I.
INEXPLICABLE
a medieval fever dream
Spoken language is inherently limited.
Anyone who has ever, by whatever occurrence, external or internal, felt moved to their core, will agree that every now and then things, inexplicable events, happen, in which pure, bright awe ties our tongues into a tight knot and sends the rest of what we are into a state of being “quite beside oneself”. At that point, other, non-logical, aspects of our existence raise their voices and we begin communicating with the world — both the outer and inner — through movement, heart- shredding (or heart-mending) tears, deep, round belly laughter, but sometimes also quiet bliss, a centred calm, and very often
—
a song.
And as the the waves of the sea crest and fall in perpetuity, we too are destined to eventually return to the familiar pre-inspired state, and sometimes the journey we just returned from prompts some of us to alchemise our experiences into art to be shared with our communities...
“So do not marvel If I would rather hear someone else on this subject than speak myself. The one I would like to hear, I say, is one who has dipped the pen of his tongue in his heart’s blood, for then his teaching would be true and worthy of reverence .”
This programme features poetry and melodies of a couple of medieval mystical visionaries, a man from the early fourteenth century and a woman from the twelfth, who have found their own unique and gripping way of making the inexplicable deliciously palpable. By having liquified their voices into ink and translating them onto parchment in form of song for us to sing again, both are extending us an invitation to transcend time and space, and to become a part of their journeys.
One of the most wonderful things about being human, is that not only does inspiration know no expiry date, it is also inexhaustibly contagious; and it is by virtue of such shared joy that we collectively grow as humanity, one evening at a time, gently, stretched over the centuries.
The subject tonight is Love —
that inexplicable kind which on one hand tends to leave us bleeding, destroyed, healed, feverishly wanting more. On the other hand the language of its experiential immediacy traditionally presents itself as the most suitable way for describing an individual’s spiritual quest and the dual nature of hunger for love as hunger for spiritual awakening, of unity with the Divine. It is woven into songs of passion, fire, breath, adoration and all of the in between, and it is that which has always dwelled at the very core of what it ultimately means to possess a spark of the Divine.
“Now the soul’s hunger is desire. Hence a soul that truly loves God is insatiable in love because God is love; whoever loves God is in love with Love. To love Love completes a circle so that love may never end.”
Or, to rephrase in perhaps slightly more familiar words:
“Though I command languages both human and angelic — if I speak without love, I am no more than a gong booming or a cymbal clashing.”
II.
“What is this coming up from the desert like a column of smoke, breathing of myrrh and frankincense and every perfume the merchant knows?”
For the medieval mind, when considering the idea of Love in all of her divine and/or worldly manifestations, bearing names such as Frau Minne, Caritas, Dame Amour,... a strict division between its role as the fulfiller of purely erotic anticipatory impulses, and a catalyst for the transmutation of energy for the purposes of best describing mystical experiences, was always somewhat blurred. While in the twelfth century the distinction between Caritas — divine love, the root of the tree of all virtues, and that of carnal Cupiditas — a satanic vice and the root of all evil, was still relatively clear, by the early fifteenth century those two forms of love became virtually indistinguishable from one another, so much so, that “erotic spirituality” became a compelling pastoral problem.
INEXPLICABLE — a medieval fever dream explores one aspect of this complex ebb and flow from the perspective of two medieval German poets: the twelfth-century visionary and doctor ecclesiae, St. Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), and the fourteenth- century court poet Heinrich von Meissen (ca. 1250-1318), more commonly known by his stage name Frauenlob. Its focus lies in the exploration of their attitudes towards the essential ambiguity of love and how this undefinable space could be filled in order to achieve greater states of spiritual growth.
Both Hildegard and Frauenlob have in their compositions used all of their creative force to compose masterpieces of adoration of Mary, Mother of God, the Celestial Woman of the Book of Revelation, and the Beloved Bride of the Song of Songs, respectively. In a succession of intensely dense poems the program offers a taste of this inexplicable complexity of worship which has always stood in the very centre of theological erudition since the New Testament.
“Your lips, my promised one, distil wild honey. Honey and milk are under your tongue; and the scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon.”
III.
The program is composed out of selections from the following works:
Hildegard von Bingen (1098 — 1179)
Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum / The Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations
Heinrich von Meissen — Frauenlob (ca. 1250 — 1318)
Der guldin flügel zu latin Cantica canticorum / The Golden Wing on the Latin Song of Songs
Anonymous (late 13th century)
München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 5539
