MUSIC

Daisy Press: Hildegard von Bingen

WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 – 9, 2022
6:00 & 7:30 PM

The Angel’s Share
The Catacombs, Green-Wood Cemetery
500 25th Street, Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn

$80
TICKETS + INFORMATION

Hildegard is a great composer: one of the best in the European canon. But she’s become so popular that so much bullshit has attached to her. I guess the problem is that when you get that big (quite an achievement for an 12th Century abbess!), the mass audience being what it is, too many people go to you for extra-musical, extra-aesthetic reasons. So let’s get it straight: Hildegard’s music isn’t great because it works as therapy (if it does, I’m pretty sure that has more to do with the listener than the music). Hildegard’s music isn’t great because it functions as a backdrop for meditation (great art isn’t a backdrop for anything). Hildegard’s music is great because it works as music: tweaking conventions, surprising the listener, urgently conveying a unique vision.

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Sea Witch: a good bar, with good pub grub — and a giant aquarium!