A Feather on the Breath of God was recorded in St. Jude's Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, on 14 September 1981, under the direction of the medieval musicologist Christopher Page.

[2][5] The album cover art makes use of an illustration by Hildegard von Bingen from her manuscript Scivias, depicting a vision of the Creation.

[3] Writing in Billboard, Bradley Bambarger credited the album with starting "a craze for all things Hildegard" which inspired later recordings by artists such as Ensemble Organum and Anonymous 4.

[7] The album has received a number of awards:[5] A few years after release, music from A Feather on the Breath of God entered rave culture, when extracts from the album were sampled by electronica groups The Beloved, in their 1989 single "The Sun Rising",[9][10] and Orbital, in the track "Belfast" on their 1991 EP III.

[11] In 2020, the album was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".