# Pérotin: Viderunt Omnes



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Pérotin's _Viderunt Omnes_ is currently on the 39th tier of the Talk Classical community's favorite and most highly recommended works.

Wikipedia does not have an article specifically on this work, but it has articles about Pérotin, the Notre Dame school of composers of which he was a part, and the Viderunt Omnes hymn in general, with a little section on Pérotin's version of it as well.

The main questions of this thread are: *Do you like this work? Do you love it? Why? What do you like about it? Do you have any reservations about it?*

And of course, what are your favorite recordings?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Here is an excerpt from my post about this work in Tchaikov6's Hall of Fame thread:

A few months ago Notre Dame de Paris burned, and the world rightly regarded that as a tragedy. Most people's first associations with that cathedral will be from Victor Hugo's novel, and in fact the romantic tradition of Gothic novels affects how almost anyone in our time thinks or feels about any Gothic cathedral. Victor Hugo wrote a very good story, and I heartily recommend it! I also love the 1923 film based on it.

However, Hugo and the romantics completely misunderstood or misrepresented the nature of Gothic architecture. They represent Gothic as essentially dark, mysterious, haunted by horrific gargoyles. That was not at all how medieval people felt about it.

Let's deal with the gargoyles first, because our thoughts on that are the least relevant to Pérotin. All over the world, wherever you visit traditional temples or palaces or even just villages, you'll see on their exterior boundaries art that is meant to represent something frightening: lions, dragons, warriors, demons, gargoyles, masks of evil spirits, and so on. Why would people do that?

To a world that no longer fears darkness, that regards sickness as a physical phenomenon, a mere technological challenge, and that takes a 70-year lifespan almost for granted, it's just cute art.

But in a world that feared the powers of darkness and knew that death could strike anyone at any moment - because it did - the scarier those guardians are, the safer the people feel. Those are not meant primarily as evil spirits to frighten the residents of the temples, palaces, or villages - they are meant as guardians to frighten away evil spirits from the residents. Or even to frighten away evil people....

Anyway, let's try to view the Gothic tradition not from the point of view of a post-Enlightenment society suffering from the ennui of excessive rationality, needing a little superstition for titillation, but from the point of view of people who'd only known Romanesque architecture.

Deserving the reputation that Gothic architecture has, Romanesque churches were relatively short structures, often actually designed to be defensive. You could take shelter in them when someone raided your village. With tiny windows, they really were dark.

In the 12th century, however, the cathedrals began to grow higher, and windows grew much larger. This became Gothic architecture. For people at the time, these were not at all dark, scary places! They were filled with amazing light, delightfully colored by the stained glass windows. Their vaults and arches pointed proudly to heaven. Built to represent and celebrate prosperity, security, and learning, this could be called the first architecture of enlightenment in Europe since the fall of Rome.

As the interior space expanded, the acoustics changed. The traditional monophonic Gregorian chant sounded _and felt_ different in these high, brightly lit spaces. And soon, a new tradition of music was invented to take advantage of the acoustic properties of the Gothic churches: the Notre Dame School, named for its association with Notre Dame de Paris.

This was still before artists were thought of as idiosyncratic geniuses with privileged access to the muses; they were craftsmen, so their names were usually not recorded. The names of Léonin and Pérotin, the only two members of the Notre Dame school of composers whose names we know, have come down to us almost by accident, recorded by travelers who marveled at the music they made.

What the Notre Dame school invented was the organum - the first step of western music's long exploration of harmony. Pérotin's _Viderunt Omnes_ is one of the two earliest examples of four-part harmony.

We know almost nothing of Pérotin's life, but there is evidence to suggest that _Viderunt Omnes_ was written for Christmas 1198, and it might have been sung in Notre Dame de Paris, though it was still not complete.

Earlier I asked us to imagine how a Gothic cathedral would feel to someone in the twelfth century. Now I hope you'll join me in trying to imagine how _Viderunt Omnes_ would sound -- not to someone modern, in a world saturated with musical noise blasting from speakers at every gas pump, over every aisle of every artificially lit shopping center; a world of radios and earphones and ubiquitous advertising jingles, a world of rock and roll and hip hop and industrial techno and K-pop and orchestras with hundreds of instruments --

No, throw all that away and imagine that you lived in a world where you and your family yourselves made most of the music you heard - lullabies, and other folk songs, usually without instruments. A world where, if you were lucky, you might be able to hear a skilled troubadour now and then. A world where Gregorian chant in your village's dark old Romanesque cathedral would have been the most beautiful music you'd ever heard in your life -- so much that you looked forward to church.

So for some reason you set off down the "road" - what we today would call a path - from your village, perhaps you had the very great fortune of attending a university somewhere, and road led on to road, and you somehow found yourself in Paris for Christmas in 1198. What would _Viderunt Omnes_ sound like to you then?

