Pérotin

Pérotin lived in Paris about eight hundred years ago, while Notre-Dame cathedral was being built. He was the musician who came just after Léonin.

Léonin made two voices sing together. Pérotin dared to make three, and even four! One very low voice holds enormous notes, and above it the other voices bounce in rhythm and answer each other, like a game.

For Christmas he wrote a song for four voices that rang out under the vaults of the unfinished cathedral. People had never heard anything so grand. Ever since, he has been called “Pérotin the Great”.