The producer, Guy Sigsworth, has reworked them to create “ambient remixes”.
Sigsworth is a classically trained musician known for his work with Madonna,
Britney Spears and Seal.
The album, Hildegard, is being released by Decca and industry experts predict it will become a chart success.
Sigsworth worked with Stevie Wishart, a composer who studied medieval music and has long been fascinated by Hildegard’s compositions.
Wishart enlisted female singers to perform the works and set the ancient texts to music. She said: “Hildegard’s songs have a kind of universality. She is fantastic to sing and just an extraordinary composer who wrote over 70 songs. I have not studied a contemporary composer who has songs with such incredible range.”
Earlier this month, Hildegard was canonised by Pope Benedict XVI for her “life of holiness and virtue” and for bringing “a woman’s insight to the mysteries of faith”.
Born in 1098 to a noble German family, Hildegard began seeing religious visions as a young girl and entered a convent at the age of eight. She wrote poems, theological texts and songs, the latter collectively known as the Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum.
Her music has been recorded before but but this is the first time it has been produced with such a modern twist.
Geoffrey Norris, the Telegraph’s classical music critic, said: “It might not be to purists’ taste, but the disc evokes a hypnotic atmosphere. I have a funny feeling that this disc could become a hit.”
Decca has high hopes for the recording.
A spokesman for the label said: “Hildegard isn’t just a straightforward medieval recording. These samples have been reworked to create stunning, ambient remixes.”