Abélard et Héloïse

Ensemble: Ligeriana Album: Abélard & Héloïse Video: Tomb of Abélard et Héloïse at Père-Lachaise, photo by Atget Eugène (1857-1927) • In XIIth century Europe, when reformers shake up the drowsiness of monasteries and cathedrals, when architects raise so-called gothic monuments, when thinkers reopen the road to knowledge, a few musicians of genius reinvent the repertoire: men here, writing for male voices, women there, composing for the nuns in their convents. Suddenly in France, around 1130, the breath f the Spirit worked miracles, when the most brilliant scholar set to music the poems that he had written himself, no longer for his church or for the entertainment of his close friends, but for a community of women, for their abbess who was none else than his wife. Then his sacred songs were transmuted into love canticles. Abélard was also known by the nickname of Goliath: during the Middle Ages this name