Ordo Virtutum - Program Notes

Ordo Virtutum

Hildegard von Bingen
b. c.1098
d. September 17, 1179

First performed circa 1152

Ordo Virtutum (latin for Order of the Virtues) is one of the earliest extant examples of a liturgical drama.  Liturgical dramas are morality plays set to music and were precursors to opera and, ultimately, modern-day musicals.  Ordo Virtutum is significant not only because of its standing as one of the earliest of these morality plays, but also because it was written by a woman.

Hildegard von Bingen was a remarkable figure, both in general history and in the world of music.  Born to noble parents in 1098, she entered religious service at the age of eight after claiming to see visions.  She was initially educated by the abbess Jutta of Spanheim, but rose to the position of abbess of the Benedictine Abbey of Disibodenberg upon Jutta’s death.  It is then that von Bingen made her most significant musical contributions.

While not much is known about the music of von Bingen’s time due to the limited number of preserved works, approximately 80 of her compositions are still in existence.  Ordo Virtutum is one of the most well known and oft-performed of those pieces.

Composed in monophony, which is a form of chant containing only one melodic line and no harmony, Ordo Virtutum is one of the first examples of a liturgical work which tells a story and has characters.  Previously, chant was used primarily during church services and was a medium of prayer.  Ordo Virtutum stands as a dramatic leap in the development of the liturgy, as well as Western musical development.

Ordo Virtutum tells the story of the struggle of the human soul between the Devil and the 16 Virtues.  There are twenty singing roles, female voices representing the Soul and the Virtues.  The Devil, by contrast, has only a speaking role.  The drama is intended to teach lessons about piety and virtuous living through a life of devotion to the Lord.