Keaton, Kenneth

Hildegard of Bingen, while outwardly remaining within the boundaries of religious and societal orthodoxy, redefined the nature of woman into a more positive one by creatively reworking conventional viewpoints such as the value of humility, virginity and divine motherhood. Her ideas were most clearly expressed in the Symphonia songs dedicated to Mary, virgins and widows. In this paper, the ten songs to Mary, in which Hildegard most directly restates the feminine, are analyzed in terms of text/music relationships as they relate to this theme. The remaining six pieces for Mary, two of the songs to virgins and the one for widows are examined in a less detailed manner and only for verbal imagery. Introductory material is intended to place the composer and her thinking in context.

A young life, so full of hope and talent ended before its true potential was realized. Even so, Lili Boulanger's oeuvre stands alone as a prime example of artistic quality and purity. Her expression is clear and personal, giving us insight into the world in which she lived. A discussion of her life reveals a lonely girl who turned to music as her permanent voice in history. A discussion of her works reveals a highly intelligent and determined woman who composed brilliant music in spite of debilitating illness and prejudice. A discussion of the woman reveals Lili Boulanger to be an extraordinary person who cared for her family, friends, and fellowman. The first woman to win the Grand Prix de Rome competition in music, Boulanger is a role model for women composers who followed her.

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.