Léonin
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Léonin
Léonin (also Leoninus, Leonius, Leo; ) was the first known significant composer of polyphonic organum. He was probably French, probably lived and worked in Paris at the Notre Dame Cathedral and was the earliest member of the Notre Dame school of polyphony and the ars antiqua style who is known by name. The name Léonin is derived from "Leoninus," which is the Latin diminutive of the name Leo; therefore it is likely that Léonin's given French name was Léo. Overview All that is known about him comes from the writings of a later student at the cathedral known as Anonymous IV, an Englishman who left a treatise on theory and who mentions Léonin as the composer of the ''Magnus Liber,'' the "great book" of organum. Much of the ''Magnus Liber'' is devoted to clausulae—melismatic portions of Gregorian chant which were extracted into separate pieces where the original note values of the chant were greatly slowed down and a fast-moving upper part is superimposed. Léonin m ...
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Pérotin
Pérotin () was a composer associated with the Notre Dame school of polyphony in Paris and the broader musical style of high medieval music. He is credited with developing the polyphonic practices of his predecessor Léonin, with the introduction of three and four-part harmonies. Other than a brief mention by music theorist Johannes de Garlandia in his '' De Mensurabili Musica'', virtually all information on Pérotin's life comes from Anonymous IV, a pseudonymous English student who probably studied in Paris. Anonymous IV names seven titles from a ''Magnus Liber''—including '' Viderunt omnes'', ''Sederunt principes'' and ''Alleluia Nativitas''—that have been identified with surviving works and gives him the title ''Magister Perotinus'' (Pérotinus the Master) meaning he was licensed to teach. It is assumed that Perotinus was French and named Pérotin, a diminutive of Peter, but attempts to match him with persons in contemporary documents remain speculative. Identity ...
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Organum
''Organum'' () is, in general, a plainchant melody with at least one added voice to enhance the harmony, developed in the Middle Ages. Depending on the mode and form of the chant, a supporting bass line (or '' bourdon'') may be sung on the same text, the melody may be followed in parallel motion (parallel organum), or a combination of both of these techniques may be employed. As no real independent second voice exists, this is a form of heterophony. In its earliest stages, organum involved two musical voices: a Gregorian chant melody, and the same melody transposed by a consonant interval, usually a perfect fifth or fourth. In these cases the composition often began and ended on a unison, the added voice keeping to the initial tone until the first part has reached a fifth or fourth, from where both voices proceeded in parallel harmony, with the reverse process at the end. Organum was originally improvised; while one singer performed a notated melody (the ''vox principal ...
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Medieval Music
Medieval music encompasses the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the first and longest major era of Western classical music and followed by the Renaissance music; the two eras comprise what musicologists generally term as early music, preceding the common practice period. Following the traditional division of the Middle Ages, medieval music can be divided into Early (500–1150), High (1000–1300), and Late (1300–1400) medieval music. Medieval music includes liturgical music used for the church, and secular music, non-religious music; solely vocal music, such as Gregorian chant and choral music (music for a group of singers), solely instrumental music, and music that uses both voices and instruments (typically with the instruments accompanying the voices). Gregorian chant was sung by monks during Catholic Mass. The Mass is a reenactment of Christ's Last Supper, intended to provide a ...
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Notre Dame School
The Notre-Dame school or the Notre-Dame school of polyphony refers to the group of composers working at or near the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris from about 1160 to 1250, along with the music they produced. The only composers whose names have come down to us from this time are Léonin and Pérotin. Both were mentioned by an anonymous English student, known as Anonymous IV, who was either working or studying at Notre-Dame later in the 13th century. In addition to naming the two composers as "the best composers of organum," and specifying that they compiled the big book of organum known as the '' Magnus Liber Organi'', he provides a few tantalizing bits of information on the music and the principles involved in its composition. Pérotin is the first composer of ''organum quadruplum''—four-voice polyphony—at least the first composer whose music has survived, since complete survivals of notated music from this time are scarce. Léonin, Pérotin and the other anonymous compose ...
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Clausula (music)
The ''clausula'' (Latin for "little close” or “little conclusion"; plural ''clausulae'') was a newly composed section of discant ("note against note") inserted into a pre-existing setting of ''organum''. ''Clausulae'' flourished in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries and were associated with the Notre Dame school. The origin of the ''clausula'' has long been subject of scholarly debate, as the relationship between ''clausulae'' and motets is very complicated. ''Clausulae'' eventually became used as substitutes for passages of original plainchant. They occur as melismatic figures based on a single word or syllable within an ''organum''. Origins ''Clausulae'' emerged from the compositional practices of the Notre Dame school in Paris c. 1160–1250 (during the stylistic period known as ''ars antiqua''). The composers Léonin and Pérotin in particular contributed heavily in composing ''clausulae''. Rather than write entirely new music, the preference was to take existing ...
