Le Bricoleur 
Psallentes / Plainchant/ Hildegard von Bingen : Ursula 11(B,2011)***
During the 'Hildegard Von Bingen year' I gave detailed attention To Hildegard’s Von Bingen’s work (music, writings and her personal herb interpretations and beyond). I lived for two years not too far from the renewed monastery where they sold more of her writings. I remember how especially Sequentia succeeded very well to reveal all musical qualities of the Gregorian, monophonic music, before a few more commercial albums were published to attract a bigger public. The Sequentia interpretations were also successful in its acoustic resonance power from within. Several churches have been built with such measurements so that when singers sung or speakers spoke at the right places in the right buildings, the acoustics would reflect something extra with transcending effect. Monophonic voices, which were common in those days for various purposes, in those rooms received such higher overtones listeners got the feeling very well how the music was sung in the higher regions of sounds, as if coming from higher regions of penetration and inspiration. The music from Hildegard Von Bingen was written as Christian spiritual music, some of it was combined with a play. The manuscript that has been interpreted here is the one that was sent to the Abbey of Villers where princess Ursula and her 11000 companions were killed by the Huns years before. The Dendermonde codex where it comes from is one of the lesser known sources of Hildegard's music.
The voices from Psallentes were inspired by some modern voices too. The interpretation is really nice to listen to but I also notice a certain reserved activity in their singing, not using extra powers from their lungs or any transcending emotions to express also these hidden higher powers from within, it would be nice if this would be something the mystic Christian Gregorian singing should also prevail or reveal some way or another. I once witnessed in a church in Salzburg a perfect voice combination of prayer at night with such powers. I had become afraid of it as if some magical meeting from dark nature was present, capable of changing perspectives, the surroundings, nature itself. OK, perhaps I expect a lot from a classical recording like this (-just remember how Soeur Marie Keyroutz for instance, in her Byzantine singing still succeeds to add something unusual by her own dedication, it is possible-). Here the interpretation gives the idea of the nature of the music more like that of a certain hollow white church room where the visitor still has to fill in his own purpose and understandings. Here the interpretation is like the building for the song, like a peaceful place where thoughts become emptied from unnecessary associations. The album is a chance to hear the Codex from Dendermonde, perhaps even for the first time.
Also released are manuscripts found in the beguines of Bruges, Antwerp and Amsterdam.
PS. One of the singers and interpreters is Soetkin Baptist (Olla Vogola).
