Programs

Fragments for the End of Time

Occidentana

Instrumental piece based on a Frankish sequence melody (10th c.)
Source: St. Gall / Reconstruction: N. Rodenkirchen.

No instrumental music survives in written form from the period before 1200, and yet we know that instrumental music was performed with great sophistication. We can use various resources to make reconstructions of lost traditions: in the earliest sequelae sources, we find pieces with exotic titles, attesting to their popularity, or to an association with a certain story, an instrument, or a mythological character. When religious sequence texts were added later (and the melodies were finally written down), the titles fell into disuse. The exact nature of these titles will always remain a mystery which stimulates the imagination of musicians today. The tune Occidentana is found in several sources, sometimes under the name Cithara (= harp). To honor this ancient piece, Norbert Rodenkirchen performs it here on a tiny flute made from a delicate swan’s bone. The remains of just such an instrument, dating from the 11th century, were found in a castle near the ancient city of Speyer, Germany.

Iudicii signum

‚The Prophecy of the Erythraean Sybil’ (Aquitaine, 11th century)
Source: Paris, BN lat. 1154 / Transcription: Sam Barrett

This is the prophecy of the Erythraen Sybil, a pagan female oracle said to have lived at the time of Troy, whose words are transmitted by St. Augustine (The City of God, XVIII, 23) in an acrostic poem. This medieval version, which includes a refrain, was sung in Aquitanian cloisters during the liturgy for the massacre of the Holy Innocents (28 December), a feast closely associated with apocalyptic themes.

Text

[Refrain]: Judgement shall come, and the sweat of the earth will be its signal.

Even the monarch eternal shall come from the heavens, suddenly come, in His flesh, to the dreaded tribunal. Faithful and faithless alike shall be seeing their maker uplifted with heavenly friends at the end of the ages. Souls with their bodies conjoined shall he summon to judgement. Riches will be rejected and long-cherished idols. Enormous the blaze that shall burn the broad seas and the heavens; its terrible blasts shall break open the portals of Hades. Saints in their flesh shall shine free in the light of this wildfire, the same that shall roast without ending the flesh of the wicked. Each man shall openly speak of his most secret wrongdoing, and God shall open their hearts. Gnashing of teeth shall resound and most horrible weeping. Even the sun shall not shine and the stars will be silent; the moonlight finished; the sky wrapped in darkness. The valleys will be leveled, the hilltops cast down, and all human affairs ended. The mountains will sink down into the fields and the seas. Over and done with the earth and the whole of its holdings. Springs, sources and rivers will all be boiling with fire. The horn shall sound from the highest heaven over the criminal damned as they wander sadly. The kings of the world will be judged before God. The quake-shaken earth will open to reveal the pit of hell, while rivers of hot sulphur and fire fall from the heavens.

Translation: B. Bagby (based on E.M. Sanford & W.M. Green)

Program Archive

Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper

Upcoming Concerts

19 June 2010
Montalbâne Festival, Germany
Fragments for the End of Time

24 September 2010
Cité de la Musique, Paris
The Rheingold Curse

See full concert schedule

News

Early Music America Annual Award

Early Music America, the national service organization for the field of early music, has announced the winners of its 2010 awards recognizing outstanding accomplishments in early music. Benjamin Bagby will receive the Howard Mayer Brown Award for lifetime achievement in the field of early music. The awards will be presented at the EMA Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony at the Berkeley Early Music Festival on 11 June 2010.

Visions of Paradise

In September 2009 a new film about the life of Hildegard von Bingen, directed by Margarethe von Trotta and starring Barbara Sukowa, was released in Germany. More

Interview with Benjamin Bagby

WNYC, New York Public Radio, aired an interview with the ‘Beowulf’ performer, B. Bagby. Listen to the show

Beowulf on DVD

Benjamin Bagby’s legendary performance of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf (part I) recorded live in Helsingborg, Sweden.
Visit the Beowulf website