Thomas Ravenscroft and Hildegard of Bingen on The Essay

[doversoul1]

Secret Admirers: The Essay Wednesday and Friday

Bryn posted this somewhere but I can’t find the thread. I thought this might be of interest to the EMS listeners.

Lucie Skeaping celebrates a composer whose music has particularly inspired her: the Elizabethan Thomas Ravenscroft, a contemporary of Shakespeare who wrote songs that became incredibly popular - or, like Shakespeare, borrowed from the popular imagination and made it his own.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03y3fhl

Sara Mohr-Pietsch celebrates a composer whose music has particularly inspired her: the remarkable twelfth-century abbess and mystic Hildegard of Bingen - perhaps the earliest actual "composer" in the history of Western music

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03y3fhq

[DracoM]

<< Hildegard of Bingen - perhaps the earliest actual "composer" in the history of Western music >>

Crikey! Pretty big claim. Justifiable?

[Honoured Guest]

Is John Peel descended from this Thomas Ravenscroft? Or did he name his son (BBC 6 Music presenter Tom Ravenscroft) in tribute? Was there also a female Elizabethan songwriter called Flossie Ravenscroft (sister of Tom)?

[french frank]

<< Hildegard of Bingen - perhaps the earliest actual "composer" in the history of Western music >>

Crikey! Pretty big claim. Justifiable?

Well, it does say 'perhaps' (which makes it a rather smaller claim) so unless anyone knows another possible claimant? And, of course, if one were to define 'Western music' it might make the claim even smaller.

Ed: Oops! I read what wasn't there - did they mean 'woman composer'?

[Barbirollians]

Next week Sean Rafferty celebrates a composer who has particularly inspired him Karl Jenkins - Petroc Trelawney follows with his favourite Einaudi.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, it does say 'perhaps' (which makes it a rather smaller claim) so unless anyone knows another possible claimant?

Can anyone? She is the first name I know of who invented and recorded in notation their own Music. (Quite a polymath, too - not unlike our own Bede, who, alas, didn't write any Music.)

And, of course, if one were to define 'Western music' it might make the claim even smaller.

Would it? Are there any earlier named composers (people who invented and wrote down their Music) from anywhere in the world? (All genuine questions, by the way - I don't know of any Music whose composer's names we know before Hildegard. For once, perhaps, the "big claim" is justifiable?)

Ed: Oops! I read what wasn't there - did they mean 'woman composer'?

Well, this would fit, too - but is there a male named composer before Hildegard? (Or even contemporaneous with her?)

[french frank]

Well, this would fit, too - but is there a male named composer before Hildegard? (Or even contemporaneous with her?)

I suppose it also would imply that their music is extant - otherwise it's assumed (isn't it?) that Guido d'Arezzo was a composer and I would think there was a 'monkish' tradition going back a lot earlier.

[teamsaint]

Well, this would fit, too - but is there a male named composer before Hildegard? (Or even contemporaneous with her?)

Well there was Greg Orianchant.

Ok, i've got my cloakroom ticket......

(all sounds good stuff though )

[french frank]

'Nother thort - what do they mean by 'actual "composer" '?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I suppose it also would imply that their music is extant - otherwise it's assumed (isn't it?) that Guido d'Arezzo was a composer and I would think there was a 'monkish' tradition going back a lot earlier.

Yes - I understood the "actual" (in "perhaps the earliest actual composer in Western Music") to imply composers who are known to have written Music and that the Music that they are known to have written is still around. (Bit of a mouthful - you can see why they went for the pithier soundbite! )

EDIT: Postscript - Blimey! I'm now responding to posts before I see them!

[Bryn]

Hildegard does not even get a look in here.

Then there's:

[CallMePaul]

is there a male named composer before Hildegard? (Or even contemporaneous with her?)

I'm sure I have seen a CD containing music written by Notker the Stammerer (9th Century). He is best known as a biographer of Charlemagne but appears to have written monodies as well. Peter Abelard was a younger contemporary of Hildegard; I have an LP recording by the Hilliard ensemble containing his Planctus David, which I have also heard in concert in the early 1980s.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm sure I have seen a CD containing music written by Notker the Stammerer (9th Century). He is best known as a biographer of Charlemagne but appears to have written monodies as well. Peter Abelard was a younger contemporary of Hildegard; I have an LP recording by the Hilliard ensemble containing his Planctus David, which I have also heard in concert in the early 1980s.

= I'd heard of Notker, but didn't know that any of his Music survives.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

<doh>! I even have the sheet Music of this piece!

[jean]

Here is Gregory writing down all that Gregorian chant - but he didn't really compose it, because there's the Holy Ghost feeding it into his right ear: