Abstract
A full concert-length improvisation (c.45 minutes) responding to and reflecting upon the writings of Hildegard von Bingen (recited aloud by Cathedral staff) – specifically, the melodic, modal, and structural vocabulary encountered through the researcher’s extended scholarly engagement with the Riesencodex manuscript during preparation of the Ordo Virtutum recording (see C4), but also aesthetic engagement to Hildegard as a creative and artist with many modes of practice, spiritual and practical. The work investigates how deep research immersion in 12th-century notation and performance practice can generate completely new musical material through spontaneous creative response rather than composed edition or arrangement. It tests whether the internalisation of a historical musical language – achieved through years of manuscript study and performance – can produce coherent, concert-length improvised music that is neither pastiche nor merely “inspired by” the source, but a genuine creative synthesis of medieval and contemporary musical thinking.