Hildegard von Bingen

Hildegard von Bingen (unknown source)

It seems, that before the Middle Ages, it wasn't a problem for women to take part to the musical life.

According to Lucy Green, we only have traces of how female singers' destiny evolved and how they, gradually starting from the 4th century, were "discouraged and eventually prohibited from singing in church" (Green; Music, Gender, Education, 31).

Only nuns were allowed to sing, and convents were the only places providing musical education for women.

The only example we have of a medieval woman composer is the German Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179). She demonstrated special talents from a very young age, and was therefore given to a monastery in Disibodenberg to follow a thorough education.

Hildegard became an important spiritual figure and felt that she had to express herself through writing and compositions.

Her most known work is called Ordo Virtutum (Order of the Virtues) and consists of sixty-nine songs with original texts. It is a liturgical drama, composed c. 1151, and is the earliest existing “morality play”, and the only medieval work of this kind that has survived. The texts come from Scivias, in which she tells about her visions, and the subject matter is the struggle of a human soul between virtues and devil.

 In recent decades there has been a lot of interest in her writings and music. There are several works written on her music and she has been of interest for feminist scholars, several of which find that her music has a strong relation with the woman's body.

An excerpt from Ordo Virtutum: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUP5C5-MEoU