Hildegard of Bingen

Great Composers: Genius or Madness?

1106

Was there a thinner veil between heaven and earth in the Middle Ages? With less distractions, were people more tuned to the voice of God? Did they really have less distractions, or were they as mentally occupied as the minds of today’s society?

It is 1106, and little 8-year-old Hildegard, the tenth child of a medieval noble family, is brought to the Disibodenberg Monastery, in what would become Germany today, to become an oblate and companion to Jutta Von Spanheim. Her next 6 years are spent in prayer and education, and in 1112, Jutta becomes the Anchoress of Disibodenberg, and Hildegard, her assistant. They are – what the church delicately refers to as – “enclosed.” Hildegard and Jutta are literally bricked into a small enclosure in the church wall.

This barbaric practice comes from the “Rule of Life,” known as the “Ancrene Wisse,” a medieval concept where “an anchoress was anchored under a church like an anchor under the side of a ship, to hold it, so that the waves and storms do not pitch it over.” ¹  It is considered an honor to be the Anchoress, who must fast and do penance. Many pilgrims come to visit and speak to the Anchoress outside of her window. They ask for prayers and wisdom. Jutta happily delves into her new job. By today’s standards, she would most probably be considered a cutter, someone who hurts herself to come to terms with an overwhelming emotional event, but by medieval standards, she is the perfect Anchoress. She wears a sharp barbed chain around her waist. Her ripped skin never quite heals, becomes infected and  smells.²

Jutta and Hildegard live in two small rooms, one with a small window into the church where they can worship during mass, another in which they sleep. The second room has narrow high-walled courtyard attached, where they might glimpse the sky and a passing bird.² Both Hildegard and Jutta had visions, which not only increases their value as “enclosed” nuns, but increases pilgrim visitation and provides additional revenue for the monastery. Hildegard would lapse into a coma-like trance, now possibly thought to be induced by severe migraines. Her visions include God’s creation, relationship of the body and soul and the history of salvation.³

Hildegard’s exceptionally lovely voice is frequently raised in song during mass. During the course of her life, she would write music, along with books describing her visions, medicine, healing and theology. Her liturgical music was mostly monophonic and highly melismatic, with emphasis on text. She wrote a Play of the Virtues, 69 poems set to music, performed by her community of nuns. An outspoken woman, Hildegard was held in high regard by only some of her contemporaries, including Bernard of Clairvaux, Archbishop Henry I of Mainz and Pope Eugene III. She has been described as the greatest woman of her time, but some who knew her in her lifetime would describe her as mad.

¹"Anchoress," accessed 30 March, 2014

  http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info/medieval-religion/anchoress.htm

²Mary Sharratt, "Illuminations: a novel of Hildegard von Bingen," Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012

³ Hildegard of Bingen, "Scivias," accessed 30 March, 2014

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen

The Genius of Robert Schumann

Great Composers: Genius or Madness?

Part Trois

 

1839

Robert Schumann is now in the throes of deep longing and courtship with his soon-to-be-wife, Clara Wieck. Clara’s father, Friederich, has forbidden them to see each other, and will unsuccessfully fight their impending marriage in court, as he is loathe to give up Clara’s substantial annual performance income. Clara and Robert are so very much in love, and Robert writes one of my favorite pieces, Romance in F#, Op. 28, No. 2. Written on three staves, the very sweet melody tugs at the heart. The dramatic and tumultuous middle section turns minor, but resolves once again to the lovely melody, and ends with soft tenderness.

Frederich softens after a few years, and makes up with Robert and Clara. Truth be told, he wants to see his grandchildren, of which there are many. 

Schumann had nearly always been depressed, especially after cholera claimed the lives of his brother, Julius, and Julius' wife, Rosalie.  Called melancholic depression then, today most probably diagnosed as bipolar disorder, he begins to experience both angelic and demonic visions, along with constant sounds in his head. In the late 1800s, they consider his disease “as softening of the brain.”¹ Although there was modern speculation that he had developed mercury poisoning, as the cure for syphilis², the more correct explanation could be revealed from “a report by Janisch and Nauhaus on Schumann's autopsy [which] indicates that he had a ‘gelatinous’ tumor at the base of the brain; it may have represented a . . . cyst, or  . . . meningioma. The brain tumor was also found to be "partly of cartilagenous consistency."³ In particular, meningiomas are known to produce musical auditory hallucinations, such as Schumann reported.⁴

Pieces written during his depressive episodes were his Second String Quartet, Violin Concerto and Ghost Variations (Geistervarationen, five variations for piano).

