The Origin of Fire delivers more of the classic Anonymous 4 sound: perfectly blended voices, soaring in deceptively simple arcs of ecstatic melody. From Hildegard's works, they have mostly selected hymns and other chants in praise of the Holy Spirit, a topic that provoked the author to recurrent visions of fire, a force both of life and destruction. Longer compositions such as "O ignis spiritus paracliti" and "O ignee spiritus" effectively show Hildegard's genius at sustaining an absorbing current of music with nothing more than unaccompanied unison voices, and Anonymous 4 perform it all with a seemingly effortless grace. The ensemble also includes excerpts from Hildegard's visionary prose texts -- set not to her music but to other chant melodies of the era. This provides some variety (as the unison voices sometimes break into polyphony), but it also enhances our understanding of the inspiration behind Hildegard's music. Whether or not this is Anonymous 4's final album, it maintains the same note of high artistic integrity that has distinguished their work for nearly two decades. Scott Paulin, Barnes & Noble
This was the one that first brought Hildegard to the attention of the record-buying public. I'm sure the vague similarities of the album covers are, ahem, coincidental.
Ironically, given the way the music industry is these days, running an abbey (along with your own website) is probably a better strategy for achieving pop stardom than recording a bunch of songs in a home studio and trying to sell them on iTunes and eMu, whether or not you manage to actually sign with a label.
I give eMu props for me discovering Anonymous 4 - the name was bouncing around my cranium somewhere but I found them there, them and Dengue Fever probably being the two coolest things I might not have been exposed to otherwise.
Comments
The Origin of Fire: Music and Visions of Hildegard von Bingen by Anonymous 4
A cheerfully inexpert recommendation: I've been enjoying this.
This was the one that first brought Hildegard to the attention of the record-buying public. I'm sure the vague similarities of the album covers are, ahem, coincidental.