Huelgas Ensemble & Paul Van Nevel

Notre-Dame began to rise above the streets of Paris around 1200. This architectural masterpiece continues to amaze, but a true revolution was also underway in the musical sphere thanks to the pioneering work of the Notre-Dame school. Composers developed ‘organum’: a technique in which multiple voices move simultaneously above a Gregorian chant – a radical shift at a time when monophonic music was the norm. Alongside several daring and complex works by the former Notre-Dame choir masters Leoninus and Perotinus, the renowned Huelgas Ensemble, celebrated for its historical precision and stylistic affinity, performs a selection of polyphonic chants by anonymous composers.