Sam Hay

Pérotin’s version of Viderunt Omnes is vastly different than other common arrangements

of this tune such as Leonin’s two-part version. Instead, Pérotin uses four parts: tenor (later

known as the cantus firmus), duplum, triplum, and quadruplum. Viderunt Omnes is known as an

extremely melismatic organum, and Pérotin’s arrangement certainly amplifies that. Around this

time, polyphony is also being explored and encouraged, so the words are less considered in this

popular tune than the new, exciting polyphony. Because of this, it was much more difficult to

determine phrasing from lyrics, however, I ended up using phrasing from well known and

researched recordings such as the ones by the Hilliard Ensemble (Naxos) and the London Early

Music Consort (Naxos). The biggest difference my recording will have for this piece is that it is

performed on the French Horn. This means that the timbre and pitch will be altered, and there

won’t be any words. I think that this is justified by the fact that few people listened to this by this

point for the words anyway. It was all about the polyphony. The fact that there are no words

being sung when we play it on French Horn ended up not being a problem, since Perotin’s

Viderunt Omnes is largely melismatic. There are long stretches (up to a minute or more) where

you only hear one syllable of a word and this is exemplified in the recording. Tristan and I

decided to record just one syllable of the piece, “Vi”. This lasts approximately 45 seconds and

we chose to do this partially because it showed how long some of the melismas last. Also,

Perotin’s arrangement is extremely repetitive when it comes to thematic material (which it has to

be in order to be so melismatic), and because of this the dynamics and phrasing practically repeat

exactly until the plainchant part. It was difficult to have uniqueness of dynamics, articulation,

and phrasing, but I decided on a hairpin structure per measure for phrasing. (crescendo from the

beginning of the measure to about the 3rd big beat, then decrease do). For dynamics I decided to
crescendo from something close to a piano to something close to a mezzo forte and back to a

piano. The articulation was a little more tricky to figure out. I had the anthology and it had

certain notes bracketed into groups. I assumed this indicated slur groupings based off of the

recordings that I heard but I wasn’t sure. I did not end up going with the anthology notation, but

instead group notes into groups of three and two accordingly. It was quite easy to tell which were

supposed to be in groups of three and two because the piece has a very strong triple feel. Tristan

and I both felt as if it would be best to transcribe this piece in a twelve / eight time signature for

phrasing sake. Although in order to preserve the phrases, we both thought it best to throw in a

couple fifteen / eights. Tristan and I did not reflect our desired transcriptions into our recording,

mainly because we could not figure a good way to record four parts well which made things

extremely difficult.
Hilliard Ensemble

https://unisc-naxosmusiclibrary-

com.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/mediaplayer/player.asp?br=128&tl=156968

London Early Music Consort

https://unisc-naxosmusiclibrary-com.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/catalogue/item.asp?cid=00028947793892