My finest moment

Early Music Works by Machaut, Tye, Partch, Dowland, Pärt, Body, Cage, Kassia, Perotin, Purcell, Bingen, Schnittke

With Marja Mutru (harmonium), David Lamb (bagpipe), Wu Man (zhong ruan, da ruan), Olov Johansson (nyckelharpa), Huunhuur Tu (vocals etc)

Nonesuch 7559794572 (1997)

The idea for Early Music came from a thought about how music can perfectly describe the web of time that surrounds us: the past, the present and what you imagine of the future. Some contemporary composers sound like they could have come out of the 12th century and then with the next piece they could be in the 21st century. It was very hard to organise this CD in a way that would take the listener through the experience. Bob Hurwitz at Nonesuch suggested the Machaut pieces should be used like pillars, and I instantly knew that was it. Also, I knew the sound felt right. Kronos’s sound goes back to a rehearsal in the 1980s of Terry Riley’s ballad, The Wheel. Terry was encouraging us to use no vibrato and to use the bows in a different expressive way. We were having trouble and then all of a sudden everyone in Kronos found the sound and believed it. Early Music took that moment of group realisation and expanded and explored it.