The Origin of Others

Every single day of your life is spent within a civilization—an elaborate system composed of governing bodies, detailed laws, dense urban centers, elaborate trade networks, visual and written cultures, class structures, militaries, and more.

France witnessed an unprecedented flowering of learning, art, and music in the twelfth century. Most of this "Renaissance" occurred within the Church all, within the great Gothic cathedrals that sprang up throughout France from the 1130s on. The cathedral was the bishop's church, the seat of ecclesiastical power and administration. Equally important, it was the center of religious life, and above all of the celebration of the liturgy, with elaborate ceremonial and festive music. Building on traditions that had long been fostered in the monasteries, the cathedral musicians drew inspiration from the brilliant and spectacular spaces that the new cathedral buildings provided, producing monophonic and polyphonic lyrical masterpieces of unprecedented dimensions, subtlery, and power. This recording explores the extraordinary musical achievements fostered by the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris and its antecedents in the great abbey of St. Martial in Limoges.