2 languages
Hilliard Ensemble & Paul Hillier
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Hilliard Ensemble & Paul Hillier · The Hilliard Ensemble was a British male vocal quartet that originally devoted itself to early music. The group is named after the Elizabethan miniature painter Nicholas Hilliard. It was founded in 1974 by Paul Hillier, David James and Paul Elliott, among others, and ceased to exist in 2014 after forty-one years, with a final concert at the Wigmore Hall in London. Hillier, one of the founders, left the group in 1990.
Music and breakthrough
The repertoire lay mainly in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In the 1980s a broad series of recordings appeared on the label EMI Reflexe, with works by Dunstable, Josquin, Palestrina and Ockeghem, among others, including a performance of the latter's Requiem and Missa Mi-Mi in 1984. Later the group recorded mainly for ECM. The ensemble also sang contemporary music, much by Arvo Pärt, and works by John Cage and Heinz Holliger, among others.
Influence
In 1994 Officium was released, a recording with the Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek, in which the singers combined Gregorian chant and early polyphony with jazzy saxophone sounds. The album became one of ECM's best-selling releases and entered the pop charts in several European countries. In this way the quartet brought very old music to an audience that would otherwise never have listened to such choral music. The pure, transparent ensemble singing of four voices became a model for later early-music ensembles.
Listening
Missa prolationum: Kyrie (Ockeghem) · Hilliard Ensemble & Paul Hillier, 1470