The role played by
Léonin in the development of
the earliest polyphony is generally
acknowledged as being profound, and
yet it is not really known what, if
anything, Léonin actually did,
or even who he was. He is credited with
the creation of the Magnus liber
organi, the 'great book of organum'
which was designed for liturgical use
in the cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris.
If Léonin was actually the creator
of the Magnus liber, then his
work does indeed represent perhaps the
most profoundly influential achievement
in the development of early polyphony.
Unfortunately, for
historians and musician alike, it is
impossible to know how much, if any,
of this assertion is true, as the only
source of this information is the testimony
of an unknown Englishman who visited
Paris in the latter half of the thirteenth
century, the posthumously-named Anonymous
IV. According to Anonymous IV, Léonin
wrote two-part organum settings of graduals,
alleluias and responsories for principal
feasts throughout the ecclesiastical
year; whether he composed them, though,
or merely wrote them down, is far from
certain.
Also according to Anonymous
IV, Léonin was the best composer,
or perhaps singer, of two-part organum,
and the younger Pérotin was the
best creator of quadrupla, the earliest
surviving examples of four-part polyphony.
Pérotin is known to have modified
and shortened the Magnus liber,
but unfortunately the original book
no longer exists. Its contents survive
in three substantially reworked versions
from the 13th and early 14th centuries,
but the original cannot be reconstructed,
and its precise contents are uncertain.
No works ascribed to Léonin survive
in musical sources, so it is impossible
to know what role he really played.
Pérotin's history
is only slightly less caliginous than
that of Léonin, as his identity
is unknown and his achievements are
described by just two contemporary theorists:
Anonymous IV and Johannes de Garlandia.
Again, none of his works is ascribed
to him in musical sources; however,
several can be attributed to him with
reasonable certainty, and he was the
most important of the musicians involved
in the revision of the Magnus liber.
As noted above, Anonymous IV credited
Pérotin as being the best creator
of quadrupla, and as the creation of
three- and four-part organum at around
the turn of the 13th century is one
of the most important developments in
polyphony, he clearly played an important
part in the development of the earliest
polyphony. The first examples of triple
organum were written as two separate
duets with the tenor line, the two upper
voices having little mutual regard and
featuring many discordant clashes. Pérotin,
however, exhibited a notable awareness
of texture in his music, creating much
more harmonious agreement between the
upper voice parts and using imitative
voice-exchange between them.
Tonus Peregrinus's
new Naxos CD provides a representative
sample of the developing world of polyphony
from the Magnus liber. The disc
begins with a simple solo conductus,
sung with beauty and purity by Rebecca
Hickey, progresses through a range of
two-part organum in different styles,
attributed to Léonin, and culminates
in various four-part organum settings
by Pérotin and an anonymous four-part
conductus. There are no three-part settings
on this recording.
The CD takes the interesting
approach of including a range of different
versions of Viderunt omnes organum
with different voicings and interpretations.
As is made clear by the booklet notes,
the rules of thirteenth-century musical
notation are reasonably unambiguous
for discantus-style organum, in which
the plainchant and second voice use
the same rhythmic modes, but the rules
are open to far more interpretation
when it comes to organum purum, in which
a greatly slowed-down plainchant is
accompanied by a highly elaborate solo
line. There are therefore two separate
performances of Viderunt omnes that
share some identical plainchant sections,
though in different voicings (upper
and lower choirs), in which the organum
settings explore different approaches
to performance. The CD also presents
a series of settings of the word Dominus,
which were written either as alternative
clausulae or perhaps free-standing pieces.
The performances then go on to explore
four-part polyphony by Pérotin
and others.
The group's approach
to the recording is explained in some
relatively brief, but lucid and informative,
booklet notes by Antony Pitts, director
of Tonus Peregrinus and a composer in
his own right. His notes draw an interesting,
if somewhat tenuous, parallel between
the growth of polyphony and the construction
of the cathedral of Notre-Dame, which
was underway at the same time as the
music here recorded was written. He
writes: "it may be hoped that we shall
have conveyed something of the staggering
cumulative effect of a Gothic cathedral
in-progress."
The Magnus liber
was, of course, created for use
at Notre-Dame, and both Léonin
and Pérotin are supposed to have
worked there. The CD is subtitled Sacred
Music from Notre-Dame and makes
clear that the music presented on it
was written for performance in that
building; there's even an attractive
photograph of the south transept rose
window on the front cover. Given all
those facts, therefore, it does seem
a little odd that the performance on
the CD was not actually recorded in
Notre-Dame! Perhaps appropriate permission
could not be obtained, but it does seem
curious and a little regrettable. Luckily,
the abbey in which the recording took
place had suitable acoustics and the
effect is very good.
The performances, which
have clearly been backed by appropriate
scholarly research, are generally very
good, and sound 'authentic', by which
I mean that the acoustics and ethereal
sound transport the listener across
both time and space into what feels
to be a genuine, live performance of
this music. With very early music such
as this, it is easy to end up with a
performance that sounds too studied
and careful. Tonus Peregrinus succeeds
in presenting a performance of music
with feeling, rather than music as an
academic exercise.
Another recording of
the Pérotin Viderunt omnes,
by the Hilliard Ensemble on a 1988 ECM
New Series CD (ECM 1385, 837 751-2),
is arguably 'better' in that the voices
exhibit almost super-human control:
every last note is perfectly audible
and the vocal sound is flawless. I like
that Hilliard recording very much, in
fact; it's extremely difficult to fault,
technically, but it does lack a certain
human immediacy and spontaneity which
is present in abundance in this new
Naxos CD.
On the other hand,
Tonus Peregrinus, whilst excellent overall,
does not exhibit the same kind of technical
perfection as the Hilliard Ensemble.
Whilst their ensemble is perfect, there
are occasionally imperfections in articulation
and blend which are not apparent in
the Hilliard recording, and the acoustics
of the building do rather mask the antiphonal
elements within the music, unfortunately;
these are better delineated in the Hilliard
performance.
So, the Tonus Peregrinus
performance is not peerless; the solo
tenor in the first Viderunt,
in particular, I found to be a little
edgy in tone and approximate in articulation
at times, and there are occasional bulges
and notable changes in timbre as vowels
change. A direct comparison with a group
such as the Hilliard Ensemble reveals
imperfections which might be less apparent
otherwise. Nevertheless, the performance
is nothing short of excellent, and has
the great advantage of making the music
sound, as it should, as though it's
part of a living tradition rather than
being the exclusive province of musicologists.
Appropriate research unquestionably
forms the background to this recording,
but the performance itself has great
spontaneous conviction, and this elevates
the whole disc to something more than
an academic exercise.
Clearly this is not
music that the majority of listeners
would put on their CD players purely
for aural pleasure (except perhaps those
who are thoroughly steeped in early
church music). But for anyone who has
an interest in the birth of polyphony,
or who wants to hear some of the roots
from which Western music developed,
this interesting, high quality, well
performed and inexpensive new Naxos
CD will be well worth investigating.
It's an excellent addition to the early
music catalogue.
Richard Hallas
see also review
by Gary Higginson