Medieval Miracles:

The Music of Hermannus Contractus (1015-1054)

Music by a quadriplegic Monk

Hermann of Reichenau, or “Herman the Disabled” (1013-1054), was an astonishing figure of the central Middle Ages. Most likely suffering from cerebral palsy, the quadriplegic Hermann was confined to a chair for his entire life, which he spent in the island monastery of Reichenau. Hermann became one of the most impressive intellectuals of his day, studying and teaching astronomy, history, rhetoric, and mathematics. But Hermann was perhaps best known for his musicianship, as a composer for his fellow monks, and creator of “the sweetest melodies ever heard”. 

To the few people who know Hermann today, most know him as the putative author of the hymn Salve Regina, still sung every day by monks, clerics, and laypeople all around the world. But Hermann was a prolific composer, and among his many compositions there survive three “historia”: lives of saints told through music, in the form of the Divine Office. These vivid compositions are essentially medieval opera, full of dynamic melodies and built-in drama, devoted to specific saints and performed as a celebration on their official feast days. 

This concert takes as its centerpiece Hermann’s Historia Sancti Magni, or “The Story of Saint Magnus”, a local saint venerated in the region where Hermann lived. Magnus was especially known for his nature miracles, which included expelling snakes, training dragons, and working closely with local bears to find lucrative iron mines. Through hymns, antiphons, responsories, and readings, Hermann tells the story of Magnus’s life, including his miraculous acts and his surprising interactions with animals. Musically, it stands equal among the great spiritual works of western music, and put in the proper context, the drama matches the intensity of the great Romantic operas of the 19th century. 

Our concert brings this miraculous composition to new life for the first time in 10 centuries, reanimated by Sequentia-member leiken and composer Doug Balliett, in a new edition prepared from the medieval manuscript, and with fresh and informed harmonizations imagined for the long-disappeared medieval organ in Reichenau. 

The program pairs Hermann’s masterwork with pieces by his near-contemporary, Peter Abelard. Though best known for his stormy affair with Heloise, he was also a celebrated thinker, poet, and composer. To bring the 11th century vividly alive, Hermann’s Historia Sancti Magni will be paired with an impressive Planctus (“Lament”) from Abelard, the other musical luminary of the age.

NOVEMBER 15, 2024: NYC, Greenwich Village (Contact for details)

NOVEMBER 17, 2024, 8 PM: St. Mary’s Church, 440 Grand St, New York, NY 10034