Singing to the Trinity: Laus Trinitati

Aurelio Porfiri

When I comment on notable pieces from the sacred music repertoire, I usually find myself speaking about works written by men.

I have no desire to participate in that ideological madness which insists on promoting a kind of egalitarianism at the expense of truth. I still believe that truth must prevail over false goodness. If there is a woman worth speaking about, I will certainly speak of her—and there is no doubt that there are several.

Above all, I must mention St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), an extraordinary woman and refined musician. Among her many contributions, we owe her one of the most beautiful chants to the Holy Trinity: Laus Trinitati. It is a piece that truly deserves to be known for its beautiful Latin text, which can be translated as follows:

“Praise to the Trinity, which is sound and life and the creator of all, present in their life, and which is the praise of the angelic host and the wondrous splendor of arcane mysteries, unknown to mankind, and which is the life-breath in every creature.”

This text, full of spiritual fervor in praise of the Most Holy Trinity, is well matched with its melody in the deuterus mode—one of the most arcane to modern ears, and precisely for this reason among the most fascinating. The Trinity is described as “sound, life, creator, praise, splendor”—terms that aptly reflect the Trinitarian mystery, though they could never fully express it.

Scholar Nathaniel M. Campbell writes the following about this chant:

“Its opening image of the praise we owe to the Trinity is connected, in the middle of the antiphon, to the praise of the heavenly host, whose symphony attempts to reflect the Trinitarian mystery. The dominant theme, however, is life, first within the Trinity, and then in God’s every creation. Both the thrice-repeated vitaand its musical treatment confirm this point: the cascade of descending notes on vita in line two is redoubled in its third appearance in the final line, which carries the longest melisma of any syllable in the piece and spans every note save one of the antiphon’s complete range.”