# Were Leonin and Perotin the most radical composers ever?



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Using polyphony in music was not only a huge step for the development of classical music, but music in general. I think up until that point, most of the known musical traditions other than the Western European one were also either monophonic, homophonic or heterophonic. It must have sounded extremely strange and wild at the time. I wonder how they thought up such an obvious, yet completely unprecedented musical device.


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

I certainly share your enthusiasm for these composers, and indeed they were certainly very radical! Once the second voice had been added, the rest of music history was inevitable!

Well I suppose polyphony was a gradual development itself. Once monophony has been fully exhausted, you have plainsong being sung fifths apart. Then heterophonic textures are gradually introduced where one of the singers is allowed to embellish the melody slightly, i.e. move between several notes for each note sustained in the other voice. Then the extra voice gradually becomes freer and freer florid until it is fully independent.


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## Brad (Mar 27, 2014)

Nevertheless, polyphony was nearly banned 300 years later by the Council of Trent, which was debating whether it was too hard to understand the words and therefore would mess up someone's worship. Along came my man Palestrina who composed Missa Papae Marcelli, his most famous work. Apparently this mass convinced Cardinal Borromeo upon hearing that polyphony could be intelligible and was all too beautiful to ban from the church. 100 years later, Bach was born. Imagine if Bach was forbidden by his own church to write polyphonic music...ugh I can't bear the thought.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Brad said:


> Nevertheless, polyphony was nearly banned 300 years later by the Council of Trent, which was debating whether it was too hard to understand the words and therefore would mess up someone's worship. Along came my man Palestrina who composed Missa Papae Marcelli, his most famous work. Apparently this mass convinced Cardinal Borromeo upon hearing that polyphony could be intelligible and was all too beautiful to ban from the church. 100 years later, Bach was born. Imagine if Bach was forbidden by his own church to write polyphonic music...ugh I can't bear the thought.


The was an ongoing struggle between music and words in the religious scene. Even Bach was criticized for his preludes, which were so ornate that they made it had for the congregation to follow properly when singing the words. And from a religious point of view, the words are certainly more important.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> The was an ongoing struggle between music and words in the religious scene. *Even Bach was criticized for his preludes, which were so ornate that they made it had for the congregation to follow properly when singing the words.* And from a religious point of view, the words are certainly more important.


Are you sure that was the cristicism, Ken? You don't normally sing whea chorale prelude is being played as far as I know.

Bach, by the way, seems to be very unusual in the way he used counterpoint. His peers sound nothing like him IMO. Is that right?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

violadude said:


> Using polyphony in music was not only a huge step for the development of classical music, but music in general. I think up until that point, most of the known musical traditions other than the Western European one were also either monophonic, homophonic or heterophonic. It must have sounded extremely strange and wild at the time. I wonder how they thought up such an obvious, yet completely unprecedented musical device.


Can I suggest you try to trace the Perotin recorings by Ensemble Organum? They changed by view of the music.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> Are you sure that was the cristicism, Ken? You don't normally sing whea chorale prelude is being played as far as I know.
> 
> Bach, by the way, seems to be very unusual in the way he used counterpoint. His peers sound nothing like him IMO. Is that right?


I have never heard another composer who sounds anything like Bach in his chorale preludes. If people didn't sing along, what was I thinking of? I know that he was criticized for this...it was certainly some form or other where the congregation was expected to sing. I assumed it was the chorale preludes (Jesu Joy etc.) ???


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I have never heard another composer who sounds anything like Bach in his chorale preludes. If people didn't sing along, what was I thinking of? I know that he was criticized for this...it was certainly some form or other where the congregation was expected to sing. I assumed it was the chorale preludes (Jesu Joy etc.) ???


Chorale / Choral


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## Perotin (May 29, 2012)

Since my name was mentioned, I almost feel obliged to reply and since I don't have anything clever to say, I'll just quote Wikipedia:  "With polyphony, musicians were able to achieve musical feats perceived by many as beautiful, and by others, distasteful. John of Salisbury (1120–1180) taught at the University of Paris during the years of Léonin and Pérotin. He attended many services at the Notre Dame Choir School. In De nugis curialiam he offers a first-hand description of what was happening to music in the high Middle Ages. This philosopher and Bishop of Chartres wrote: When you hear the soft harmonies of the various singers, some taking high and others low parts, some singing in advance, some following in the rear, others with pauses and interludes, you would think yourself listening to a concert of sirens rather than men, and wonder at the powers of voices … whatever is most tuneful among birds, could not equal. Such is the facility of running up and down the scale; so wonderful the shortening or multiplying of notes, the repetition of the phrases, or their emphatic utterance: the treble and shrill notes are so mingled with tenor and bass, that the ears lost their power of judging. When this goes to excess it is more fitted to excite lust than devotion; but if it is kept in the limits of moderation, it drives away care from the soul and the solicitudes of life, confers joy and peace and exultation in God, and transports the soul to the society of angels."


