On today’s date in the year 1179, in the German convent of Ruppertsberg near Bingen, an 81-year-old abbess named Hildegard breathed her last. The 12th century was a time of great accomplishments in art, religion, and human thought, a kind of medieval Renaissance, and Hildegard of Bingen was one of the most remarkable women of that remarkable time.

And she recorded the precise moment it happened: “When I was 42 years and seven months old,” she writes, “a burning light of tremendous brightness coming from heaven poured into my entire mind, like a flame that does not burn but enkindles. All at once I was able to taste of the understanding the Psalter, the Evangelists, and the Books of the Old and New Testaments.”

Hildegard expressed her new awareness in music and is one of the earliest Western composers we know by name. She left a large body of highly original music. Largely forgotten for centuries by all but medieval specialists, in the late 20th century some recordings of Hildegard’s music sparked renewed interest, and her very old music seemed destined to resonate in a very new age.