Programs

Fragments for the End of Time

From the time of Christianity’s introduction into Europe until the end of the first millennium, apocalyptic images of the End of Days and the Last Judgement were widespread, both in texts and in the visual arts. These images, based largely on the Biblical Revelation of John, at times bear a remarkable similarity to the pagan Germanic descriptions of the world’s destruction during the final terrible battle (Ragnarök) between the gods (Odin, Thor, etc.) and their mortal enemies, the giants. These disparate sources share certain characteristics: the terrifying words of female oracles; the sounding of the horn; the massing of armies from below and above; the breakdown of material reality and the final destruction of the world by fire.

The image of the Apocalypse which most readily comes to mind is associated with the almost incomprehensible mystery of the ‚end of time’, filled with terror and destruction. We envision the chilling image of the four horsemen mercilessly riding down upon our doomed world. But the Greek word apokalypsis actually means unveiling, or revelation, an image strongly linked to our mortal desire for access to the mysteries of existence, to our almost physical longing for union with creation and with the deity. John’s Book of Revelation is not only a faithful report of what he saw and heard in visions on the island of Patmos, but it is also filled with the feeling of his impatience and desire. In all these senses of the word, medieval artists created an especially powerful body of sung poetry, often in obscure images and language, visionary and prophetic, to prepare the singer and listener alike for a particular inner voyage of comprehension, and to awaken the soul to the experience of ‚seeing’ that which is one day to be revealed.

In this program, also released as a CD in 2008, we explore the musical world of these surprising, powerful texts, some of which survive only as fragments: the Old High German Muspilli, which describes the waking of the dead, the workings of Satan, the fight of Elias with Anti-Christ, the call to judgement, and warns of the uselessness of wealth and bribery in that final courtroom; the prophecy of the Erythrean Sibyl (an acrostic text in Augustine’s translation in The City of God) as sung in Aquitanian cloisters; the Alsatian monk Otfrid’s rhyming German verses which describe the terrible final day; the Old English ‘Lay of the Last Survivor’ (found embedded in the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf epic) describes the bleak and lonely end to an unnamed tribe, as their useless treasure is heaped in a cave by the lone survivor, to await a dragon’s arrival; masterful Latin sequences from Frankish tradition, describing the Last Day and praising the archangels; instrumental interludes based on sequelae – untexted sequence melodies with enigmatic titles which point to possible pre-Christian usages; and finally, from the Old Icelandic Edda collection, the harrowing description of the pagan Ragnarök, when ‚Muspell’s People’ and the armies of Surt and Loki launch their final, deadly assault on the indigenous northern European gods.

The instruments used in this concert include reconstructions of Germanic harps (based on 7th century instruments from Oberflacht, near Stuttgart), an early medieval triangular harp, and copies of medieval transverse flutes (including a flute made from a swan’s bone, based on an 11th century instrument unearthed near Speyer).

Duration: 75 minutes, without interval

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