Marcel Pérès by Timothy Dickey * Much of the so-called early music revival was carried out in a uniform, polished, and reserved vocal style. English vocal ensembles such as the Tallis Scholars, the Hilliard Ensemble, and Gothic Voices replaced earlier excesses of vivid instrumental sonorities, with a placid, crystal-clear, and impeccably tuned sound; the singing of plainchant, likewise, most often was heard in the reserved regularity of the Solemnes monastic sound. Yet alongside this elegant and polished sound, a minority of French singers and conductors maintained an alternative acoustical ideal: vibrant and expressive, experimental and exciting. Marcel Pérès, perhaps the greatest iconoclast among the early music performers of his generation, challenges his audience to rethink how we hear musical repertories from the tenth to the eighteenth centuries. Pérès studied organ at the Conservatory of Nice, followed by advanced work at London's Royal School of Church Musi
