English Royal Chapels Polyphonies (1328-1410) Beautifully packaged, with extensive liner notes in a 50 page booklet. England is an island… and the artistic and cultural trends that have crossed medieval Europe have not developed in the same way and at the same time there than on the continent. Subsequent to the Norman conquest at the end of the XIth century, English aristocracy and Church came under a strong French influence. Nobility and Church hierarchy became "anglo-norman" Moreover, Edward the Third imitated the great courts of Europe by founding private chapels with "cantores". He also founded, similarly to France, an important order of chivalry: the famed Order of the Garter whose motto remained famous : "Honi soit qui mal y pense !". The XIVth century underlines the waking up of English singularity. Music, like architecture and literature, followed its own islander ways. English musicians, until then very much influenced by the Notre Dame School, did not imitate the French composers in their audacious rhythmic researches, but found out a rich, brilliant and fine sounding polyphonic art with specific features : imitation, canon, a great use of typically English intervals (thirds and sixths), the famous "english countenance", which was to influence European musical creation until the Renaissance. ENSEMBLE DIABOLUS IN MUSICA Direction Antoine GUERBER Raphaël BOULAY : tenor Olivier GERMOND : tenor Antoine GUERBER : tenor Jean-Paul RIGAUD : baritone Emmanuel VISTORKY : baritone-bass Philippe ROCHE : bass