MUSIC REVIEW : Medieval Offerings From Sequentia

One of the most valuable and popular musicological recoveries of recent years has been the ecstatic work of Hildegard of Bingen. For a variety of reasons, sociological and academic as well as artistic, the 12th-Century nun has become a major figure on the medieval music circuit.

That is being demonstrated locally this week, with the coincidence of two independent performances based on her work. Monday, Sequentia sang a devotional program at the Westwood United Methodist Church for a Chamber Music in Historic Sites audience, while Saturday, I Cantori will revive its 1992 production of Hildegard’s morality play “Ordo Virtutum” at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Pasadena.

Sequentia’s program, presented by the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College, was titled “Vox Feminae: Music From Medieval Women’s Cloisters.” It offered four thematically organized groups of three to six works, each beginning with monophonic repertory and ending with 13th-Century polyphony.

Although eminently intellectual and educational to a fault--we heard “Alma redemptoris mater,” Hildegard’s expansion of its ideas in “Ave Maria, o auctrix vite,” and three Notre Dame motets built on that antiphon--the program could sound repetitious and limited in expressive range, despite the appreciable efforts of the ensemble to vary textures.

Directed by Barbara Thornton, Sequentia gave each member--Pamela Dellal, Heather Knutson, Laurie Monahan, Susanne Norin and Janet Youngdahl--solo opportunities, invariably taken with resourceful poise and clear voice. Effective use was made of drones, both vocal and instrumental, in the monophonic pieces, and the polyphony emerged quietly lithe and sensuous in the supportive but not overwhelmingly resonant sanctuary acoustic.

The most immediately attractive parts of the agenda came after intermission, with Monahan leading a genuinely ecstatic, responsorial account of “O viridissima virga” and Norin giving dark, rich voice to “O tu suavissima virga.” A three-part conductus from the Codex Las Huelgas, “Mater patris,” closed the evening with joyful and piquant polyphonic raptures.