Post 4.
 
Image link: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Violin_%28AM_1998.60.238-3%29.jpg

Listening:
Autumn, by Tōru Takemitsu, by the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne; Kaoru Kakizakai (Shakuhachi) and Akiko Kubota (Biwa), link: https://youtu.be/QYsZJkuDmbc
Also listen to, November Steps, for shakuhachi, biwa & orchestra, by Tōru Takemitsu performed by the Saito Kinen Orchestra, link: https://youtu.be/EzKCPrZ9ywc
 
Most music genres use singing, some form of movement/dance, and musical instruments. Understanding instruments used can help us understand something of the character of that genre. What does the electric guitar mean to heavy metal music, or the turntable to hip hop, the accordion to polka, or the djembe in the music of Mali? Instruments provide timbre—the tone color or sound quality we associate with specific genres. Sometimes instrument performing techniques and singing techniques share certain qualities. For instance, the jazz singer Billie Holiday sounded like a jazz saxophone or trumpet. Similarly in Western Music, classical singers often sing bel canto, which is Italian for “beautiful sound.” Singers in classical music are often categorized by voice type. Voice types take into account vocal range (how high/low a person sings), weight (how loud/soft), tessitura (do they sound better in high or low registers) and timbre, and include:

1. Soprano
   1. Some variances within soprano include the lyric soprano and the dramatic soprano
   2. Listen to lyric soprano Renée Fleming singing Casta Diva by Bellini, link: https://youtu.be/Rg4L5tcxFcA
   3. Listen to dramatic soprano Jessye Norman singing Dich Teure Halle by Wagner, link: https://youtu.be/-Tkc1gJzV4s
2. Contralto (also called Alto in choirs)
   1. Listen to contralto Marian Anderson singing at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, link: https://youtu.be/mAONYTMf2pk
3. Tenor
   1. Listen to dramatic tenor Placido Domingo sing Fidelio, by Beethoven, link: https://youtu.be/HjA1GAGos-0
4. Bass
   1. Lyric bass, listen to Feodor Caliapin singing Doubt by Glinka, link: https://youtu.be/89OhydbgC6I
   2. Basso profundo, listen to Yuri Wichniakovsinging with the Russian Patriarchate Choir of Moscow, link: https://youtu.be/39eBIX3PYL0

 
Other than the voice, common instruments used in classical music are often separated into four categories.

1. Strings – violin, viola, cello, double bass
   1. Listen to violinist Hilary Hahn performing Caprice no. 24, by Paganini, link: https://youtu.be/gpnIrE7_1YA
   2. Listen to cellist Yo-Yo Ma perform Cello Suite no. 1, by Bach, link: https://youtu.be/1prweT95Mo0
2. Brass – Trumpet, Trombone, Tuba, French Horn
   1. Listen to trumpeter Wynton Marsalis perform Carnival of Venice, (also popularized by violinist Niccolo Paganini), link: https://youtu.be/0-jDld11jhw
   2. Listen to Tuba player JáTtik Clark perform Concerto in F minor, by Vaughan Williams, link: https://youtu.be/3GzEvWXN3zY
3. Woodwinds – flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon
   1. Listen to flutist James Galloway perform Flight of the Bumblebee by Rimsky-Korsokov, link: https://youtu.be/LI3wIHFQkAk
   2. Listen to the Oberlin Bassoon Quartet perform music from Super Mario, by Koji Kondo, link: https://youtu.be/2gXh83hNnWw
4. Percussion – timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, tambourine
   1. Listen to marimbist Evelyn Glennie perform the Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin, link: https://youtu.be/CHBsFOl-SnA
   2. Listen to timpanist Daniel Druckman perform Eight Pieces for Four Timpani, by Carter, link: https://youtu.be/RtzBo1IGRYI
5. Piano
   1. Listen to Chick Corea playing (improvising on) Mazurka op. 17, no 4, by Chopin, link: https://youtu.be/AZUiJkmtX78

 
Additionally, especially since the 20th Century, composers have incorporated instruments that aren’t traditionally part of Western Music. Often this is to support the ideal of multiculturalism—the living together in tolerance of diverse cultures, including races, religious groups, and customs (including musics).
 
