Music, rhetoric and the creation of feminist consciousness in the Marian songs of Hildegard of Bingen (1098--1179)

This dissertation examines the sixteen songs to Mary in the Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum of twelfth century nun composer, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). The analysis demonstrates that the idiosyncratic musical style of the Symphonia cycle represents an innovative application of the rhetorical procedures of the medieval ars praedicandi and the ars dictamen to music centuries in advance of an articulated concept of musical rhetoric, and that one goal of the Marian repertory was to affect the self-consciousness of the all-female audience in a positive direction. The effect is achieved through the strategically constructed and inextricable relationship between text and melody. The study reveals that Hildegard's deployment of repeated melody, and the predominance of such factors as wide pitch ranges, high ranges, elaborate melismas, the use of key modal tones as demarcating devices, and the predominance of uncharacteristically large leaps, serve as musical-rhetorical substructures by which the import of the text is enhanced, and additional levels of meaning are created. In accordance with the feminist agenda, the optimistic images that are presented in the songs are designed to challenge the contemporary devaluation of women and to restore the feminine to its formerly sacred place in the divine plan. The attribution of aspects of divinity to Mary, which closely resonate with the precepts of the ancient goddess thealogies, and which present her as an essential partner of the Godhead in the Redemption and as an and active, independent Salvatrix, offer the female monastic audience an alternative to the solely-masculine concept of the divine.