Saints
This two-disc set completes Sequentia's ambitious project to record the complete musical works of Abbess Hildegard von Bingen to commemorate the 900th anniversary of her birth in 1098. In this last release, Sequentia finally takes on some of the most recognizable pieces from "A Feather on the Breath of God," the legendary recording by Gothic Voices that began the Hildegard boom 15 years ago. While you can't say that the older recording has been superseded, this one holds its own quite nicely. Where Gothic Voices took a no-nonsense approach to rhythm, making all notes more-or-less equal in length, Sequentia sings with its typical rhythmic freedom--without slipping into the rhapsodic excess that sometimes marred their earlier Hildegard discs; the momentum and shape of melody are always clear. Speaking of rhapsody, Sequentia's co-director Barbara Thornton opens the recording with a transporting rendition of a Hildegard hymn to "God the Father."--Matthew Westphal