You might not have liked it! After all, we have conservative ears! But it would have impressed you mightily, as it did (for example) John of Salisbury, who taught at the University of Paris during these years and often heard the new organum tradition:



> The very service of the Church is defiled, in that before the face of the Lord, in the very sanctuary of sanctuaries, they, showing off as it were, strive with the effeminate dalliance of wanton tones and musical phrasing to astound, enervate, and dwarf simple souls. When one hears the excessively caressing melodies of voices beginning, chiming in, carrying the air, dying away, rising again, and dominating, he may well believe that it is the song of the sirens and not the sound of men's voices; he may marvel at the flexibility of tone which neither the nightingale, the parrot, or any bird with greater range than these can rival. Such indeed is the ease of running up or down the scale, such the dividing or doubling of the notes and the repetitions of the phrases and their incorporation one by one; the high and very high notes are so tempered with low or somewhat low that one's very ears lose the ability to discriminate, and the mind, soothed by such sweetness, no longer has power to pass judgment upon what it hears. When this type of music is carried to the extreme it is more likely to stir lascivious sensations in the loins than devotion in the heart. But if it be kept within reasonable limits it frees the mind from care, banishes worry about things temporal, and by imparting joy and peace and by inspiring a deep love for God draws souls to association with the angels.


So sometimes even the conservatives loved it.

_Viderunt Omnes_ celebrates salvation - another concept that means almost nothing today, when even the most ferocious believers shrink from threatening their neighbors with hellfire, which seems to have truly frightened people in the past. People willingly endured the cruelest forms of torture rather than, as they saw it, risk their souls.

But on Christmas, they could celebrate. Here comes Jesus to save us!

Here are the words of Viderunt Omnes, translated by someone at wikipedia:



> All the ends of the earth have seen
> the salvation of our God.
> Rejoice in the Lord, all lands.
> The Lord has made known his salvation;
> ...


Pérotin's organum illuminated this text to fill the amazingly bright space of a brand-spanking-new Gothic cathedral.

Because they loved it so much, they took their time with it. The first syllable, "vi" goes on for so many beats that you'll probably lose track if you try to count them while listening. When it was over, they'd go back to the folk music of their ordinary life, but while they had these well-trained singers in this amazing space, they wanted to enjoy it.

And sure, some old conservatives like John of Salisbury could huff about how inappropriate it was for such sweet, lascivious music to be sung in God's house. But aesthetic conservatives never win - not for long, anyway. And eventually the music that so delights and offends becomes, to later generations, old-fashioned, then strange, and finally almost intolerable.

I had the privilege of visiting Notre Dame de Paris when it was whole, and to tell the truth, it didn't transport me into some sublime ecstasy. It was just pretty nice. It's no Notre Dame de Chartres, for example. And even Chartres is no Versailles, no Angkor Wat, no Empire State Building. To me, it's not even the most impressive Gothic Cathedral in Paris - Sainte-Chappelle rivals it, at least.

But it should hold an unrivaled place in the heart of every classical music lover because of its role in the birth of our tradition, and maybe an appreciation for that will outweigh the boredom or disgust we feel walking around in what we take for its cold darkness.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

That's a great post science, well written and very insightful. I listened to it again after reading it, and it totally transports me into that era. It gives me chills thinking about the birth of Western music back then, kind of like watching early films like A Trip to the Moon and The Great Train Robbery make me think about the birth of film. You can feel the excitement and creativity of these artists, these people who seek to create something beyond anything people imagined before. Artists like these are truly special, although sometimes forgotten when others come along that perfect their craft (i.e. Bach or even Palestrina).


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's some notes I made the last time I listened to this









Vellard's version of Perotin's _Viderunt Omnes_ does not sound like anyone else's prior to the production of this recording as far as I know. This is no doubt in part due to the choice of manuscript, and of individual clausulae, for his edition. But it's more profound than that. The most obvious unique selling point is that it involves a radical re-evaluation of the energy of the hoquets, which dramatically alters the mood of the music. He's quite bullish about what he's managed to make of the Perotin's composition, he thinks that he's the first to reveal Perotin's art for its full expressive glory. I was particularly interested in his comments about cross relations



> I believe the factor responsible for limiting recognition of the richness contained in Perotin's organa quadrupla has been the attempt to deduce the work's overall tempo from its melodic themes - which are delightfully simple - without taking into account the fascinating variety of har- monies generated at the points where these melodic lines meet, whether on long notes or short. Reproduced below is the passage (conclusion of the vocalization on gentium) at the verse-ending of the Viderunt Omnes [8] quadruplum - an especially moving passage marvelously evoking the mystery of Christmas (musical example on page 13). Thought with a solemn, sweeping movement, this work exhibits a grandiose architectural construction and variety in each section which in no way impede the broad, moving sonority our century's performers and lis- teners still find so impressive today (see illustration of the original manuscript on page 20).


I'm reminded of a comment by Christopher Page talking about Ars Nova, about the trade off between bringing out harmonic details, and producing excitement - at the time he favoured excitement, Vellard clearly does not.

