‘Honora Te’ is a 7.5-minute work for SSA and piano, commissioned by Voces Solis, based upon music from my 2025 opera, ‘Hildegard,’ co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects and the Aspen Music Festival.

The work weaves together three musical moments from scenes of Hildegard von Bingen’s visions, in which the 12th-c. German Benedictine polymath is visited by angels––Voices of the Living Light––who present her with divine messages she struggles to understand.

On a much smaller scale, this piece traces Hildegard’s journey in the opera: from fear, apprehension, and denial, to strength, trust, and self-honoring. The text, a combination of Latin and English, is a kind of palimpsest––phrases from the writings of Hildegard von Bingen interwoven with ideas of my own that they inspired.    

With many thanks to Ryan Keeling and Voces Solis for the invitation to create this choral arrangement.

Text: Sarah Kirkland Snider, after Hildegard von Bingen

Ferreum montem

Iron Mountain

Omni videns

All-seeing eye

Ignis Aeternus

Eternal fires

Vivi Volant

Alive, they fly

Sine fine resonat

Endless echoes

Dulce in lumine

Sweet in light

Vide eam; eam cognosce.

See her, dear daughter.

I see, but I don’t understand.

See her, know her.

Is she Wisdom?

I am not strong enough.

Mother, tell me:

What do you want from me?

Mind is the bond

between will and desire.

Mens est vinculum.

When mind follows heart,

love illuminates

the path to Wisdom.
Viam illuminat Amor ad Sapientiam.

Ad aedificandum domum Sapientiae,

vires habere debes ut te

percipias et honores.

I will honor her with divine love.

I am finally strong enough to see her.

Honora te ipsum divino amore.

Vires habere debes ut te

percipias et honores.

Honora te ipsum divino amore.

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