Hildegard Von Bingen:O Ignee Spiritus

Hildegard von Bingen: O Ignee Spiritus

Hildegard von Bingen (ca. 1098–1179) was a Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher and scientist. Her spirituality was based on the idea of umbra viventis lucis (the reflection of the living Light).

This piece also contains some beautiful light imagery, for example in the line et eius lucerna est desiderium (and desire is its [=the soul’s] lamp), in which the first syllable of the word lucerna is sung on the highest note of the phrase, creating a shining effect in the melody as well.

Bohumil Hrabal: Bambini di Praga 1947

“there are stains which cannot be cleaned without disrupting the structure of the fabric”

This quote demonstrates Hrabal’s art of aestheticization of banal phrases. The phrase is a a quote from an advertisement for a laundry detergent, but he gives it a completely different context and revives latent meanings in it, thus allowing it to come alive.

Jiří Trnka: Sen noci svatojánské (1959) | A Midsummer Night's Dream 

Josef Hiršal & Bohumila Grögerová: JOB-BOJ (1968) Setiny: exhibition of Bohumila Grögerová’s poetry at Hvězda, Prague (17. 6. – 7. 11. 2021)

Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse (1927)

"It partook, she felt, carefully helping Mr Bankes to a specially tender piece, of eternity."

Leonard Bernstein’s Mass Forum Karlín, 2016 Vojtěch Dyk as the Celebrant

We’ve got quarrels and qualms and such questions, give us answers, not psalms and suggestions, give us peace that we don’t keep on breaking, give us something or we’ll just start taking! Dona nobis, dona nobis.