How much has Vellard's approach to Perotin been influential?

I think there just may be one recording of the chant which does draw on Vellard's ideas, and maybe rivals Vellard's performance. It's by Tonus Peregrinus on Naxos. Tonus Peregrinus too are very conscious of the potential harmonic interest of the music, as a matter of fact they are to my ears more intereting harmonically, less white note, than Vellard. And they make the obvious point, but worth saying nevertheless, that somehow their pace (and by implication Vellard's) matches the scale of the cathedral itself.

In fact what they actually say is worth quoting



> above all, we have aimed to adopt a pace and an intensity to match the scale of the building for which this music was written.


It's that intensity which their harmonic awareness gives the performance. So top choice for me in this four part organum attributed to Perotin, this one by Tonus Peregrinus


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Very interesting notes, Mandryka! Thank you!


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Great post science. I remember the first time I listened to Viderunt omnes, I didn't know who Perotin was but a friend of mine put it on the turntable saying that it was ancient music from the 12th century. I was amazed and I said that it sounded as minimalist music... and after that I discovered that Perotin was indeed a big influence on musicians like Steve Reich and Arvo Part.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

norman bates said:


> Perotin was indeed a big influence on musicians like Steve Reich .


Some evidence for that would be much appreciated. (And indeed for Part, though I'm more interested in Reich as a composer myself.)



norman bates said:


> and Arvo Part


That too -- where did you learn that?

I note, because it may or may not be of interest, that Louis Andriessen wrote a piece called Hoketus.


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## Schoenberg (Oct 15, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Some evidence for that would be much appreciated. (And indeed for Part, though I'm more interested in Reich as a composer myself.)
> 
> That too -- where did you learn that?
> 
> I note, because it may or may not be of interest, that Louis Andriessen wrote a piece called Hoketus.


http://www.stevereich.com/articles/Anne_Teresa_de_Keersmaeker_intervies.html


The page said:


> ATDK: De Machaut, Stravinsky, Coltrane, those were the composers that influenced you most I read. Is that still so today and if yes, which aspects of them specifically?
> 
> SR: Machaut's isorhythms are of real interest to me, but my heart belongs to earlier music by Perotin at Notre Dame in Paris in the late 12th century. You are certainly right about Stravinsky and Coltrane and don't forget Bartok, whose 4th Quartet you choreographed and that same piece inspired my own Triple Quartet. You ask which aspects specifically: for Perotin it is the idea of taking a line of Gregorian Chant and augmenting its duration enormously so that instead of a melody it becomes a series of long drones. He (and Leonin) originate what we would call today very slow harmonic rhythm. For Stravinsky it is hard to point to specific points of influence. Suffice it to say I might not have been inspired to be a composer if I had not heard The Rite of Spring. As to Coltrane I would single out his Africa Brass album in particular. Thirty minutes on E, the low E of the double bass. Many notes, even noises become possible when the harmony is static. Don't leave out Ghanian drumming where repeating patterns are superimposed so their downbeats do not coincide, or Balinese Gamelan where different strands of counterpoint move at drastically different speeds. Finally, with Bela Bartok I learned about the modes and canons from his Mikrokosmos. As you may know, canons are the backbone of almost everything I've done. Phasing is merely a small variation on canonic technique where the subject is usually short and the rhythmic distance between voices is constantly, slowly, changing.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> Some evidence for that would be much appreciated. (And indeed for Part, though I'm more interested in Reich as a composer myself.)


http://www.bruceduffie.com/reich.html

or

https://books.google.it/books?id=zp05DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA99&dq=arvo+part+perotin+OR+perotinus&hl=it&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiB_ZP7j_blAhX_wAIHHVgSBgcQ6AEIOjAB#v=onepage&q=arvo%20part%20perotin%20OR%20perotinus&f=false

where he's mentioning also Arvo Part and his fascination with Perotinus



Mandryka said:


> That too -- where did you learn that?


again even a fast research on google would show that, I thought it was a well known thing the fascination of the "arch-neomedievalist" Part (as I've seen him described somewhere) for Perotin and that ancient period of music
https://books.google.it/books?id=Qu9UDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA71&dq=arvo+part+perotin+OR+perotinus&hl=it&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiB_ZP7j_blAhX_wAIHHVgSBgcQ6AEIRDAC#v=onepage&q=arvo%20part%20perotin%20OR%20perotinus&f=false

https://thelistenersclub.com/2014/12/22/your-2014-christmas-playlist/#more-11677


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I just want to mention this recording. For a lot of people it's "the" album of the Notre Dame School, though Vellard (analyzed by Mandryka) is also quite famous.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

They had a hit with it, which they milked by recording it three times, in addition to the one in your picture there's also these two. Broadly similar approach in all three I'd say.















And Hillier went on to do it again with his choir here, rather effectively I think


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