Composer Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) wrote of the Japanese instrument, the biwa and the shakuhachi, and their differences from Western instruments. Having written for both Western and Japanese instruments, Takemitsu notes that Western instruments lend themselves to music theory—to chord structures, and scales, and notes in relation to one another. In contrast, Japanese instruments seem to demand attention to a single sound: “The sounds of such instruments are produced spontaneously in performance. They seem to resonate through the performer, then merge with nature to manifest themselves more as presence than as existence. … A single strum of the strings or even one pluck is too complex, too complete in itself to admit any theory. Between this complex sound—so strong that it can stand alone—and that point of intense silence preceding it, called ma, there is a metaphysical continuity that defies analysis. … In performance, sound transcends the realm of the personal. Now we can see how the master shakuhachi player, striving in performance to re-create the sound of wind in a decaying bamboo grove, reveals the Japanese sound ideal: sound, in its ultimate expressiveness, being constantly refined, approaches the nothingness of that wind in the bamboo grove” (Takemitsu 1995, 51).  
 
Questions for Consideration:

1. According to Takemitsu, the biwa replicates the sounds of Japanese cicadas. And the shakuhachi recreates the sound of decaying wind in a bamboo grove. How does listening to this music with this in mind change how we think about music and nature?
2. Close your eyes and listen to Western instruments. Do they remind you of nonhuman animals, or other aspects of nature such as the wind, rain, or waves?

 
References
Takemitsu, Toru. 1995. Confronting silence: Selected writings. Berkeley, CA: Fallen Leaf Press.

Post 3.
 
Image link: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Amazon_River.jpg
 
Listening:
Amazon River, by Philip Glass, performed by Uakti
Link: https://youtu.be/S98fe_aQqk4
Another recording—by Third Coast Percussion
Link: https://youtu.be/wlsXClSbFZ8 
 
What is music?
 
When I ask this question, what are people asking? What music is—the character of music and who gets counted as a musician—is a point of contention for many scholars. Music is often defined in relation to: 1., expression (music expresses emotions) 2., musical elements/rudiments (music is melody, rhythm, and form in time), and 3., as musical works (Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony is music). Some of these definitions are better than others.
 
Consider the following definitions of music.
 

1. Music education philosopher Bennett Reimer (1932-2013) defined music as an art, and suggested music is about symbolization—a process through which one thing comes to represent another. In 1958, he wrote, “The function of art is to symbolize for man the very deepest and most profound elements of his experience. The only way a human being can apprehend and taste of what he calls ‘reality’ is through such symbolization. Art uses symbols to construct a cosmos in order to give the life of man a setting and meaning. It is the depth of each individual’s personal experience with which art is concerned, and not … the horizontal relationships between person and person” (Reimer 2009, 12)
2. The American composer Aaron Copland (1900-1990) seems to have shared Reimer’s understanding of symbolization, but added, “Music is many sided and can be approached from many different angles” (Copland 1980, 11).
3. In contrast, musicologist Christopher Small (1927-2011) emphasized the horizontal relationships between people. He felt music was better understood as a verb, rather than a noun. “To music is to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing” (Small 1998, 9; emphasis in original).
4. Music education philosophers David Elliott and Marissa Silverman (2015) take a similar approach to defining music as something people do in their groundbreaking book, Music Matters, now in its second edition. Musicing, in this sense, includes performing, improvising, composing, arranging, conducting and listening in a reflective process.
5. Each of these definitions seems to place emphasis on humans, above other animal species. I challenge this anthropocentric position. Non-human animals make music (e.g., robins, dolphins, cicadas) for their own reasons. In my work I define music using the phenomenological idea of intentionality: Music is “the intentional experiencing of sound, and leave whether the intender and experiencer are human to the particular occurrence” (Shevock 2018, 42; emphasis in original).

 
Consider these five definitions. How do we construct a “good” definition? Since the earliest dialogues of Socrates, philosophers have struggled with what makes a quality definition. In philosophy, definitions help to solve epistemological questions—epistemology being concerned with knowledge, what counts as knowledge (in this case, what counts as knowledge about music). But it seems, in general, a good definition of music might serve two functions—distinction and inclusivity.
 
