August, 2005  
 Origin of Fire:
Anonymous 4
CD, $17.98
Harmonia Mundi
Hildegard von Bingen, (1098– 1179), began having sacred visions filled with light and fire when she was five years old. She entered a convent in Germany when she was eight and at age thirty-four she became a Mother Superior. Based on her experiences, she wrote sacred music for the nuns in the convent. She said that she received her musical compositions whole—words and music together —from God.
Chant recordings have been popular in recent years. They are most often instrumental, synthesized music, or rearranged for groups of voices that are not typical of the period. But the artists on this CD, Anonymous 4, are four women who are medieval scholars as well as superb singers, so what you hear on this recording is as close as it gets to what the nuns in Hildegard’s convent sounded like. The music itself is ecstatic and extraordinary. It is also sensuous and spiritual at the same time. It describes deeply felt, universal experiences, and the singers present it with perfect clarity, complexity, and balance—four voices as one. As you listen, you are transported not to the medieval past, but to a place of visions inside yourself.
Heaven Guide Me
Ahria
CD, $16.95
Coral Records
Heaven Guide Me is a disc of twelve songs with uplifting, inspirational lyrics that explore the connection between creative expression and spiritual experience. These are lovely, gentle songs that describe the love and wonder of Ahria’s relationship with the world and with God.
Ahria keeps things simple on this CD—just her sweet soprano voice and a piano. The music is mostly in the folk song style, which lets the lyrics really stand out. She makes a stirring statement with I Will Make a Difference: “I have a special prayer this year, Heaven help me open up my heart, Help me to more deeply feel. . . Help me to forgive the man who took from me, Help me to learn to love myself more tenderly.”
A special treat is an adaptation of the children’s favorite Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Ahria transforms it into a song for adults about how the stars can guide us to the special places that shine in our own hearts.
 
Tibet: Nada Himalaya, Vol. 2
Deuter
CD, $16.98
New Earth Records
A ll the music on this CD is made using Tibetan singing bowls. The bowls are a unique instrument that Tibetan monks use for meditation and prayer. They are made from various combinations of seven metals, and each alloy produces a bowl with its own individual sound. The bowl is rubbed with a wooden mallet to produce sustained, ringing tones that are astonishingly rich. Many overtones and harmonies are sounded all at once by the same bowl.
The monks use these sounds to relax the mind, inspire clarity and focus, and open the pathways to higher states of consciousness. They say that singing bowls also release tension and stress and have a calming effect on the nervous system. And I must admit that after listening to this CD, I believe them.
This is music without any specific melody or rhythm, but the effect is not random. The dark, complex sounds of the various bowls interweave and change in compositions that have direction and flow even without a formal structure. Time, which is always measured so precisely in music, seems to disappear and space opens up for very different ways of listening.
There are seven pieces here that you can listen to individually or as a whole. I’d recommend the latter, because you can more easily lose yourself in the mysterious, hypnotic sounds Deuter has created. The first few minutes do seem unstructured and a little strange, but the more you listen you’ll find yourself drawn into the beautiful, musical landscape.
—Beth Adelman |
