphonia harmonie celestium revelationum» in the context of the medieval liturgical monody
Background. In 1150s Hildegard of Bingen joint 77 monophonic liturgical hymns and the morality play «Ordo Virtutum», written to the author’s text, at the collection called «Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum» (The Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revalation), apparently in order to ensure liturgical needs of her convent and neighbour communities. Hildegard’s diversity of melodic hymns reflects a close acquaintance with the compositional practice and genres of the late Middle Ages. Though the assembly mentioned above is considered to be a collection of psalms, a more differentiated approach appears to be eventual, with the object of chants’ systematization on the thematic and genre levels. The revealed genre features of the Symphony, which seem to be discreet on the level of separate chants at first sight, at that are in general yielded to uniting, conjugated to the common spirirtual idea, which makes it closer to the cycle. Hence, the object of the work – is to reveal genre refraction specific features of the traditional liturgic monody in Hildegard of Bingen’s chants. The main targets of the work are: the classification of Divine Office genre system, revealing and decoding of additional signs in the hadwritten text of the Saint, Hildegard of Bingen’s chants’ classification according to the theme, chants’ genre determination, giving the charachteristic of chorales intonation-rythmic features of different genre groups. Results. Choral genre definitions of western liturgical practice are bound with their subject-matter, which context in return determines according to the Roman Church calendar. As is known the Church’s year combines lots of celebrations, which divide into two main categories: the Proper of Time (Proprium deTempore, Temporale) and the Proper of Saints (Sanctorale). In Hildegard of Bingen’s Symphony each chant has its own predestination according to the particular days and holydays of the Church’s year. The chants in the assembly are grouped accordingly liturgical themes, - firstly the ones devoted to the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary and to her Son (regarding the category Proprium de Tempore). The ones referred to «Sanctorale» are the chants to the Heavenly choirs (to angels, disciples, patriarchs and prophets), the Saints (Disibod, Rupert, John, Martyrs, Matthias, Boniface, Maximin) and the Church. Concerning Hildegard’s surrounding, special emphasis was laid on «female» subject: the Virgin Mary, Saint Ursula and her friends - 11000 virgins, and also widows and infants. Applying for the study of liturgic genres in Hildegard of Bingen’s works, there must be noted that more than a half of the chants belong to antiphons (41), a little bit more than a quarter belongs to responsories (17), and among other genres there can be found 7 sequences, 4 hymns, 1 Cantus song , 1 allelujah (of an antiphon type), 1 Kyrie, 1 versus and 2 symphonies (similar to sequences in their form and melodics). One can judge about the usage of Hildegard’s chants in a monastic liturgical day of the Western Church, particularly in the main chapters of Divine Office church service, on various features, one of which is the chants, textologically singled out from the manuscript and joint with the mark «Laudes» (Matins). In fact, Hildegard’s musical architectonics anticipates the tendencies of the far future, though being in conflict with the medieval rules of musical aesthetics. It should be mentioned that not all the chants of the «Symphony» are equal in the meaning of the rhetoric and musical complexity. The examples given in the article show the substantial difference between the works of dissimilar genre groups and the ones within separate groups. Hildegard of Binden’s assembly is melodically and poetically bright and vivid chants, which could be easily used in traditional Western liturgy, particularly in Divine Office chapters (after all it was the author who was the abbess of the monastery herself). Those chorales could accompany the performing of both traditional Bible psalms and some other paraliturgical genres of the Catholic traditions. Conclusion. Hildegard uses common repeating melodic formulas which appear especially in the area of extensive melismatic chants, for the ones within one theme group and different in genre criteria. In that way they function as a kind of some musical (and rhetorical) motive which sums everything up and refers to the themes and images developed earlier. From the standpoint of that kind of musical rhetoric, Hildegard of Bingen’s chants from the «The Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revalation» hold a unique position in the evolution of the medieval liturgical monody. Working backwards from the usage of traditional psalmody forms, their considerably complicated structure extends the ways of its further development tracing the prospects for the possibilities of the liturgical genres renewal.