Conductus, Vol. 1
Music & poetry from thirteenth-century France

Hyperion has long been a champion of music from the medieval era and boasts many first recordings in its catalogue, which have combined the highest levels of scholarship with brilliant musicianship, won many awards and opened the ears of a generation of listeners to the repertoire.

In this latest release John Potter, Christopher O’Gorman and Rogers Covey-Crump continue this trail-blazing voyage with a selection from the Conductus genre: the first experiments towards polyphony—the kind of sound we associate with Pérotin. Extensive booklet notes by Mark Everist probe into the intricacies of performance practice as well as analysing the music and poetry in context. This is an important historical document as well as a stunning and committed performance.

CDA67949  60 minutes 31 seconds
‘There have been remarkably few recordings of the conductus repertory—those marvellous settings of mainly accentual Latin goliardic poetry from the years around 1200 … John Potter is one of the m ...
‘Conductus proves that ascetic simplicity can be as deeply moving and aesthetically breath-taking as the most complex, heart-on-sleeve music … it's hardly necessary to mention that the performanc ...
‘What is, or are, conductus? The body of anonymous medieval songs, usually sacred but not liturgical and mostly forgotten, flowered in France in the mid-13th century around the time of the Notre Dame ...