The music on this CD comes from the great Hildegard of Bingen, one of the towering female figures from the Middle Ages.  Hildegard is not only one of the few women whose name has come down to us from the Middle Ages, but one of the few composers of any sort whose name survives together with his or her compositions.  Hildegard was a sort of Renaissance woman before the Renaissance, whose fame spread in her lifetime such that she was advisor of monarchs and popes, as well as a significant creative and mystical figure.