By distinction, the defined word ought to be distinguished from similar words. Inclusivity might be more challenging. By inclusivity, our definition of music should not exclude anything that’s called “music” by large-enough groups of people. At least without making a very logical argument. Of course, when it comes to music and religion, visual arts, and dance, it can be difficult to make precise distinctions. For instance, in Islam, scholars argue whether intoning the holy book with pitch and melody is singing. Further, what constitutes “large-enough” can vary—are the Suyá/Kisêdjê, an indigenous group of about 330 people in Brazil, large enough to have their understandings of music included in our definition?
 
There is a possibility, especially when studying Western Music, that colonial mentalities, classism, Eurocentrism, White supremacy, anthropocentrism, or androcentrism that are invisible to us will influence our definitions. But, we are all works-in-progress when it comes to unjust hierarchies. We ought to try our best to be inclusive when writing a definition. Perhaps our definitions will improve as we become conscious of our own strengths and weaknesses. If we add a counterweight, an aim to be humble and generous—to, when in doubt, air on the side of including, especially when ideas emerge from peoples who are different from us—we have a better chance of constructing an ethically good, as well as a high quality definition of music.
 
Multiculturalism is a policy of tolerance to other cultures, peoples and value system. In short, culturalism is the recognition that values are often the products of cultures—our cultural practices shape the way we think about the world. And multiculturalism, then, is recognition that in a global, interconnected, modern world, we should tolerate values other than those we hold. But in the 21st Century, the line between Western and non-Western is often indistinct.
 
Further, Western Music, unlike many genres, is composer-centric. In popular music, listeners often care more about performers than composers or songwriters. For instance, the hit “Adore You” is connected with the singer, Miley Cyrus—it may be few fans think about the songwriters, Stacy Barthe and Oren Yoel. In Western Music, the opposite is the case. For instance, the Peer Gynt Suite is indelibly connected to the composer, Edvard Grieg, though particular fans might appreciate their recordings by the Vienna Philharmonic with Zubin Mehta conducting, or the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy. However, if tomorrow everybody interested in Western Music agreed to never utter the names of Beethoven or William Grant Still, the composers would fade from our collective memory. The events, people, and creations of the past can only live—can only express any type of activity—as activity within us. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in an 1841 essay, “The world exists for the education of each [person]. … I can find Greece, Asia, Italy, Spain and the Islands,—the genius and creative principle of each and of all eras, in my own mind” (Emerson 2008, 60-1).
 
Philip Glass (1937-date) is an American, minimalist composer. Many classical music critics and listeners consider him the most important living composer, having written many operas, symphonies, concertos, chamber music, and film scores. In 1967, composer Steve Reich’s Piano Phase influenced Glass, and he began using less complex harmonic, rhythmic, dynamic, and formal content. He rejects the term minimalist as applied to many of his pieces, including Amazon River. However, Amazon River, composed in 1993-99, uses simplified melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic content. The tempo gradually increased throughout, but the basic rhythm remains the same throughout. The melodies are simple. The Brazilian instrumental group Uakti, which is known for using homemade and custom-made instruments with distinctive timbre (sound quality), first performed this piece. Amazon River draws its inspiration from the Amazon waters, and each movement is named after a river—Tiquiê River, Japurá River, Purus River, Negro River, Madeira River, Tapajós River, Paru River, Xingu River, Amazon River, and Metamorphosis.
 
Questions for considerations:

1. Look at the definitions in this post. How do you rank them in two categories—distinction and inclusivity? Which definition is the best? Which is the worst?
2. Write a definition of music. Build on the definitions discussed in this post to make it as distinctive and inclusive as possible.
3. Does Amazon River, by Philip Glass, do well in representing multicultural ideals?

 
References
Copland, Aaron. 1980. Music and imagination. Combridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Originally published 1952]
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. 2008. Nature. New York: Penguin Books.
Elliott, David J and Marissa Silverman. 2015. Music matters: A philosophy of music education, second edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
Reimer, Bennett. 2009. “What music cannot do.: In B. Seeking the significance of music education: Essays and reflections, edited by Bennett Reimer. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. [Originally published 1958]
Shevock, Daniel J. 2018. Eco-literate music pedagogy. New York: Routledge.
Small, Christopher. 1998. Musicking: The meanings of performing and listening. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Post 2.
 
