Publisher's description:
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 This is an important historical document as well as a stunning and committed performance.

Reviews:
'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 most experienced singers in the world for this kind of music and he is magically balanced by the glorious voice of the much younger Christopher O'Gorman. For the three-voice pieces the still impeccable Rogers Covey-Crump joins them … These are seriously classy performances' (Gramophone)
'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 performances are superb, their precise diction well-served by Jeremy Summerly's production and Julian Millard's engineering. The sound is intimate yet resonant, closely-focused and detailed yet with an ambience vividly suggesting spaciousness' (BBC Music Magazine)
'Ear-opening performances … In conductus Beate virginis Potter and Christopher O'Gorman allow the fragrance of the words to irradiate the rhythm and the melodic lines. The beautiful three-voice monostanzaic conductus Stella serena with which the recording ends sees Potter, O'Gorman and Rogers Covey-Crump at their most delicate and folorn' (International Record Review)
'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 school. This new Hyperion disc … should reawaken interest in this beguiling repertory. The poems are about life, death, salvation and, naturally, the frail virtues of women. ("He who strives to keep and lock in a roving young woman/Is washing a brick.") Three tenors – John Potter, Christopher O'Gorman and Rogers Covey-Crump – deliver these explorations with unerring skill and conviction' (The Observer)

Tracks:
1 Quo vadis, quo progrederis?  [3'19]
2 Genitus divinitus  [4'30]
3 Quod promisit ab eterno  [4'36]
4 Artium dignitas  [2'59]
5 Relegentur ab area  [8'01]
6 Qui servare puberem (monophonic)  [3'28]
7 Ut non ponam  [3'09]
8 Qui servare puberem (two-part, unmeasured)  [4'00]
9 Porta salutis  [5'23]
10 Ista dies celebrari  [5'45]
11 Qui servare puberem (two-part, measured)  [2'46]
12 Stephani sollempnia  [1'07]
13 Beate virginis  [5'21]
14 Qui servare puberem (three-part)  [1'00]
15 Heu quo progreditur  [1'53]
16 Stella serena  [3'14]