Visions of Paradise
A Hildegard von Bingen Anthology

CD (total time 73:20); anthology from earlier Sequentia recordings (1982-98); released 2009 by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi / SONY Classics.

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. This new introductory anthology, made up of exceptional tracks from six of Sequentia’s releases on DHM, has been chosen not only to complement the release of the film and win over new admirers of Hildegard’s work, but to highlight her melodic and textual genius and the striking varieties of mode, structure, color, and scale which define her work. This new anthology is also a loving tribute to the memory of Sequentia’s co-founder Barbara Thornton, whose voice was tragically silenced forever in 1998.

Read more about the Hildegard von Bingen project

Beowulf

DVD (total time 99:00 plus extras) of Benjamin Bagby’s solo performance of the 8th century Anglo-Saxon Beowulf epic, recorded live in Heslingborn, Sweden in January 2006 and released in 2007. Includes an extensive interview with Bagby and a discussion with four scholars of Old English poetry. Available from www.amazon.com or through the Beowulf website.

With Voice and Pen

Members of Sequentia participated (tracks 12-16) in an anthology CD recording of medieval song which accompanies a book-length collection of the collected writings on medieval music by musicologist Leo Treitler: With Voice & Pen: Coming to Know Medieval Song and How it was Made (Oxford University Press, 2003). CD not available separately from book.

Union of Words and Music

In 1988, Sequentia recorded 13 medieval songs: troubadour and trouvère chanson, works by Adam de la Halle, Jean de Lescurel, Guillaume de Machaut, and the first recording of a scene from ‘Beowulf’, recorded by Barbara Thornton (voice) and Benjamin Bagby (voice, harp, symphonia), with the participation of Eric Mentzel (voice) and Patricia Ann Neely (fiddle). These recordings were published as a cassette tape which accompanied a published collection of essays originating from a symposium at the University of Texas at Austin in 1987: The Union of Words and Music in Medieval Poetry (edited by Rebecca A. Baltzer, Thomas Cable and James I. Wimsatt), University of Texas Press, Austin (1991). The cassette tape was not made available separately from the book, and has not been re-issued as a CD.