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Hildegard’s life is changed for ever after she reveals a long-held secret. With Donald Macleod.

As Christians around the world prepare for Easter, Donald Macleod explores the life and music of two nuns who were also composers. Though Hildegard of Bingen and Isabella Leonarda lived five centuries apart, their stories and music are connected by their shared faith and their shared vocations. Both lived cloistered lives, shut away in convents and cut off from the everyday concerns of the societies in which they lived. Yet, they also enjoyed a profoundly rich and human connection with the world and with their God, revealed in the music and poetry they created and sent into the world.

Today, Donald Macleod focuses on Hildegard of Bingen’s story with Hildegard’s biographer, Fiona Maddocks. They examine how her seemingly unremarkable existence, within a provincial German monastery, was rapidly transformed after she confessed to receiving visions from God.

Hildegard: Spiritus Sanctus Vivificans
Anna Sandström, soprano
Armonico Consort, directed by Christopher Monks

Leonarda: Sonata, Op 16 No 8
Ensemble Giardino Di Delizie, directed by Ewa Anna Augustynowicz

Hildegard: Columba Aspexit
Grace Davidson, soprano

Hildegard (ed Wishart): O frondens virga
Emily Burn, voice
Clemmie Franks, voice
Emily Levy, voice
Victoria Couper, voice
Jocelyn West, voice
Vivien Ellis, voice
Stevie Wishart, director

Hildegard: O frondens virga (instrumental)
Augsburg Early Music Ensemble

Leonarda: In Sanguine Gloria, Op 6 No 12
Guilhem Worms, bass-baritone
Ensemble Il Caravaggio, directed by Camille Delaforge

Hildegard: O quam mirabilis
Hildegard: O virga ac diadema
Margriet Tindemans, fiddle
Sequentia, directed by Barbara Thornton