One of the most famous sequences of Gregorian chant, Dies Irae – “Day of Wrath” – describes the Last Judgment of souls before God where the saved will go to heaven and the unsaved cast into eternal flames of suffering. This 13th-century plainchant melody has since been used by composers throughout time to symbolize death, […]
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Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine (more on that later), was a Medieval nun of many talents. Not only was Hildegard a German Benedictine abbess – the female superior of a community of nuns – but she was also a composer, writer, philosopher, mystic, and one […]
Read MoreThe last track on my album Christmas Piano is an arrangement of the beloved carol O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. And because this is my husband’s favorite Christmas song, I wanted to make the arrangement extra special. Check out the sheet music here: A Brief Recap You might remember that O Come, O Come, Emmanual had its origins in 9th […]
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O Magnum Mysterium is a Catholic church chant sung at Christmastime. As part of the Matins (nighttime worship), the text has been around for centuries. While the exact origins are unknown, historians believe the text (and its use in Catholic Mass) has been around since at least the 10th century. Because the work is so […]
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Before “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” was translated into English, this special Christmas hymn – originally in Latin – was born out of O Antiphons: a set of monastic chants sung the week before Christmas as early as the 9th century. O Antiphons The O Antiphons are a set of chants used at Vespers (sunset/evening prayer) during […]
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The Medieval Era. Beginning with the fall of the Roman Empire around 500 CE and ending around 1400 with the Renaissance, the Medieval period is known for the rise of the Roman Catholic Church, the Black Death plague (which killed almost one-third of Europe’s population in the late 1340s), the 100 years war, and knights/serfs/King […]
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