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Diabolus in Musica & Antoine Guerber
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Diabolus in Musica & Antoine Guerber · Diabolus in Musica is a French ensemble for medieval music. It was founded in Paris in 1992 and is based in Tours. Its leader is Antoine Guerber, who studied medieval music with Dominique Vellard at the Centre de Musique Médiévale de Paris and at the early music department of the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Lyon. His training with Vellard places him in a French school that wants to understand medieval singing afresh, with attention to pronunciation, text and the way voices sounded together in that period.
Music and breakthrough
In School of Rock, the ensemble represents the Messe de Nostre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut, a fourteenth-century work. Machaut was a poet and composer from France, and his mass of around 1360 is regarded as one of the first polyphonic masses conceived as a whole by a single composer. The Kyrie, the opening section, lets you hear how medieval polyphony sounds: long, open chords and lines that each go their own way.
Influence
Ensembles such as Diabolus in Musica make sure that such music does not exist only on paper. They research how the notes were performed in the Middle Ages, and let us hear how strange and beautiful that sound can be to ears accustomed to pop and classical music.
Listening
Messe de Nostre Dame: Kyrie (Machaut) · Diabolus in Musica & Antoine Guerber, 1360