PÉROTIN and the ARS ANTIQUA the Hilliard Ensemble

CORO hilliard live CORO hilliard live 1 The Hilliard Ensemble For more than three decades now The Hilliard Ensemble has been active in the realms of both early and contemporary music. As well as recording and performing music by composers such as Pérotin, Dufay, Josquin and Bach the ensemble has been involved in the creation of a large number of new works. James PÉROTIN MacMillan, Heinz Holliger, Arvo Pärt, Steven Hartke and many other composers have written both large and the and small-scale pieces for them. The ensemble’s performances ARS frequently include collaborations with other musicians such as the saxophonist Jan Garbarek, violinist ANTIQUA Christoph Poppen, violist Kim Kashkashian and orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. John Potter’s contribution was crucial to getting the Hilliard Live project under way. John has since left to take up a post in the Music Department of York University. His place in the group has been filled by Steven Harrold. www.hilliardensemble.demon.co.uk the hilliard ensemble To find out more about CORO and to buy CDs, visit www.thesixteen.com cor16046 The hilliard live series of recordings came about for various reasons. 1 Vetus abit littera Anon. (C13th) 3:47 At the time self-published recordings were a fairly new and increasingly David James Rogers Covey-Crump John Potter Gordon Jones common phenomenon in popular music and we were keen to see if 2 Deus misertus hominis Anon. (C13th) 5:00 we could make the process work for us in the context of a series of David James Rogers Covey-Crump John Potter Gordon Jones public concerts. Perhaps the most important motive for this experiment 3 Veni creator spiritus Anon. (C13th) 7:22 was our desire to capture the atmosphere and excitement of concert David James Rogers Covey-Crump John Potter performances of some of our favourite repertoire. Performance rather 4 Viderunt omnes Pérotin 10:31 David James Rogers Covey-Crump John Potter Gordon Jones than recording is, after all, what music is about. There is the unavoidable 5 risk that all will not be perfect; audience noise or human frailty on our Gloria: redemptori meo Léonin 5:44 Rogers Covey-Crump John Potter part may detract from the polished perfection that can be achieved with 6 Haec dies Anon. (C13th) 4:28 a studio recording but such risks are part of our daily life of concert David James Rogers Covey-Crump John Potter Gordon Jones giving and lend to the event an added degree of excitement and, we 7 Stirps Iesse Anon. (C13th) 5:06 hope, engagement with the audience. David James Rogers Covey-Crump John Potter Gordon Jones We are happy to make this series of discs more widely available on CORO. 8 Mundus vergens Anon. (C12th) 2:21 David James Rogers Covey-Crump John Potter Gordon Jones Gordon Jones 9 Procurans odium Anon. (C13th) 1:59 Rogers Covey-Crump John Potter Gordon Jones The Hilliard Ensemble on CORO: bl Alleluia. Nativitas Anon. / Pérotin 5:26 David James Rogers Covey-Crump John Potter Gordon Jones hilliard live 1 Pérotin and the Ars Antiqua bm Christus surrexit Chant (C13th) 4:43 coming soon: hilliard live 2 For Ockeghem Gordon Jones hilliard live 3 Antoine Brumel bn Sederunt principes Pérotin 11:46 hilliard live 4 Guillaume Dufay www.thesixteen.com David James Rogers Covey-Crump John Potter Gordon Jones 2 3 he history of late-twelfth-century set in motion the idea that settings of and have the overall structure respond – composition: the sections based on highly polyphony was first written a plainsong did not have to be in two parts. verse – respond. Within each of these melismatic chants that use the rhythmic T hundred years after the event by Greater rhythmic precision enabled the main sections are settings of both solo modes are called clausulae. a monk who may have come from Bury more complex co-ordination of three- and choral chants; the respond consists In three and four - part organum the St Edmunds; history has not entrusted us and four-part plainsong settings. Pérotin’s of polyphony followed by the remainder elaborate, rhapsodic dupla of Léonin’s with his name and he is usually referred to greatest fame rests on two works from of the chant, and the same pattern is pieces are not practical because of the by the title he received when his treatise the last decade of the twelfth century: followed in the verse, and of course in co-ordination of the three upper parts; was first published in the nineteenth settings of the graduals for the third mass the return of the respond. Usually, the all the polyphony is organised along century: Anonymous IV. Anonymous as on Christmas Day and the mass on the second respond is simply a repeat of the lines of the rhythmic modes. The he was, he tells us about two of the most feast of St Stephen in four parts, Viderunt the first