Hildegard von Bingen's Ordo Virtutum

Michael C. Gardiner examines how classical Neoplatonic hierarchies are established in the Ordo Virtutum, Hildegard von Bingen's twelfth-century music-drama, and considers how these hierarchies are mediated and subverted through a series of concentric absorptions which lie at the core of the work's musical design and text.