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From plainchant via simple 9th-century harmonies and the virtuosic duets of Master Léonin (known as organum), this hauntingly beautiful sequence charts the birth of polyphony up to the first music in four independent parts – composed by Master Pérotin and sung during the liturgy at the new Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris. From the official laying of the cornerstone in 1163 to the completion of the famous Western façade almost a hundred years later, Notre-Dame was the fertile home of singers and composers whose extraordinary handiwork has come down to us in the magnus liber organi: the “Great Book of Organum”.
Perotin: Beata viscera (6'09)
plainchant: Viderunt omnes (2'22)
Leonin(?): Viderunt omnes (17'35)
clausulae/motet on "Dominus" (4'47)
Perotin: Viderunt omnes (16'01)
after Scolica Enchiriadis: Non nobis Domine (7'10)
Perotin: Sederunt principes (13'31)
Anon: Vetus abit littera (2'29)
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The cornerstone of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris was laid in 1163; by c.1250 its imposing Western façade had been completed. During this period the vast body of polyphonic music known as the magnus liber organi was composed, compiled and edited – capped at the turn of the 12th century by Magister Pérotin’s celebrated organum Viderunt omnes, one of the very first pieces written in four independent parts. Pérotin and his generation were building on the legacy of another “master”, Léonin: the extra 2-part versions of "Dominus" were designed to replace the sections of Léonin’s original organum. The foundations of polyphony and the Notre-Dame style are found in the simple organum of a 9th-century treatise. Underneath it all, and supporting a thousand years of Western musical history, is plainchant – the ancient melody of the Church.
Viderunt omnes... “All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God” – this great Old Testament vision aptly sums up the inspiration for both the architecture of Notre-Dame in Paris and the liquid equivalent to be found in the Cathedral’s magnus liber organi – “the great book of organum”.
A picture postcard of Notre-Dame Cathedral tells you something of its form and appearance but little of its detail and none of its power: even the best efforts of imagination are not enough to appreciate fully its immensity until you are right there, standing next to what John Julius Norwich neatly summarised as the “first cathedral built on a truly monumental scale”. Likewise the music written for the cathedral needs to be heard as near to lifesize volume as feasible to understand its intensity and force.
Visitors to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame are first of all struck by the imposing Western façade, but on entering the building the experience is transformed by what Abbot Suger of St Denis – one of the forefathers of the Gothic style of architecture – had conceived as “the wonderful and uninterrupted light of most sacred windows pervading the interior beauty”; then there is the awareness of a vast mass of people contained within the towering walls and arches; and above all, the unmistakeable sound of distant voices and movement reflected from innumerable ancient corners. For the Parisian musicians and worshippers living in the late 12th and early 13th Centuries, however, this was a dynamic experience as the new structure slowly took shape above the city skyline: a building project that would span several generations from the laying of the cornerstone in 1163.
Léonin, who was considered the master of polyphonic composition in his time and who appears to have been responsible for the magnus liber in its original form, must have spent much of his career in the unfinished ‘choir’ or Eastern portion of the Cathedral, separated from the regular sounds of construction by some kind of temporary screen which perhaps was moved column by column westwards over the years. By the time Pérotin made a new edition of Léonin’s magnus liber and added his own massive polyphonic versions of two Gradual chants – most likely for feast-days in 1198 and 1199 – practically the entire space of the Cathedral was ready to resonate in sympathy. Over the next half-century and beyond work continued on the building until it was as complete as it ever would be.
Certainly that is the story that seems to be corroborated by the enormous body of music in the magnus liber itself. The foundation of this repertoire is plainchant – unmeasured melodies associated with every liturgical moment in the Church’s calendar. Viderunt omnes (track 2) is a chant for Christmas Day and its octave, the Feast of Circumcision.
There are two very simple ways of constructing polyphony out of plainchant: either by adding a drone – one note held on as a pedal under the plainchant, or by simultaneously singing the same plainchant at a fixed interval above or below (the most obvious example is of men and women, or men and boys singing the same tune an octave apart). The 9th-century treatise Scolica [or Scholia] enchiriadis demonstrates this spontaneous and unwritten practice of parallel organum with a number of examples which we have recorded here as individual verses of a psalm (track 30).
On top of these early edifices in Western polyphony we can imagine ad hoc experiments in the performance of plainchant in a measured style (with each note either the same length or twice as long as the next), and in the improvisation of a free part over the existing plainchant. Today it is easy to forget how well these tunes, especially those for feast-days such as Christmas or Easter, would have been known by both the professionals in the choir and the congregation in the nave.
The two-part music or organum duplum from Notre-Dame most commonly associated with Léonin (tracks 3-16) is built upon all these earlier developments, with the familiar tune of the plainchant either slowed down while a second part elaborates a clearly soloistic line (organum purum), or rhythmicised into the same ‘modal’ system as the new solo line (discantus). The rules for unravelling 13th-century notation are relatively unambiguous for discantus or discant style, but they leave us with plenty of rhythmic options for the longer, more virtuosic sections of organum purum – on this recording we have explored a number of the many solutions (compare tracks 3 and 9).