one. However, in the case of differences between clausulae and the important composers of the fifty years omnes and Sederunt principes. These Sederunt principes, the second respond is rest of the piece is that, in a clausula, the either side of 1200: Léonin and Pérotin. works were quite possibly performed composed anew. On major feasts, when tenor moves at more or less the same respectively in 1198 and 1199, and the gradual was followed by an alleluia, Léonin, we are told, wrote a cycle of speed as the upper voices and in the represent the best guesses we have the repeat of the respond was usually two-part settings of the most important rest of the piece the tenor is deployed about fixed points in the chronology of omitted. In Paris around 1200, however, chants in the liturgical year - Christmas, in long, sustained notes. Clausulae may the works of both Pérotin and Léonin the practice was different. Léonin’s organa Easter, Assumption and other feasts; this be heard, for example, in Viderunt omnes Organa; whether the two-part types that dupla of the Magnus liber organi took the cycle was called the Magnus liber organi on the word dominus and in Sederunt make up Léonin’s Magnus liber organi plainsong and did one of two things with - the great book of organum. principes on the words [domi]-ne deus or the four-part Viderunt and Sederunt it: for the more syllabic sections of the meus. The result of the exclusive use Pérotin played an important role in the are polyphonic settings of plainsong. chant that he set, he laid out the lowest of the rhythmic modes in the three and careful recasting and elaboration of this The original chants employ two musical part (the tenor) in long notes and wrote four parts is that it frees up additional repertory. According to the monk from styles: the solo sections are elaborately highly elaborate, rhapsodic lines above compositional resources, and it is perhaps Bury St Edmunds, he either shortened melismatic and contrast with the simpler, it (the duplum). Alternatively, he took one of Pérotin’s greatest contributions to or edited (interpretations vary) Léonin’s more syllabic, sections sung by the schola. the long melismas of the chant and the history of music to have exploited great book of organum; long sections It is the melismatic solo sections of the organised them into repeating rhythmic imitation and even canon for the first time of almost improvisatory scope were chant that are set polyphonically. The cells and wrote a correspondingly tight in these four-part compositions. rewritten according to the tighter result is that a performance of organum rhythmic duplum above it. The rhythmic principles of discant composition that involves polyphony and plainsong. organisation of this procedure gave rise It used to be thought that the sustained Pérotin himself may have contributed to to what are called the rhythmic modes. notes in organum duplum, triplum and Viderunt and Sederunt are both graduals codifying. Perhaps more importantly, he Both types of music exist within the same quadruplum were to be held relentlessly: a 4 5 challenge to breath control and the sanity poetry. Their regular poetic structures the hymn. Mundus vergens is however requires a hybrid treatment. of the singer taking the part. Re-readings give rise to regular phrase length, and topical; the poem, of which some stanzas The decoration of plainsong with polyphony of thirteenth-century theory suggest that their stanzaic structure is reflected directly may be missing, seems to refer to a was as important to the embellishment of the tenor is responsible for contributing in the musical setting in that the music for period when France was experiencing a the liturgy as was stained glass to the with great subtlety to the texture of the the first stanza is usually repeated for time of trouble after a period of peace windows of the cathedral whose name work by breaking the sound, at the same subsequent ones; this is the case for all although the final line of the third stanza was appropriated by scholars looking for time as one or more of the upper voices, conducti recorded here. - which continues a maritime metaphor a peg on which to hang this repertory: and this is the procedure that the Hilliard - suggests that she does not lack a rudder. The subject matter for conducti varies the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. It's Ensemble employ in the recording here. Commentators have suggested a variety widely, and has little relationship with the certainly true that almost all the evidence of occasions to which this text might By any standards, Pérotin must have been number of voice-parts or the musical surrounding Pérotin’s later contributions refer: Philip Augustus disagreements with an extraordinary composer.

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