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

KenOC said:


> The was an ongoing struggle between music and words in the religious scene. Even Bach was criticized for his preludes, which were so ornate that they made it had for the congregation to follow properly when singing the words. And from a religious point of view, the words are certainly more important.


It was ever thus... St. Augustine back in the 4th/5th century warned against paying more attention to the music than the words.

Also, not wishing to deny the significance of the Notre Dame school, but polyphony didn't spring out of nowhere, and Léonin and Pérotin were building on ideas that had already been established. One very important contribution they made, though, was exerting control over rhythm.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

They were amazing, but there is so little information about this part of history that we really don't know exactly how this form really started or how many other influential artists were around. It's a beautiful mystery.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I have never heard another composer who sounds anything like Bach in his chorale preludes. If people didn't sing along, what was I thinking of? I know that he was criticized for this...it was certainly some form or other where the congregation was expected to sing. I assumed it was the chorale preludes (Jesu Joy etc.) ???


The preludes were played before the singing. In my opinion Bach's preludes are like a exegesis in music of the texts which follow. There was a complaint that his music was too complicated.

One person who sounds a bit like Bach is Graupner. However I find Graupner's music pretty boring.

The more I listen to baroque and renaissance keyboard music the more I'm impressed by the sheer distinctiveness of Bach's art.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Not polyphony, but still… This is spine-tingling. Monumental glory.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Nereffid said:


> It was ever thus... St. Augustine back in the 4th/5th century warned against paying more attention to the music than the words.


This is perfectly in keeping with my assertions in the "Religion and Music" thread that text is more ideological and specific than music only, which can be accessed by anyone as a 'way in' to the sacred.

All we have to do is ignore the text, and we are "in like Flint" to the once-exclusive realm of religious music.

It's obvious from this that text, words, and ideology were used as power tools to keep the masses in line. That sounds corrupt to me.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

The question of whether or not Leonin and Perotin were radical depends on whether or not one believes that polyphony was new in their era, or whether they were merely notating, or building upon, a commonplace and well-established oral tradition. Before chant was notated, for example, there was a centuries-long oral tradition for improvising chants in various modes and for the different parts of the Mass and Offices. I believe there were treatises predating the Notre Dame School in which the process of improvising polyphony (organum) over a chant was described. With more than two voices, I imagine the need for rhythmic coordination (using rhythmic modes at first?) was an overriding concern.


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## Speish (Jan 5, 2019)

*Emotions*

Great contribution, Perotin. I would like to have a glimpse on the emotions of the composers in the time of Perotin and Leonin. "A concert of sirens rather than men" sounds like a critique to me...Were they rebels of their time? When I listen to Sederunt Principes, I wonder if it was a try to break the canons of compositions... Is it true that they are among the first known polyphonic composers? What could have been their emotions empowering that melismatic music (I mean that sort of e-he-he e-he-he e-he-he e)? What were the feelings of those people? Were they trying to escape from some sort of a cage?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Speish said:


> Great contribution, Perotin. I would like to have a glimpse on the emotions of the composers in the time of Perotin and Leonin. "A concert of sirens rather than men" sounds like a critique to me...Were they rebels of their time? When I listen to Sederunt Principes, I wonder if it was a try to break the canons of compositions... Is it true that they are among the first known polyphonic composers? What could have been their emotions empowering that melismatic music (I mean that sort of e-he-he e-he-he e-he-he e)? What were the feelings of those people? Were they trying to escape from some sort of a cage?


We don't know anything about them, neither Léonin or Perotin, with any degree of confidence.

There's earlier polyphonic music in The Winchester Troper, and maybe elsewhere.

They didn't "empower" melismatic music, there was elaborate organum independently of whatever was going on in Paris - in Aquitaine for example, and even more astonishingly, from Hildegard.

It would be nice if someone who's looked into it could comment on your questions about emotions expressed. How, if at all, do the performances on record reflect the emotions of the texts? And how much of the interpretation is fantasy anyway? I've never explored this, but I'd like to.

Can anyone let me have a list of their complete works? Has all the music which people think is by them been recorded?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> Can anyone let me have a list of their complete works? Has all the music which people think is by them been recorded?


I would say 'yes', since I don't think there are too many pieces attributed to them in the first place (I guess due to the difficulties caused by the lack of historical archives; we are very lucky that Anonymous IV decided to write what he saw). The Hilliard Ensemble seems to be particularly keen on them. I have a couple of albums by the Hilliard Ensemble in Spotify which, I think, cover most of the pieces when you add them all.

Anyway, Perotin's music is really special, it's amazing how it still sounds fresh today. To me, he's there with the greats. And not because he was one of the first, that would be silly, but because he understood, even at that early stage of music history, the craft of music and what music is about, what makes a phrase, a harmonic change, etc., to be musical. I enjoy and pay close attention to every beat and bar in his music, there's always a surprise.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

So what are these pieces attributed to Perotin?


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