It would be impossible to adequately describe the inherent haunting beauty of Perotin's music, or to fully detail its far-reaching influence in latter-12th-century France. The opening "Viderunt omnes" is a perfect illustration of the surprising vitality and highly charged sense of forward motion that can be obtained with relatively simple rhythmic impulses and harmonic devices. The male voices of the Hilliard Ensemble generate an electrifying resonance that vibrates everything in the room that's not solid or nailed down. You can literally feel this music, ringing with natural harmonics and set to body-moving rhythms. Yes, it's religious music, intended for lofty cathedral spaces; but it moves, and it's moving, and this recording gives it to you full blast. --David Vernier
