Ecole de Notre Dame

Ecole de Notre Dame de Paris
Le Chant des Cathédrales
Ensemble Gilles Binchois - Dominique Vellard
Harmonic 8611

Contents:

  1. Perotin (organum): Alleluia nativitas (3 voices)
  2. Perotin (conductus): Beata viscera (voice)
  3. Conductus: Ave Maris stella (3 voices)
  4. Rondellus: Salva nos, stella Maris (3 voices)
  5. Motet: Gaudeat devotio fidelium / Nostrum (3 voices)
  6. Rondellus: O summi regis Mater inclita (3 voices)
  7. Motet: Salve Mater, fons ortorum / Tatem (2 voices)
  8. Organum: Haec Dies quam fecit Dominus (5 voices)
  9. Conductus: Veri solis presentia (3 voices)
  10. Conductus: Dum medium silentium (voice)
  11. Conductus: Sol sub nube latuit (2 voices)
  12. Motet: Ave Maria, fons leticie / Latus (2 voices)
  13. Conductus: Stella serena (3 voices)
  14. Organum: Benedicamus Domino (4 voices)

Performers: Anne-Marie Lablaude, Brigitte Lesne, Catherine Schroeder, Gerd Türk, Dominique Vellard, Emmanuel Bonnardot, Philippe Balloy, Willem de Waal

Playing time: 53'

Recording date: August 1986

This program includes a couple of Perotin's major works, plus some other forms of smaller scale. The scope is a nice feature. A distinction can be made between the organum genre based on plainchant and given a liturgical function, the genres of conductus & rondellus based on original melodies and functioning as clerical songs (although usually with theological themes), and finally the motet based frequently on plainchant but given a developing secular function. The latter genre actually developed from the complex closing melismas of the large-scale organum.

Other significant programs which highlight the conductus form of this era:

Vox Sonora
Conduits de l'Ecole de Notre Dame
Diabolus in Musica - Antoine Guerber
Studio SM 2673
Music for the Lion-Hearted King
Gothic Voices - Christopher Page
Hyperion 66336

A broader program, vaguely similar to the present one:

Le Mystère des voix anciennes
Pérotin le Grand
Mora Vocis
Pierre Vérany 793101

Finally, a superlative program which features smaller scale works from the early stages of polyphonic Latin song:

Nova Cantica: Latin Songs of the High Middle Ages
Dominique Vellard & Emmanuel Bonnardot
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 77196

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Todd M. McComb