Sequentia

Since the early 1980s, the ensemble Sequentia’s name has been closely linked with the music of Hildegard von Bingen, the visionary abbess whose musical compositions are among the most astonishing and unique creations from the dynamic milieu of 12th-century Benedictine monasticism.

For this recording, a multi-generational ensemble of seven women’s voices has been assembled, together with the flautist Norbert Rodenkirchen and Bagby playing harp.

Sequentia is one of the world’s most respected and innovative ensembles for medieval music. It is an international group of singers and instrumentalists – united in Paris under the direction of the legendary performer and teacher Benjamin Bagby – dedicated to the performance and recording of Western European music from the period before 1300.

Based on meticulous and original research, intensive rehearsal and long gestation, Sequentia’s virtuosic performances are compelling, surprising in their immediacy, and strike the listener with a timeless emotional connection to our own past musical cultures.

Founded by Benjamin Bagby and the late Barbara Thornton, Sequentia can look back on 35 years of international concert tours, performing throughout Europe, North and South America, India, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Australia.

Sequentia has brought to life over seventy innovative concert programmes that encompass the entire spectrum of medieval music, in addition to the creation of music-theater projects such as Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum, the Cividale Planctus Marie, the Bordesholmer Marienklage, and Heinrich von Meissen’s Frauenleich (several of which were filmed for television).

Sequentia’s comprehensive discography of more than thirty recordings spans the entire Middle Ages. In 1981, the ensemble began to release the first of many LP's and CD's which encompass the entire spectrum of medieval musical practice.

Many of these recordings – including the complete works of Hildegard von Bingen (7 CDs) have received awards: the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis (for Vox Iberica, 1993), two Netherlands Edison Awards (for Hildegard von Bingen recordings, 1987 and 1998), a French Disque d'Or (1996), the CHOC of Le Monde de la Musique (2002) and Diapason d'Or (1995 and 1999). Sequentia's best-selling CD, Canticles of Ecstasy, has sold more than 500.000 copies worldwide and was nominated for a Grammy Award as best choral recording. Recordings made by Sequentia have been integrated into the soundtracks of several major films.

Canonized by Pope Benedict in May 2012, St. Hildegard von Bingen, abbess, visionary, healer, singer, poet and composer, left two precious manuscripts filled with spiritual songs. With this anthology, Music for Paradise, the world-renowned ensemble Sequentia presents the entire spectrum of Hildegard's music - songs of surprising depth and virtuosity, at times meditative, at times shocking, yet always energized by the unique musical genius and voice of this visionary artist more than 800 years after her death. Sequentia is one of the world's most respected and innovative ensembles for medieval music. It is an international group of singers and instrumentalists, under the direction of legendary performer Benjamin Bagby, dedicated to the performance and recording of Western European music from the period before 1300. Based on meticulous research and intensive rehearsal, Sequentia's virtuosic performances are compelling, surprising in their immediacy and strike the listener with a timeless emotional connection to our own past musical cultures.

From the time of Christianity’s introduction into Europe until the end of the first millennium, apocalyptic images of the End of Time and the Last Judgement were widespread, both in texts and in the visual arts. In Sequentia’s new program, ‘Fragments for the End of Time,’ Sequentia explore the musical world of these powerful texts. The instruments used in this concert include reconstructions of Germanic lyres, an early medieval triangular harp, and copies of medieval transverse flutes.