The illusion of perfection, pursued ever more eagerly with today’s highly advanced recording techniques, may well end up as an illusion of reality, presenting music that never-never was, a composite of a multitude of takes. For all its hazards, doesn’t an inspired live performance have a chance of being infinitely more exciting and satisfying? Well: Hilliard Live is a case in point, if ever there were one. This repertoire from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was performed at a concert in that most unlikely of venues, the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge: hardly the best setting for Ars Antiqua, you’d think, but superb for sound when you’re listening to a string quartet – or, as it happens here, to a quartet of voices. Such is the transparency, such the admirable tuning, that nothing is lost. There’s a surprising degree of variety: one can savour the fascinating grinding richness of Deus misertus hominis juxtaposed with the slower, sweeter three-part texture of Veni creator spiritus. Perotin’s two great responsories Viderunt and Sederunt figure large, with romping rhythms in the polyphony and beautifully sung stretches of chant – rather more in the style of Westminster Cathedral, though, than of thirteenth-century Notre-Dame.
The booklet is remarkable with its two scholarly essays, one by Mark Everist on the music, the other by Rogers Covey-Crump on pitch, musica ficta and tuning. The whole CD package has a new and attractive format which is easy to handle.
By the way, don’t remove your disc from the player immediately after listening to the last item. Just wait a bit: there’s an unexpected bonus!'