For starters, here’s a link to the music sheet which I found at irupert.com:

O Ignis Spiritus

Here are the lyrics and translation per Rupert Chappelle:

O ignis spiritus paracliti,
vita vite omnis creature,
sanctus es vivificando formas

Sanctus es unguendo
periculose fractos:
sanctus es tergendo
fetida vulnera.

O spiraculum sanctitatis,
o ignis caritatis,
o dulcis gustus in pectoribus
et infusio cordium
in bono odore virtutum.

O fons purissimus,
in quo consideratur
quod Deus alienos colligit
et perditos requirit.

O lorica vite et spes compaginis
membrorum omnium,
et o cingulum honestatis
salva beatos.

Custodi eos
qui carcerati sunt ab inimico,
et solve ligatos
quos divina vis salvare vult.

O iter fortissimum
quo penetravit omnia;
in altissimis et in terrenis
et in omnibus abyssis
tu omnes componis et colligis.

De te nubes fluunt,
ether volat,
lapides humorem habent,
aque rivulos educunt,
et terra viriditatem sudat.

Tu etiam semper educis doctos
per inspirationem sapiente letificos.

Unde laus tibi sit
qui es sonus lauudus,
et gaudium viter,
spes et honor fortissimus
dans premia luics.

Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179)

O Holy Fire which soothes the spirit
/alt (para clete?) O fire of the spirit which I have tried
life force of all creation
holiness you are in living form
You are a holy ointment
for perilous injuries
You are holy in cleansing
the fetid wound.

O breath of holiness
o fire of loving
o sweet taste in the breast
you fill the heart
with the good aroma of virtues.

O fountain of purity
in/with whom it is considered
that God collected the lost / That God made the strangers one with us
and the sinners/damned saved.

O robe of life and hope for the companions
our brothers all of the church
and the belt of honesty
save the blessed.

Caring for all those
who are held down by enemies
and dissolve/break the chains/restraints/laws.
whom the divine will save and free.

O path of strength
that enters all places
in the high places and in the plains
and in all the depths
you call and unify all.

From you the clouds/smoke flows,
the ether files,
stones/jewels have/given their feeling/moods/qualities
water streams shown their way. (given their course)
and earth made green and fresh.

You always teach comprehending
by inspiriational wisdom with pleasure/joy/happiness.

Praise be to you,
who is the sound of praise,
and joy of life, hope and noble strength
giving the premium of the light.

translation by Rupert Chappelle

I was trying to find the article “The Music of Faith, Part I” which according to Mr. Chappelle “has a very good explanation of what is the difference between Hildegard’s music and gregorian chant”, but alas! The link is not working and the article no longer seems to be online.

However, I did find this

Chants were differentiated not only by form (sequence, trope, conductus, hymn) and the number of notes per syllable, but also by style. Hildegarde’s smooth flow of notes, with relatively few pauses or jumps to notes much higher or lower, contrasts with the Gregorian style of chant, which is marked by comparatively short, repeated melodic phrases and by frequent fourths. The different religious orders also fostered different styles: Benedictine chants were more elaborate than Dominican chants and generally sung at a higher pitch than Carthusian chant. Then there were melodic and rhythmic divergences – a note added here or held longer there – in the chant sung at different monasteries, especially at musical centres like St Gall, St Martial of Limoges in France or Reichenau in Germany.

from the website of Maternal Heart of Mary, a Traditional Latin Mass community

And this:

Finally, there are various “unofficial” additions to be mentioned. Gregorian Chant was essentially a variant of the Roman chant, a foreign import subjected to local variation. However, there were more explicit attempts to preserve pre-Gregorian local chant styles in the Frankish kingdom. Longer texts were added to ornate, melismatic Gregorian melodies, resulting in pieces of simpler, syllabic style – known as “Prosulæ”. New texts commenting rhetorically on the official chant texts, set to their own music, were interpolated between the phrases of the official chant – called “Tropes”. Long melismatic replacement-melodies were sometimes added to the end of alleluias – known as “Sequences”. These could sometimes be texted – the results were known variously as “Sequences” or (more helpfully) “Proses”. The Prose/Sequence came to be independent of the alleluia and its replacement-melody. (Many of the well-known songs by abbess Hildegard of Bingen are a highly individual variety of this genre.) None of these additions remains in use, with the exception of a few of the later Proses.

from The Gregorian Association

And from Medieval.org:

Chant, or what is sometimes called Gregorian chant or simply “plainchant” by scholars is an unaccompanied melody with sacred Latin lyrics made for Church services during the medieval era. Although it is not uncommon for more than one singer to sing the same melody in plainchant, once they begin singing a different melody or accompaniment, it is no longer properly chant, but rather polyphony of some kind. So, for instance, most of the tracks on “Chill to the Chant” and some other collections are actually polyphony.

France was the center of many of these developments, and polyphony was frequently written down there from the 1100s onward. During that time, there was also a new emphasis on Latin melody outside the bounds of the liturgy itself. Latin songs of this sort might be called “chant” when they are not polyphonic, but they do differ somewhat in genre from the core service music. This is the style into which Hildegard von Bingen (c.1098-1179) fits.

Hildegard’s music has become central not only to the explosion in the popularity of medieval music, but also to the idea of relaxing & healing music in general. Although it can become too easy to chide the general public and the record companies for flocking to the “chant phenomenon” and the idea of medieval music as tranquil, it is also clearly true that music can have a beneficial effect on the listener. Hildegard explored this idea rather thoroughly for the time, and produced an abundant output of uplifting melodies.

As you can see, I’m approaching this from the perspective of an amateur who doesn’t know much about chant. We’ve been listening to chant off and on for a number of years but just now starting to learn more about its history and its use.

For more about St. Hildegard von Bingen and her works, here’s a link to a long list of links! 😉