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Magnus Liber
The ''Magnus Liber'' or ''Magnus liber organi'' (English translation: ''Great Book of Organum''), written in Latin, was a repertory of medieval music known as organum. This collection of organum survives today in three major manuscripts. This repertoire was in use by the Notre-Dame school composers working in Paris around the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries, though it is well agreed upon by scholars that Leonin contributed a bulk of the organum in the repertoire. This large body of repertoire is known from references to a ''"magnum volumen"'' by Johannes de Garlandia and to a ''"Magnus liber organi de graduali et antiphonario pro servitio divino"'' by the English music theorist known as Anonymous IV. Today it is known only from later manuscripts containing compositions named in Anonymous IV's description. The ''Magnus Liber'' is regarded as one of the earliest collections of polyphony. Surviving Manuscripts The ''Magnus Liber organi'' most lik ...
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Leonine Verse
Leonine verse is a type of versification based on internal rhyme, and commonly used in Latin verse of the European Middle Ages. The invention of such conscious rhymes, foreign to Classical Latin poetry, is traditionally attributed to a probably apocryphal monk Leonius, who is supposed to be the author of a history of the Old Testament (''Historia Sacra'') preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris. This "history" is composed in Latin verses which rhyme in the center. It is possible that this Leonius is the same person as Leoninus, a Benedictine musician of the twelfth century, in which case he would not have been the original inventor of the form. It is sometimes referred to disparagingly as "jangling verse" by classical purists, for example 19th century antiquaries, who consider it absurd and coarse and a corruption of and offensive to the high ideals of classical literature. In English, the rhyme may be between a word within the line (often before a caesura) and the w ...
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Ars Antiqua
''Ars antiqua'', also called ''ars veterum'' or ''ars vetus'', is a term used by modern scholars to refer to the Medieval music of Europe during the High Middle Ages, between approximately 1170 and 1310. This covers the period of the Notre-Dame school of polyphony (the use of multiple, simultaneous, independent melodic lines), and the subsequent years which saw the early development of the motet, a highly varied choral musical composition. Usually the term ''ars antiqua'' is restricted to sacred (church) or polyphonic music, excluding the secular (non-religious) monophonic songs of the troubadours, and trouvères. Although colloquially the term ''ars antiqua'' is used more loosely to mean all European music of the 13th century, and from slightly before. The term ''ars antiqua'' is used in opposition to '' ars nova'' (meaning "new art", "new technique" or "new style"). The transition from ars antiqua into ars nova is not clearly defined, recent interpretation has described the ...
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Rhythmic Mode
In medieval music, the rhythmic modes were set patterns of long and short durations (or rhythms). The value of each note is not determined by the form of the written note (as is the case with more recent European musical notation), but rather by its position within a group of notes written as a single figure called a "ligature", and by the position of the ligature relative to other ligatures. Modal notation was developed by the composers of the Notre Dame school from 1170 to 1250, replacing the even and unmeasured rhythm of early polyphony and plainchant with patterns based on the metric feet of classical poetry, and was the first step towards the development of modern mensural notation. The rhythmic modes of Notre Dame Polyphony were the first coherent system of rhythmic notation developed in Western music since antiquity. History Though the use of the rhythmic modes is the most characteristic feature of the music of the late Notre Dame school, especially the compositions of ...
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Leonius (poet)
Leonine verse is a type of versification based on internal rhyme, and commonly used in Latin verse of the European Middle Ages. The invention of such conscious rhymes, foreign to Classical Latin poetry, is traditionally attributed to a probably apocryphal monk Leonius, who is supposed to be the author of a history of the Old Testament (''Historia Sacra'') preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris. This "history" is composed in Latin verses which rhyme in the center. It is possible that this Leonius is the same person as Leoninus, a Benedictine musician of the twelfth century, in which case he would not have been the original inventor of the form. It is sometimes referred to disparagingly as "jangling verse" by classical purists, for example 19th century antiquaries, who consider it absurd and coarse and a corruption of and offensive to the high ideals of classical literature. In English, the rhyme may be between a word within the line (often before a caesura) and the word ...
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Polyphony
Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture (music), texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chord (music), chords, homophony. Within the context of the Western musical tradition, the term ''polyphony'' is usually used to refer to music of the late Medieval music, Middle Ages and Renaissance music, Renaissance. Baroque music, Baroque forms such as fugue, which might be called polyphonic, are usually described instead as counterpoint, contrapuntal. Also, as opposed to the ''species'' terminology of counterpoint, polyphony was generally either "pitch-against-pitch" / "point-against-point" or "sustained-pitch" in one part with melismas of varying lengths in another. In all cases the conception was probably what Margaret Bent (1999) calls "dyadic counterpoint", with each part being written generally against one other part, with ...
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Journal Of The American Musicological Society
The ''Journal of the American Musicological Society'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal and an official journal of the American Musicological Society. It is published by University of California Press and covers all aspects of musicology. The ''Journal of the American Musicological Society'' has been published three times a year since 1948. It was preceded by the annual ''Bulletin of the American Musicological Society'' (1936–1947) and the annual ''Papers of the American Musicological Society'' (1936–1941). Online versions of the journal and its predecessors are available at JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ... and the University of California Press. External links * {{Official website, 1=http://www.ucpressjournals.com/journal.asp?j=jams Publications e ...
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