Category:

In the Infinite

$2.15

Rich harmonies and a feeling of infinity highlight the text of influential lay Christian mystic, Hadewijch II

SATB, a cappella with soprano and tenor solos

Text: Hadewijch II, translated by Jane Hirshfield

Level: Moderate-Advanced

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Description

The text for In the Infinite represents the Christian faith in my “O My Friends What Can You Tell Me of Love” song cycle for SATB choirs featuring texts by female mystics from around the world  and from a variety of sacred traditions. The author of this text, Hadewijch II, was a lay Christian mystic who lived in a Beguine community in the 13th century. Her poems and words were influential and would be drawn upon later by notable male mystics such as Ruysbroeck and Eckhart.

Hadewijch speaks in metaphysical terms about what appears to be an enlightenment experience in which “All things are too small to hold” her and “In the Infinite” she touches the “Uncreated.” Hadewijch II is generous. At the end of the poem she lets us know that this experience is available to all of us, noting, “You know this well, you who are also there.”

(Formerly “You Who Are Also There”)

Text

All things
are too small
to hold me,
I am so vast

In the Infinite
I reach
for the Uncreated

I have touched it,
it undoes me
wider than wide

everything else
is too narrow

You know this well,
you who are also there

Hadewijch II, Translated by Jane Hirshfield © 1994, Used with Permission

Program Notes

Very little is known about Hadewijch II, a Flemish Beguine from the 13th century. Hers are the 13 poems, appearing to be in another hand, which follow the 16 poems by Hadewijch I. According to the translator, Jane Hirshfield, these poems are more “metaphysical and intellectual” and “introduce a new vocabulary of words…which would be drawn upon later by male mystics such as Ruysbroeck and Eckhart.” from Women In Praise of the Sacred by Jane Hirshfield

Performances

* The First Readings Project Choir, J. David Moore, director (St. Paul, MN) – listen above

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