Magister Leoninus: Sacred Music from 12th-century Paris

Absolutely stunning. Lost music re-born — BBC Music Magazine More…

Release Date: 26th Oct 2009
Catalogue No: CDH55328
Label: Helios
Length: 71 minutes

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Léonin 'Magister Leoninus': Alleluya. Non vos relinquam orphanos

Work length8:18

$1.50

$1.85

Red Byrd, Cappella Amsterdam

Léonin 'Magister Leoninus': Alleluya. Dulce lignum, dulces clavos

Work length8:11

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Red Byrd, Cappella Amsterdam

Léonin 'Magister Leoninus': Alleluya. Spiritus Sanctus procedens

Work length7:24

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Red Byrd, Cappella Amsterdam

Léonin 'Magister Leoninus': Alleluya. Paraclitus Spiritus Sanctus

Work length8:49

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Red Byrd, Cappella Amsterdam

Léonin 'Magister Leoninus': Priusquam te formarem

Work length8:54

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Red Byrd, Cappella Amsterdam

Léonin 'Magister Leoninus': Alleluya. Inter natos mulierum

Work length8:15

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Red Byrd, Cappella Amsterdam

Léonin 'Magister Leoninus': Viderunt omnes fines terre

Work length8:22

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Red Byrd, Cappella Amsterdam

Léonin 'Magister Leoninus': Alleluya. Dies sanctificatus illuxit nobis

Work length6:41

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$1.25

Red Byrd, Cappella Amsterdam

Léonin 'Magister Leoninus': Alleluya. Pascha nostrum immolatus est

Work length6:09

$1.00

$1.25

Red Byrd, Cappella Amsterdam

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Little is known about Léonin beyond the fact that he seems to have had a bent for composing erotic poetry. The somewhat unhelpfully named ‘Anonymous IV’, a monk from Bury St Edmunds, tells us of two ‘masters’—Leoninus and Perotinus—who dominated the twelfth-century musical world. Both were reputedly based at Notre Dame in Paris, and Leoninus was responsible for the Magnus liber organi, the ‘Big Book of organum’ (an organum being a polyphonic setting of plainchant), which is widely regarded as the single greatest achievement in the development of early polyphony.

For the technically minded, this is music of great complexity, involving interwoven usage of such styles as organum per se, duplum, clausula, and discantus (terms which even medieval theorists took great pleasure in dissecting in an attempt to define their function).

For the rest of us, this is music of fascinating beauty: a combination of the static tranquillity of the plainchant and the florid ornamentation of the ‘composed’ elements—which have something of the feel of nineteenth-century coloratura six hundred years before its time.

Reviews

Absolutely stunning. Lost music re-born

Classic CD

Marvellously atmospheric. A rare and highly rewarding disc. Brilliant performances of neglected treasures

A fine contribution to the repertoire on disc of twelfth-century polyphony. A composite sound of great beauty

2011 edition

atmospheric, confident and extraordinarily convincing performances, which take us back to the very beginning of written music...a particularly precious reissue.

Sung with beguiling beauty. These readings renew our sense of wonder at western music’s most fundamental innovation—the sound of two voices simultaneously singing different lines that not only fit with, but also enhance, each other

Offer,Magister Leoninus

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