The works recorded here have all been edited afresh according to the isosyllabic principle.In the conducti this means that each syllable is assigned the value of a dotted crotchet in what is often felt as a measure.Two notes over a syllable have been interpreted as a trochaic rhythm(i.e.a crotchet followed by a quaver),and three notes as three quavers.Divisions of the unitary value into more than three notes may be heard in Mundus vergens 1.In recent years the evidence has been mounting that this isosyllabic,trochaic manner of performing the texted sections of polyphonic conducti was widespread in the twelfth century(and indeed long after in England),being eventually replaced by the modal system of rhythmic values in the early thirteenth century. The monophonic conductus Anglia,planctus itera demands a different treatment,for its expansive melismas are too luxurious for an isosyllabic approach.It is performed here in what might be described as a soloistic version of the equalist delivery of plainchant(where every note is nominally of the same length)current in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The chansons have also been treated in an isosyllabic way.Each syllable is regarded as one time unit,and the notes accompanying it are accommodated to this unitary value. L’amours dont sui espris bl is performed here in a fairly strict isosyllabic manner,while the more elaborate melody of Li nouviauz tanz bn seems to require greater freedom. In polyphonic conducti,all the voices declaim the text at the same rate,producing a‘monovocalic’effect in which every singer sings the same vowel at the same moment.As a result, changes in the harmony of the music are dramatized by changes in the harmonics of the sound.The effect is a forth-right and sonorous one in which accuracy of tuning becomes rather easier to achieve—and becomes more of an artistic issue—than it is in the motet style of the next(i.e.thirteenth) century where several texts may be sung at once and the effect is therefore‘polyvocalic’.(The more homogeneous the vowels of any sung chord,the easier that chord becomes to tune.) Twelfth-century musicians,trained to regard polyphony as a means of producing exceptional musical beauty by means of advanced techniques of measurement,would surely have attached great importance to accuracy of tuning,and indeed the effect of pure fifths and octaves,set off by the rasp of dissonant seconds,sevenths,strategically widened(or narrowed)thirds,and more complex dissonant chords in three and four parts,is one of the principal delights which this music offers.Vibrato is out of place(except as an ornament),for the more‘straight’the vocal tone the more readily the ear can hear the tuning of the chords.Indeed,a potent contrast between a vocal sound which is essentially still,and a musical texture which is crowded and even slightly ferocious in its forward motion,seems to underlie a great deal of medieval polyphony and to become more marked the more parts there are. CHRISTOPHER PAGE 1989