Vox Nostra’s offerings have regularly included the music of abbess Hildegard von Bingen, the ‘Sybil of the Rhine’, and this Sunday on the programme we look forward to Hildegard’s birth and death anniversaries, both falling on this week. Special guest Benjamin Bagby–director and co-founder of the acclaimed ensemble for medieval music, Sequentia–joins Vlad to talk about the origins of the early music supergroup, which he created in the 1970s with the late Barbara Thornton. Hildegard of Bingen’s music has always been a core part of Sequentia’s repertoire, and with their 1993 recording ‘Canticles of Ecstasy’ they became one of the first medieval music recordings to achieve platinum-status and a Grammy nomination. At the time of Thornton’s untimely death in 1998, the group had all but completed their long-standing project of recording Hildegard’s complete works, but in 2012 the ensemble completed the final recordings in time for the composer’s recognition of sainthood and Doctor of the Church, and released the complete 9-CD box set on DHM-Sony records in 2017. Hear all about the group’s journey, accompanied by Hildegard’s sublime melodies, this Sunday at 7am on Vox Nostra.
RTÉ lyric fm, Sunday 13th September, 7am-10am