It was the more regular discantus sections which proved most memorable and consequently attracted the attention of up-and-coming composers, including Pérotin. One section from the Viderunt omnes in particular – with the single, crucial word “Dominus” (tracks 6 and 12) became favourite fabric for rhythmic and harmonic experimentation, and many new two-part versions of this section were composed (including tracks 17-21), either to be inserted as substitute clausulae or possibly as free-standing pieces. In the furnishing of new words to the upper part in Factum est salutare / Dominus (track 22) there are the audible seeds of the motet – which was to become a separate musical structure with a future far outside its original liturgical setting.
With the addition of a third, and then a fourth voice, the rhythmic organisation of the discant style of organum was fully extended to the upper parts throughout – just as the Cathedral’s original arcade, gallery, triforium, and clerestory had to be carefully co-ordinated. And just as the exceptional height of the Gothic style of architecture required new solutions to the problems of this scale of weight-bearing, there were also further harmonic implications of combining so many voices – composers had to discover how to balance intricate mixtures of consonance and dissonance (harmonic intervals which sound relatively more or less pleasing to the ear) over a long span of time. According to an Englishman visiting Paris in the later 13th Century (the posthumously-labelled ‘Anonymous 4’) it was “Master Pérotin who made the best quadrupla”, and it is these earliest surviving examples of four-part harmony which open the manuscript Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, plut. 29.1 (‘F’) from which the editions for this recording were largely made.
Our approach on this recording has been to combine what we know of 12th- and 13th-century notational theory with the practical results of our own encounter with this celebrated style; above all, we have aimed to adopt a pace and an intensity to match the scale of the building for which this music was written. If, as for today’s visitors to Notre-Dame or for the scribe of the manuscript known as ‘F’, it is size that creates the best initial impression, then go straight to Pérotin’s Viderunt omnes (tracks 23-28) or Sederunt principes (track 31) – written for the day after Christmas when St Stephen the first Christian martyr (and co-patron of the Cathedral) was remembered. If, however, time allows listening all the way through from Pérotin’s freely-composed melody Beata viscera (track 1) to a four-part conductus Vetus abit littera (track 32), then hopefully we will have conveyed something of the staggering cumulative effect of a Gothic cathedral-in-progress.
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nominated for the first-ever BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE AWARDS 2006
ON AN OVERGROWN PATH theovergrownpath.blogspot.com February 2006
Not the Grammy Awards ...
on Leonin / Perotin - Sacred Music from Notre-Dame Cathedral (Naxos 8.557340): "...Here for starters are four of the best new classical releases featured On An Overgrown Path in the last twelve months which didn't appear among the Grammy winners... to show I do really love Naxos I nominate for a 'Not a Grammy Award' their excellent release of medieval sacred music from the Notre-Dame school featuring works by Leonin and Perotin. The performers are TONUS PEREGRINUS directed by Antony Pitts, and this noteworthy CD featured in both my Jerry Springer rebel grabs Gramophone accolade and Raindrops are falling on my chant articles. The good news is that although this disc didn't make the Grammys it is the only early music recording shortlisted for the 2006 BBC Music Magazine Awards..."
FANFARE November/December 2005
on Leonin / Perotin - Sacred Music from Notre-Dame Cathedral (Naxos 8.557340): "We have heard this vocal group in a Mass of Tournai with the anonymous St. Luke Passion, a juxtaposition of French and English music of the late Middle Ages, and Arvo Pärt’s Passio at the other end of the millennium. Now they have turned to an even earlier period, Notre-Dame polyphony, using new editions made by Antony Pitts, the director of the ensemble. Eight adult mixed voices make up the group, singing in octaves in the chant Viderunt which precedes the two-voice setting, which is then followed by the four-voice setting attributed (by Anonymus IV) to Perotinus....Three of the seven pieces named by Anonymus IV as works of Perotinus are included on this disc, including the two masterpieces for four voices that are connected with events of 1198 and 1199...
These relaxed performances seem less intense than the previous recordings that have been successive hallmarks of the repertoire. The sound of mixed voices, which would never have been heard in Notre Dame at the time, is a problem. So are the dates assigned to each name, which are speculative and undocumented, hence can be misleading even if “flourished” and “circa” are added to the dates. The disc was produced by Jeremy Summerly, exactly a year before he made the new Tallis disc with his old ensemble. The venue was Chancelade abbey in the Dordogne, a wonderfully reverberant space not known before as a recording site...
Despite the caveats, this is a marvelous disc." (J. F. Weber)
EARLY MUSIC TODAY October/November 2005 FRONT COVER FEATURE
on Leonin / Perotin - Sacred Music from Notre-Dame Cathedral (Naxos 8.557340) and Seven Letters and other sacred choral music by Antony Pitts (Hyperion CDA67507): "...with the high-profile resignation from the BBC over its Springer television broadcast behind him, [Antony Pitts] is immersed in a series of Naxos recordings examining landmarks in choral history with his vocal ensemble TONUS PEREGRINUS. And landmarks don't come much more dramatic than that represented in the music written by Léonin and Pérotin for Notre-Dame...
...the sound is bright and clear, blessed with that floaty Chancelade Abbey acoustic...