Poor Robert, afraid he will hurt his beloved Clara, commits himself to an asylum, where he remains for two years. He is reunited with Clara two days before his death in 1856 at 46 years of age.

¹ Florence May, The Life of Johannes Brahms (London, 1905), page 206

² Nancy B. Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, Cornell University Press, 1985, p. 151.

³ Jänisch W, Nauhaus G. "Autopsy report of the corpse of the composer Robert Schumann: publication and interpretation of a rediscovered document", Zentralbl Allg Pathol 1986; 132:129–136.

⁴ Michael Scott, "Musical hallucinations from meningioma", JAMA 1979; 241:1683.

Genius or Madness? Part Deux

Great Composers: Genius or Madness?

Part Deux

1873

Your good and highly talented friend, Viktor Hartmann dies suddenly of an aneurysm at the tender age of 39. Modest Mussorgsky is grief-stricken, as is the entire art community in Russia. An exhibition is arranged the very next year in St. Petersburg, Russia, to show over 400 of Viktor’s works. Mussorgsky is so moved at viewing his friend’s art that he composes the incredible Pictures at an Exhibition in just six weeks. Fifteen piano pieces are based on a promenade, walking past various scenes, brought to life from the animated drawings and vivid watercolors.¹

The motif for the Promenade opens the collection, and returns in various forms as interludes between the individual pieces. The music depicts these subjects:

The Gnome

The Old Castle

Tuileries                      (Children quarreling after play)

The Oxcart                   (Bydlo)

Ballet of the Chicks in their Shells

Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle (Two Polish Jews, one rich, one poor)

The Market Place in Limoges

Baba Yaga’s Hut       (The Hut on Fowl’s Legs)

The City Gates          (The Great Gate of Kiev)

The closing rondo, the City Gates, is depicted in this Hartmann watercolor:

²

Mussorgsky’s translates the magnificence of the view with broad chords and a grand motive.

Pictures at an Exhibition was not published until years after Mussorgsky’s death. It has been arranged for orchestra a number of times. It is a glorious tribute to honor the life of a good friend and great artist.

¹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictures_at_an_Exhibition#Gallery_of_Hartmann.27s_pictures (23 February, 2014)

² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hartmann_--_Plan_for_a_City_Gate.jpg  (25 February, 2014)

Genius or Madness? Part Un

Great Composers: Genius or Madness?

Why do composers write music? Because they are compelled to do so. Perhaps they are trying to recreate a feeling or mood, create an audio story, or just score out the music running through their heads. Schumann tells us, “It is the artist’s lofty mission to shed light into the very depths of the human heart.”¹ Leonard Bernstein tells us, “To achieve great things two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.”² (LOL, Leo, you’ve seen our composition seminar class.) As told by Georges Bizet, “As a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note.” ³  It seems the world provided lots of fodder for Bizet. The same holds for nearly every composer who has told a folk tale, nursery rhyme, or front-page news story.

We are inspired by beauty, motivated by injustice, devastated by poverty and hunger and extremely frustrated by politicians who care more for themselves than the good of the people they are intended to serve. The artist translates these emotions into a two- or three-dimensional work, the poet or writer, into a collection of words, the composer into an auditory symbol. How can we decipher the creative process in the artist’s mind? Is this process truly the work of a genius? In some cases, we find the process is physiologically enabled, either by a brain tumor, depression, loss, unbridled joy, some mechanism gone awry.

¹ Robert Schumann “On Music and Musicians” (Berkley and Los Angeles, University of California Press 1946), 38

^{2 “}Inspiring Composer Quotes”, ClassicFM.com, accessed March 7, 2014  http://www.classicfm.com/discover/music/inspiring-composer-quotes/leonard-bernstein/

^{3 “}Inspiring Composer Quotes”, ClassicFM.com, accessed March 7, 2014  http://www.classicfm.com/discover/music/inspiring-composer-quotes/george-bizet/