Paris, 13th century. As the builders of Notre-Dame complete their monumental work, composers and theorists begin to invent a new way of writing music. Like the vaults and pointed arches slowly revealed by the light of the stained glass, a new musical language allows melodic lines to overlap, to answer one another, and to rise together like true cathedrals of sound. Two intertwined revolutions that, over the next four centuries, will spread across Europe and seek to make both stone and sound a link between earth and heaven.

Contrary to common clichés, this programme reveals the extraordinary vitality of a sonic world rich in forms, functions, and aesthetics. Music is everywhere: it celebrates great festivities and chivalric exploits, accompanies religious rituals, entertains princely courts, and at times bitterly denounces the injustice of the powerful. Carried by the spectacular timbres of a wide and varied family of wind instruments, these singular sonorities immerse the listener in a world where intimacy meets extravagance, serenity answers tumult, and festive moments alternate with periods of deep contemplation.

Alongside the hypnotic melodic lines of the earliest motets that once filled the first Gothic cathedrals come the songs of troubadours calling for the liberation of besieged Jerusalem. On the tournament field, heralds announce the knights, interrupted by the fanfares of loud minstrels who later lead the evening dance at the castle. In the alcoves of palaces, shawms and slide trumpets give way to gentle recorders humming subtle polyphonies inspired by popular tunes… And the naves of the cathedrals resound with luminous harmonies, evoking a celestial peace that has yet to become the peace of the world of men.