Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179), abbess, musician, spiritual leader, practitioner of healing arts, wrote this about music:
A voice emanating from the living Light made me think on David's psalm, which says: "Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Let everything that breathes praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!" These visible words teach us invisible spiritual lessons. When we sing, we repossess some of the Eden that we lost when Adam fell.
That's why the Holy Spirit inspired prophets to write songs, to touch the hearts of all who hear them. The prophets were also called to make different kinds of musical instruments to accompany these songs of praise, enriching them. When we hear the splendid music that these instruments make, absorbing the meaning of the psalms' words, we learn more about spiritual truths alive within us.
Music stirs our hearts and engages our souls in ways we can't describe. When this happens, we are taken beyond our earthly banishment back to the divine melody Adam knew when he sang with the angels, when he was whole with God, before his exile. . . .
Translation by Carmen Acevedo Butcher in Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader, Paraclete Press, 2007.