...the haunting sounds of sopranos Joanna Forbes and Rebecca Hickey provide some of the most memorable moments.
In the Naxos/TONUS PEREGRINUS pipeline are CDs devoted to such projects as masses of John Dunstable and music by Gibbons. Intriguingly, Hyperion have just released the recording which in fact first attracted Naxos chief Klaus Heymann to TONUS PEREGRINUS - an album of music by Pitts himself focused on his Seven Letters, claimed as perhaps 'the only choral setting of St John's damning indictment of the 1st-century Church in Asia Minor.'
That Pitts. Just can't keep away from controversy."
MUSICWEB www.musicweb-international.com September 2005 RECORDING OF MONTH
on Leonin / Perotin - Sacred Music from Notre-Dame Cathedral (Naxos 8.557340): "...recorded by the nine strong group TONUS PEREGRINUS. It follows their wonderful recording of the Missa Tournai which came out last year. This disc has proved to be even better. In fact it is one of the most intriguing discs of 12th/13th-century music issued for some time...
...TONUS PEREGRINUS have a new approach, in fact several new approaches. These throw new light on this repertoire and make for a fascinating and generous seventy minutes of listening...
...an ideal acoustic with real atmosphere. It is also aided by superb singing which is not only powerful but also sensitive to dynamic variation...
...a terrific sense of accumulating architecture....
...a simple and moving unaccompanied performance of Perotin’s Beata Viscera by the perfect Rebecca Hickey...
...The CD booklet is a model of its kind. All tracks are clearly explained. There is a superb introductory explanation by an expert...
To sum up. A wonderful seventy minutes of the earliest polyphonic music known in Europe. Praise cannot be high enough for the entire project and team. One of my recordings of the year so far. You should go out and buy it instantly."
ALL MUSIC GUIDE www.allmusic.com September 2005
"one of the very best recorded options ever made for this music"
on Leonin / Perotin - Sacred Music from Notre-Dame Cathedral (Naxos 8.557340): *****performance *****sound
"...a group of expert singers...TONUS PEREGRINUS, under the direction of Antony Pitts, ...emphasizes the importance of skilled solo singers in this literature by inaugurating the disc with an outstanding rendering of Perotin's monophonic conductus setting of Beata viscera, sung magnificently by Rebecca Hickey...
...TONUS PEREGRINUS marries these principles to a setting of Psalm 115, Non nobis domine, and in some places the voices seem to lift into the stratosphere - it is a truly 'heavenly effect' that has to be heard to be believed. In works by Léonin and Pérotin, the Organum travels at the same speed as the plainchant, a radically different approach from virtually all other choirs, which tend to perform the Organum at a faster clip as opposed to the chant. It makes a huge difference in the sound of the composition, and makes total sense in terms of realizing this style...
...the manifestation of the Organa in Leonin/Perotin: Sacred Music from Notre-Dame Cathedral is redolent with the atmosphere we know from the books, architecture, and painting of that distant time, and is one of the very best recorded options ever made for this music."
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE August 2005 - Choral & Song Choice
"An utterly beguiling introduction to Léonin and Pérotin"
on Leonin / Perotin - Sacred Music from Notre-Dame Cathedral (Naxos 8.557340): "...none of the available collections, I think, quite matches the approach of this album in the way it helps the listener make connections between the different forms of organum... ...Scholarly the approach may be, but dry it ain't.....on the contrary, this is an ideal introduction to this music, better even - and I thought I'd never say this - than David Munrow's Music of the Gothic Era. The clarity, balance, sensitivity and sheer beauty of the performances makes for an utterly beguiling 70 minutes, from the opening Beata viscera, a lovely solo by soprano Rebecca Hickey, to the final four-part compositions."
THE TELEGRAPH 6 August 2005 - Classical CD of the Week
on Leonin / Perotin - Sacred Music from Notre-Dame Cathedral (Naxos 8.557340): "Building a programme of music around a non-musical concept may or may not work in practice, but this utterly spellbinding disc is a fine example of how successful such a project can be. It relates the increasing complexity and sophistication of the music written for the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris during the later 12th century to the contemporaneous stages of its construction. This is truly great music. Rebecca Hickey brings a beautiful tenderness and sense of wonder to Pérotin's unaccompanied single-line Beata viscera. The disc also reveals Léonin's varied and fascinating exploration of the possibilities of two-part writing, and the overwhelming grandeur and mind-boggling intricacies in Pérotin's monumental four-part settings of Viderunt omnes and Sederunt principes. TONUS PEREGRINUS sing with forthright confidence and a strong sense of rhythmic purpose, in both lilting triple-time passages and more harmonically static sections, which develop an almost hypnotic quality. They communicate their infectious enthusiasm for this distant sound-world, and recreate it most persuasively."
ON AN OVERGROWN PATH theovergrownpath.blogspot.com 26 July 2005
on Leonin / Perotin - Sacred Music from Notre-Dame Cathedral (Naxos 8.557340): "This budget priced CD is one of the most rewarding I’ve heard for years... ...The opening track with Rebecca Hickey singing Perotin’s Beata viscera contains six minutes of the most ravishing sounds you will ever hear..."
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