Perhaps since when studying Western music we’re studying ideas about the West—as a culture—we ought to begin by asking ourselves, “what is ‘Western’ about the West?” That is, what is distinctive about the Western tradition, as opposed to, say, the Chinese tradition, Indian tradition, or African tradition?
 
Traditionally, Western Music refers to music of the Western World. Not all of the land that makes up the West is automatically westward in direction of land in the Eastern World on a standard map. So, the West doesn’t necessarily refer to direction—at least not simply direction. Western Europe, the U.S. and Canada, Australia and New Zealand have historically been considered the West. Latin American countries are sometimes considered the West, and sometimes not (see image).
 


Image link: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ca/The_West_-_Clash_of_Civilizations.png/1280px-The_West_-_Clash_of_Civilizations.png
 
The West can refer to the following:

1. Western culture
2. Hellenistic and Roman thought
3. Christendom
4. Renaissance Art
5. The Enlightenment
6. The Scientific Revolution
7. Colonialism
8. Capitalism

 
Which of these eight referents are relevant to our study of Western Music? All of them? Some? None? The Western canon refers to a body of cultural products, often called the classics. In philosophy this can refer to thinkers as diverse as Socrates, Seneca, Thomas Aquinas, Mary Wollstonecraft, John Dewey, and Jean Baudrillard. This is a diverse set of thinkers, but in general they tend to be (though are not always) male, bourgeoisie, and White. Similarly in literature figures include Homer, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Jack London, and Kurt Vonnegut. In the visual arts, figures like Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Francisco de Goya, Claude Monet, and Andy Warhol come to mind.
 
In music, this body of so-called “high art” is called Classical Music, Western Classical Music, Western Art Music, or just Western Music—referring to cultural products, liturgical and secular related to sound. As Western Music is traditionally conceived, it does not refer to popular music, folk music, or jazz. But why not? One phrase, Classical Music, can be confusing because classical can also refer to the classical period of Western Music (approx., 1750-1820—Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven), rather than the entire history of Western Music. Historical divisions of Western Music include:

1. Ancient music (before 500 CE)
2. Medieval (approx., 500-1400 CE)
3. Renaissance (approx., 1400-1600 CE)
4. Baroque (1600-1750 CE)
5. Classical (1750-1820 CE)
6. Romantic (1820-1900)
7. 20th Century
   1. Expressionism (1908-1925)
   2. Impressionism (1890-1925)
   3. Neoclassicism (1920-1950)
   4. Experimentalism (1950-date)
   5. Minimalism (1965-date)

 
I borrowed these dates from Wikipedia for ease. In music history texts, these divisions are by no means standard or a given—though often some sort of periodization is taken-for-granted. A historical era, in this sense, represents a group of composers and performance practices that generally hold together as logically and stylistically consistent to a historian. History is socially constructed. Historians decide which historical periods to use, and decide which composers and compositions belong in the canon. This process is fraught with bias. Even today most music history textbooks rely primarily on male composers and performers, while female composers are discussed less often.
 
Listening:
And God Created Great Whales, Op. 229, no. 1, performed by the Seattle Symphony
Link: https://youtu.be/1pTu4pkmtpU
Another recording, by the Youth Orchestra of San Antonio
Link: https://youtu.be/SgESUPnCQ5o
 
One aspect of the Western tradition that is dominant is a dichotomy between “man” and “nature.” This provides a hard division, philosophically and in practice, between what is human and what is animal. The classical philosopher and Roman statesperson Cicero (106-43 BCE) wrote of duty:
 
“In any consideration of duty we must remember man’s natural pre-eminence over cattle and other beasts. Animals enjoy nothing but pleasure and are directed towards it by their every impulse. The human mind, on the other hand, develops through learning and thinking. It constantly investigates or explores and is led by the delight it takes in sights and sounds. A person who is inclined to pleasure-seeking, assuming he’s not just an animal (for some people are, indeed, human in name only), but is at least a little more upright—even if he is motivated by pleasure, hides or disguises his impulse out of sense of shame.” (Habinek 2012, 142)
 
Following this dichotomous logic, humans make music, and animals do not. Whether conservative or liberal, traditional or change-oriented, most Western definitions of music are anthropocentric—that is, human centered. Music is something people do (see Elliott and Silverman 2015; Small 1998). We’ll revisit these definitions in the next post on Music.
 
