What Influence Did Hildegard Of Bingen Have On Music?

Music as we know it today has been influenced by many different types of musical genres and as different types of music develop over time, at least some remanence of the past stays present in the music. What is usually forgotten in this process is who helped influence the development of that music along the way. The following will discuss one of those musical influences by discussing who exactly was Hildegard of Bingen, what impact did she have on music, and analyzing one of her compositions called O vos angeli.
Hildegard of Bingen was born in Germany and lived between the years 1098 to 1179 (Bent) (Kamien, 69). She became a Benedictine nun after being promised to the convent by her parents when she was only eight years old (Bent). She joined

The form does have repetition and no contrasts or variation in form. In regard to the music being ornamented with trills or being highly decorated, neither are present in this musical performance, it is a rather plain piece of music. The rhythm of this piece does not have any type of meter as it is chant. The tempo is adagio or slow and has a simple rhythmic pattern. On the subject of syncopation, there are a few periods in the piece where the performers does become a bit loud all of a sudden. The dynamics of this work starts out quiet or (p) piano level, but then becomes louder or (f) forte all of a sudden and other times gradually crescendo. The range of the dynamic contrasts is that there is a large range difference and those contrasts are gradual the majority of the times. This pieces timbre is mellow, made up from the use of the vocal instruments and stays the same throughout the piece.
Overall, the performance of O vos angeli that was analyzed is a beautiful tribute to her work, however without trying to be sexist in any way, I tend to prefer listening to chants that are sung by men rather than women because they just more relaxing to me. This song is about angels, however I kept imagining nuns singing and couldn’t visually picture angels while listening to this work. The quality of the composition arrangement is great considering it was written by someone almost a thousand years ago, which is