It’s an intriguing idea to bring together the world of the trouvère with some of the oldest surviving polyphony. The historical rationale for doing so here involves a possible connection between the early career of one of the greatest of the trouvères, Bernart de Ventadorn, and a monastic environment in which the style of polyphony recorded here may have been cultivated. But however the concept was arrived at, the confrontation of the two makes for a very fine recording.

Beatus consists of three singers (a tenor, a baritone and a bass) and a string player: that’s it, and yet it’s all you need to make this captivating music spring to life. As previous performers of this repertory have so richly demonstrated (from Andrea von Ramm and Thomas Binkley to Marcel Pérès, Dominique Vellard or, more recently, Diabolus in Musica), much depends on the intrinsic attraction of the singers’ “instruments”: here Beatus strike me as comparable in quality to some of the performers I’ve named, but they don’t so much draw attention to themselves as articulate text and music eloquently and fluently. Bernart de Ventadorn’s mastery of his idiom needs little introduction, but the chance to hear the polyphony is at least as welcome. The lengthier pieces (Veri solis radius lasts more than 10 minutes) are as effective as the shorter, and there is scarcely anything that overstays its welcome. The fiddle accompaniment of Can vei la lauzeta mover (one of Bernart’s most accomplished pieces) slightly over-eggs the pudding, but overall this is as fine a recording of this repertoire as I’ve heard in a while. If this very early “early music” is unfamiliar to you, this young ensemble offers a good place to start.