However, Vandana Shiva (1952-date) and other environmental activists have challenged the West to think more ecocentrically—that is, ecology-centered. Shiva (2005) writes “All species, peoples, and cultures have intrinsic worth. … The earth community is a democracy of all life. … [and] All beings have a natural right to sustenance” (9). This ecocentric position is often found in ecological movements, such as ecofeminism and deep ecology. Ecocentrists claim that anthropocentric thinking is destroying our planet, because we fail to care sufficiently for nonhuman lifeforms and their ecosystems. We may preserve a strip of wilderness for humanity, but when that land is more useful to people as housing, or timber, or oil, ecocentrists argue that anthropocentric conservation fails. I draw from ecocentrists like Shiva to construct a more ecocentric definition of music (see Shevock 2018). The debate over anthropocentrism and ecocentrism is possible because, traditionally, Western thinkers have seen this dichotomy as essential, and have tended to value the human world above the natural world.
 
Following this dichotomy, humans can experience music following another dichotomy—science and phenomenal. In the West, there is often a strong dichotomy between rationality and emotion. Science draws our attention to the material aspects of sounds that make music. In a way, in science the world as experienced is somewhat illusionary. The earth travels around the sun. The object touched consists of atoms you cannot see. In physicalism—sometimes called reductionism—sociology and psychology are, as sciences, reducible to biology; biology is reducible to chemistry; and chemistry is reducible to physics. For instance, the feeling of elation experienced with friends while dancing (sociology) can be understood using psychometrics (psychology), which point toward specific parts of the brain (biology), chemical reactions (chemistry), and finally the movement of physical particles (physics). Even when this reductive scheme cannot be fully uncovered, physicalism suggests that, with time, research will eventually understand it. Science, as a way of thinking about music, is reductive and requires quite a bit of thought and study. Many scholars dedicate their life’s work to testing specific aspects of music using sociology, psychology, biology, or chemistry. It may be this reduction and thought that make this type of research beneficial to those of us trying to understand music. But limitations also arise.
 
One cannot describe music only from a scientific perspective. The “phenomenal” merely refers to understanding something in relation to our senses (e.g., hearing, sight, taste, touch, smell). This can be considered less scientific, unscientific, or prescientific. Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) identified this pre-scientific understanding with the term, lifeworld. In the phenomenal, we say the sun rises in the East and sets in the West (though scientifically the earth is moving, not the sun); we touch a burning frying pan and feel pain; we hear a section of music, recall a childhood memory, and are brought to tears. The lifeworld is the phenomenal world—what we experience as self-evident or given. Music is given to us through our senses, and we experience is before we begin thinking about the science of sound waves or biological function.
 
In 1970, the American composer Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) composed And God Created Great Whales, which is a symphonic poem (a single movement of orchestral music suggesting a story, or other non-musical source—also called a tone poem) performed with recorded whale songs (recorded by biologist Roger Payne). The title comes from Genesis 1:21: “And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” In 1967, Roger Payne (1935-date) discovered whale song among humpback whales, which inspired him to join the global campaign to end commercial whaling. Payne’s influential recording inspired singer/songwriter Judy Collins’s 1970 album “Whales & Nightingales,” Kate Bush’s 1978 song “Moving,” the 1986 film “Stark Trek IV: The Voyage Home,” Paul Winter & Paul Halley’s 1987 album, “Whales Alive,” as well as Hovhaness’s composition. And in 1977, Roger Payne’s recordings were carried beyond the Solar System in the Voyager spacecraft. Scientifically, whales possess an advanced limbic system, “much more elaborate and developed than in the human brain.” According to music psychologists, the limbic system is a major part of emotional responses to music.
 
Questions for considerations:

1. How do ideas embedded in Western thought (such as anthropocentrism) affect Western Music?
2. Do scientific descriptions or phenomenal descriptions have the final say about of experience of music?
3. Since whales have an advanced limbic system, and the limbic system is connected to emotional responses to music, should whale songs be considered music?

