Beautiful! ,,, but ...

Perotin was a European composer, believed to be French, who lived around the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century. He was the most famous member of the Notre Dame school of polyphony and one of very few composers of his day whose name can be reliably attached to individual compositions. This album was recorded live in concert in August 1996 at the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the music is sublime. Unfortunately, only 4 of the 12 tracks (tracks 1, 2, 9 & 11) meet the MINIMUM industry standard for quality digital downloads, or 192 kbps, and then only barely. (The bit rate of the rest of the tracks ranges from 178 to 189 kbps.) So you are, essentially, downloading digital trash if you decided to use 12 eMusic credits to buy most of these tracks. Too bad, so SAD :-( that eMusic has serious quality control problems.

a history lesson

Nereffid

The ars antiqua is the name given by 14th-century music theorists to the music of the 12th and 13th centuries (14th being the ars nova). Leonin worked in Notre Dame, Paris, in the late 12th century, and Perotin was his successor. This disc, recorded in 1996, is probably as fine an introduction to this world as you're going to hear. The fact that they're performing live makes it even more impressive.