Today few groups would dare to make an all Perotin recording, and much less a live one. The truth is it could cause “indigestion” as, let’s not kid ourselves, one needs a specially trained ear to savour an overly prolonged session of this music.

Not even during its golden age (from the late-12th to early-13th centuries) was so much spent time on polyphony during the one liturgy. Plainchant was still the centre of attention, except at some moments on feast days. However, the challenge the Hilliard Ensemble proposed in 1996 when this recording was originally released was passed with flying colours. I remember that initially I asked myself how four singers would have resolved the problem of performing the tenor part live in the sections in organum purum? But as soon as I heard the opening of Viderunt, my doubts vanished.

Of course, the tenor was performed pausatio at the same time as the organal parts. And although the pedal effect was weaker, the organum purum style wasn’t completely lost. Otherwise, the rest of the pieces, some of which have nothing to do with Perotin in style, nor are they even attributed to him by Anonymous IV, share in the splendour of Notre-Dame when it was at its height.

The impressive conductus Vetus abit littera and Deus miserus hominis with their interesting dissonances, are examples of the perfect intonation and conjunction of an ensemble whose interpretations of music from different periods and styles forms part of the past and the present. JUAN CARLOS ASENSIO