Ordo Virtutum (Latin for Order of the Virtues) is an allegorical morality play, or sacred music drama, by Hildegard of Bingen, composed around 1151, during the construction and relocation of her Abbey at Rupertsberg.
A short version of Ordo Virtutum without music appears at the end of Scivias, Hildegard's most famous account of her visions.
It is also included in some manuscripts of the Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum ("Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations"), a cycle of more than 70 liturgical songs.
Part III: The Virtues take turns identifying and describing themselves while the Devil occasionally interrupts and expresses opposing views and insults.
[8] The meaning and emphasis of the Ordo Virtutum in Hildegard of Bingen's community is affected by role assignments among the nuns.
[9] It has been suggested that the soul represents Richardis von Stade, Hildegard's fellow nun and friend, who had left to become abbess of another convent.
[12][better source needed] Music was a part of daily life in the abbey, since the nuns chanted psalms several times a day during the Liturgy of the Hours.
The neurologist Oliver Sacks has researched Hildegard's belief that music can bring a connection between the human brain's two hemispheres, to heal and calm the body.
[16] The final verses of the play move into a mystical mode and describe the crucifixion of Christ, asking the audience to bend their knees so that God may "stretch out his hand to you" (genua vestra ad patrem vestrum flectite / ut vobis manum suam porrigat, pp. 36–37).