Perotin's ‘Viderunt omnes’ is the first example of a composition in which a two-part movement is extended to three and four voices. As such, the name Perotin marks the first high point in the history of European polyphony. These compositions by unknown masters named Perotinus or Leonin (also known as the School of Notre Dame) are therefore considered the earliest, to a certain extent avant-garde compositions of polyphonic chants conceived for liturgical use in the history of Western music.
The name Perotin is only known from a source at least 50 years later (known musicologically as ‘Anonymus 4’). Here, joint performance, notation and individual composition still flow into one another without separation. A biography of Perotin is therefore of no significance with regard to the question of the genesis of the work. All the more reason to focus on the work itself.

Organum
Organum is liturgical music based on a chorale melody in the lower voice, but extended by melismas and rhythmic modes in the upper voices.
A piece written in the organum style is characterised almost entirely by a steady pulse created by the dancing sound patterns of the upper voices (one or more - duplum, triplum, quadriplum).
This active surface is underlaid with long, sustained tones that rarely change and serve as the basis for the polyphonic network above them. Strictly speaking, these sustained notes are the opening notes of a chorale melody that was originally intended for a soloist, the so-called tenor (tenor comes from the Latin tenere halten). The melodic character of Gregorian chant is essentially lost in the process, but creates a mystical overall sound appropriate to Gothic church interiors.
Typical is the long lingering on one syllable, like stammering perseverance in the 4-part sounding mystery.
The most important feature of the music from the period between 1160 and 1250 is the notation. For the first time in the history of Western music, it was possible to record rhythmic progressions exactly in notes.

Gradual in the liturgy
Gradual refers to the liturgical place between the individual readings in the Liturgy of the Word at Mass. Since the early medieval form of the Roman mass, psalms or psalm verses have been sung as a ritual response to the biblical readings. For example, ‘Viderunt omnes...’ is an excerpt from Psalm 98 in the Latin Vulgate translation and has been part of the Christmas liturgy as a gradual from the Middle Ages to the present day. Because what people experience around Christmas and the celebration of the birth of Jesus is interpreted in the liturgy as a visible symbol of the transcendent work of God for all peoples.

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