O cruor sanguinis

• O cruor sanguinis (“O stream of blood”) is a votive antiphon for the Crucified.¹
  • Votive antiphons are psalmless antiphons—that is, independent Latin songs—attached as riders onto the ends of Office services to honor or appeal to local saints or (increasingly) to the Virgin Mary.²
• This highly evocative antiphon would have been used during Holy Week.

Score, text, and translation of O cruor sanguinis

1. Nathaniel M. Campbell, Beverly R. Lomer, and Xenia Sandstrom-McGuire, “The Symphonia and Ordo Virtutum of Hildegard von Bingen,” International Society of Hildegard Studies (2014), accessed July 21, 2022, http://www.hildegard-society.org/p/music.html#Symphonia.
2. Richard Taruskin “Chapter 3 Retheorizing Music,” in Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century, Oxford University Press (n.d.), accessed July 21 2022, https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume1/actrade-9780195384819-div1-003008.xml