Biography of Léonin
Name: Léonin
Birth Date: N/A
Death Date: N/A
Place of Birth: N/A
Nationality: French
Gender: Male
Occupations: composer
Léonin
Léonin (active ca. 1165-1185), or Leoninus, of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, is the earliest known composer of polyphonic art music and the creator of controlled rhythm and meter, as well as of the earliest notation to convey rhythm.About the life of Léonin absolutely nothing is known. His name is mentioned in a treatise, actually class notes taken at lectures an anonymous English student attended at the University of Paris about a century later, in the 1270s. In this treatise Léonin is connected with Paris and is praised as the best composer of organa (two-voiced settings of soloistic portions of chants of the Mass and the daily prayer hours).Léonin evidently composed his organa for the Cathedral of Notre Dame, whose present magnificent stone structure rose in the main between 1163 and 1208. It has been suggested that he was a choirboy …showed first 150 words…
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…showed last 150 words…the conductus, a processional song. Monophonic conducti as well as sporadic two-part settings had existed before Léonin, but he established the polyphonic species firmly. Conducti are Latin songs, covering a wide range of contents--religious, political, lyrical, convivial--sometimes heard at Church and sometimes at performances of liturgical dramas, processions, banquets, and private occasions. The poetic texts are stanzaic, in strict rhythm, and sung more or less one note to each syllable, with both voices moving in essentially the same rhythm, though at verse and stanza ends and beginnings cadenzalike duet passages of many notes are often sung to a single syllable. Further Reading The best survey of Léonin's works is in Donald Jay Grout, A History of Western Music (1960). Much of Léonin's music is available in modern transcription in William Waite, The Rhythm of Twelfth-Century Polyphony, and a few works have been recorded.
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