Perotin

Was going to put this in 'recently heard' but came across an interesting discussion in a Chopin thread from a while back so thought it might warrant it's own topic:


I don't have a lot of chant on the shelves but have on occasion found it enchanting at first then a little dull after a while (Hildegard etc.) Bought this one after hearing it on the radio and have been enjoying it very much. Having looked through comments in the thread above it may not be for purists (female voices and so on) but it's a nicely varied disc with a surprising (to me) amount of melody.

 

Prompted by this thread I listened today to this CD, which I acquired a couple of months ago, but not yet had heard.

We know almost nothing about performance practice from that period. What we think we know, is that the music surely was sung by males a capella, and that the technical difficulties of the upper voices in the organa indicate that they were sung by soloists, whereas the low woice (the organpoint) might have been shared by more singers. But tempo and accentuation and much more is unknown.

I think the performance of Tonus Peregrinus is very beautiful and aestetically satisfying with its soft and mellow sounds. And I think, it is true to the spirit of the music, even if I can't know for sure. The overall impression is much like the recording of the Binchois Ensemble which use females as well. The opposite pole of interpretation is the Archiv recording of David Munrow, which is much more agressive and rhytmically pointed = dancing. Between these poles are the recordings of The Orlando Consort (male quartet) and The Hilliard Ensemble. All recordings reach some point of extasis, especially in the four part Organa, perhaps most obvious in the Munrow recording.

 

Mention of David Munrow reminds me of this:

I have the CD in the original cover design, not this one. This was a very early CD, with the original recording dating back to the 1970s, yet I've rarely heard anything better recorded - when the bells (little ones, not church ones) chime, they seemed to hang in the air in the room with you. I can't recall having heard any sound more vividly rendered.

As Pe-Zulu says, we have very little idea as to how this music was actually performed, but I've always enjoyed Munrow's renditions.

 

This release



Pérotin & l'école de notre Dame is rather more muscular than the Binchois of old IMO. Although he still uses female voices for the upper registers, the lower end has been beefed up a bit with the inclusion of ex-Organum regular Josep Cabre as baritone (he only made it to tenor with Marcel, though) adding a bit of rivvim in the bass.
Personally, I don't like "soft" overly much, and the female voicing, no matter how attractive is just "wrong" to my ears. Peres' Organum brings the music into the realms of ecstatic trancing and is closer to living traditions of chant from the Greek and Syriac Orthodox Churches IMVHO. Of course not everyone (and I know this mean you Pe ) like the very strong rhythms, deep drones and, ahem, accented latin.
Only Ensemble Organum is capable of bringing me back, in spirit at least, into the House of God (only as a tourist, though)...
Oops, slipped a bit OT, there.