Floribus Tonorum is the first piece, somewhat like a prelude, of a larger work, Hildegard Songs, a cycle that celebrates the vision and cosmology of Hildegard of Bingen. The entire cycle includes soprano, flute, tuba and piano with texts from the poems of Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 1179). The text of the first song of Hildegard Songs “O Beloved Son’ is “Oh beloved Son, whom I bore in my womb, by the might of the circling wheel of the holy divinity who created me, and laid in my womb all manner of music in all the flowers of sound”” Floribus Tonorum, or ‘flowers of sound,’ and the various images in the poem suggest a minimalist music with ‘circling’ arpeggios and repeating melodic fragments, including fragments of two well-known Christmas carols.