The Hilliard Ensemble - Perotin (1989)

As a follow-up to the Tallis album posted just before Christmas (link below), here's another heavenly hour with the Hilliards in one of their best-known releases.  Little is known about the actual person who history records as Magister Perotinus, other than that he was part of the Notre Dame school of polyphony around the late 12th century, and pioneered four-voice writing in organum.

As always, the Hilliard Ensemble are more than up to the task of making this ancient music shine in all its hypnotic, droning and swirling glory, and three pieces by writers lost to time fill out the programme of those attributed to Pérotin.  The liner notes quote no less an authority on droning, swirling music than Steve Reich, who credits this music with part of the inspiration for the underlying 'pulse' of his Music For 18 Musicians.

link
pw: sgtg

Hilliard Ensemble previously posted at SGTG: 
Tallis: Lamentations of Jeremiah
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