It was the era of Léonin and Pérotin, a period of great cultural ferment in which music, while remaining in the background compared to the other arts, became a subject of academic study.
Pérotin represented a significant renewal in the musical sphere of the time; he wrote with a great abundance of "colors" the most beautiful triple and quadruple [motets] such as Viderunt omnes and Sederunt Principes, which were composed for Christmas 1198, the first, and Christmas 1199, the second.
«(...) Their imposing structure seems to musically render the grandeur of the Gothic architectures of the Notre-Dame cathedral. The choral agility of the voices, the square rhythms and short motifs, the melodies arranged in repeated rhythmic patterns, the voices proceeding sometimes independently of one another, are the peculiar characteristics of these compositions. Their writing is eloquent, imaginative, full of delicate effects, often (though there are no precise references) with the faint accompaniment of musical instruments. It should be noted in this regard that only two instruments are indisputably present as accompaniment to medieval religious music: the organ and bells. It is not known for certain if there was an organ at Notre-Dame in Pérotin's time, but if there had been, it is probable that its use was intended only to support the tenor in its parts.
(...) the value of Pérotin's work does not stop at the production of wonderful works, but goes beyond: it lays the foundations for the progress achieved in notation methods in future centuries; furthermore, precisely because it was the starting point from which the motet form began, it marks a transitional moment in historical evolution: from the sacred to the profane. Pérotin's production can be placed with merit at the highest point of musical civilization in medieval France. With Pérotin
l'Ars antiqua
reaches its apogee (...).» (Renato Garavaglia)
«(...) Pérotin changes the genome of music and controls its replicants. Even if in a discrete and underground way, he emerges like a sudden and distant ghost throughout the many centuries that follow. (...) Pérotin's tireless rhythmic pulsations fuse with the iterations of the young Stravinsky in the early twentieth century:
The Rite of Spring (1913)
Les Noces (1914/23)
At the end of the millennium, minimalist fragmentations teach, for example, Philip Glass:
Music in Fifths (1969)
and Steve Reich in America:
Drumming (1970/71)
Louis Andriessen in Europe:
Hoketus (1976)
In the Soviet Union, they become hieratic and no less obsessive when Arvo Pärt slows down the scanning:
Tabula rasa (1977)
Fratres (many versions 1977/92)
De profundis (1980)
Te Deum (1985)
In the interchangeability of segments of vocal registers from his medieval pages, Pérotin anticipates the concepts of structural organicity combined with areas left to the unpredictability of chance and the performer's inspiration, with unfinished architectures. These are the criteria imposed by Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen on the students of the Darmstadt summer courses, only about sixty years ago.» (Enzo Beacco: Offerta musicale. La musica dalle origini ai nostri giorni. Il Saggiatore)