 
 
References
Habinek, Thomas, trans. 2012. Cicero: On living and dying well. London: Penguin Classics. 
Elliott, David J and Marissa Silverman. 2015. Music matters: A philosophy of music education, second edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
Shevock, Daniel J. 2018. Eco-literate music pedagogy. New York: Routledge.
Shiva, Vandana. 2005. Earth democracy: Justice, sustainability, and peace. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Small, Christopher. 1998. Musicking: The meanings of performing and listening. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Post 1.
Introduction
 
Nature has long inspired composers, and as a result composers’ musics have been a sort of commentary on nature. Because of the unique ecological challenges we face in the 21st Century, thinking about nature has become a critical issue—our relationship with the natural world matters. This blog takes a critical view of the relationships between music and the natural world.
 
Western art music, that is, classical music, has a history beginning in the medieval period (also called the middle or dark ages) when European religious composers developed a notation system called neume. There was certainly music before medieval music, and even within the western tradition. Much of this music was considered art. It conveyed imaginative, technical, emotional, and social ends. Art musics can be understood as threefold—composers intend particular ends; performers intend particular ends; and listeners intend particular ends. Philosopher Edmund Husserl described intentionality as thought directed toward an object. Much can be understood about musics by analyzing those who compose, those who perform, and those who listen to certain musical traditions.
 
The earliest poem in the west, written in ancient Greece, the Iliad was most certainly sung. This music was not notated, and music scholars cannot be certain how any music composed prior to the medieval period sounded. Medieval composers used plainchant, monophonic melody (that is, one pitch at a time, unaccompanied, without any harmony or countermelodies), in religious liturgies. Early western art music, then, cannot be separated from the Catholic religious rituals from which it develops. Musics happen within cultural contexts. Rebab music occurs within Bedouin culture; gamelan ensembles emerge in Javanese and Balinese cultures; the maso bwikam (deer songs) exist in Yaqui or Yoeme culture. And western art music is part of western culture, which includes writing, visual arts, theatre, and other cultural expressions. But what is western culture? In the medieval period at least, western culture was Catholic. Even today, many medieval plainchants continue to be employed in Masses—the Mass being a central liturgical service, especially for Catholic and Anglican churches.
 
Let’s begin with a medieval composer, the nun and Catholic saint, Hildegard of Bingen.
 

Image link: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Hildegard_of_bingen_and_nuns.jpg
 
Listening:
O Frondens Virga, Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), performed by Chanticleer
Link: https://youtu.be/QGXXrUvNzec
Another version—ACDA High School Women’s Choir, Dallas, Texas
Link: https://youtu.be/Y4nEhTp68cU
Lyrics (from the International Society of Hildegard von Bingen Studies), link: http://www.hildegard-society.org/2014/10/o-frondens-virga-antiphon.html
 
O frondens virga,
in tua nobilitate stans
sicut aurora procedit:
nunc gaude et letare
et nos debiles dignare
a mala consuetudine liberare
atque manum tuam porrige
ad erigendum nos.
 
O blooming branch,
you stand upright in your nobility,
as breaks the dawn on high:
Rejoice now and be glad,
and deign to free us, frail and weakened,
from the wicked habits of our age;
stretch forth your hand
to lift us up aright.

Latin collated from the transcription of Beverly Lomer and the edition of Barbara Newman; translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell.
 
An antiphon is a short chant used in Christian rituals such as the Mass, or Liturgy of the Hours. However, Marian antiphons (a type of hymn to Mary) are not considered true antiphons, as they’re not generally associated with a specific psalm verse.
 
According to the Hildegard Society,
O frondens virga recalls the elemental association of the divine feminine with earthly fertility. Mary is addressed as “O blooming branch,” and she is described as standing in her nobility. The image of dawn and its radiance is also invoked. As in Cum erubuerint, Mary’s salvific actions take on a hint of independent agency: “deign to set us frail ones free” and “stretch out your hand to lift us up.” The musical rhetoric is not as powerful in this work. Melodic motives are shared on the words virga, sicut [aurora] and ad erigendum. The high registral pitch occurs on nobilitate, letare and manum. These linkages serve to highlight Mary’s key attributes and actions.
 
Questions for consideration:

1. What is the relationship to the ideas of “Western” and Christian religion?
2. How might Hildegard’s music and ideas challenge Western patriarchy?
3. How do modern performers and arrangers make single-line plainchant interesting to modern listeners, who expect harmony and countermelodies?