Perotinus

Perotinus (also known as Perotinus Magnus or Magister Perotinus) is one of the most important composers of the European Middle Ages, active in Paris around 1200. His name appears in two documentary sources from the late thirteenth century, the treatises of Johannes de Garlandia and the so-called Anonymus 4, where he is named as the musician who reworked the great polyphonic repertory of the cathedral of Notre Dame. Although his biography is reconstructed mainly from indirect clues, his figure has become a point of reference for understanding the move from early polyphony to more elaborate forms.

Context and first clues

The cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris was the great centre of polyphony in the transition from the twelfth to the thirteenth century. The evidence that places Perotinus there is largely circumstantial. An edict issued in 1199 by the Bishop of Paris, Eudes de Sully, regulated the performance of certain liturgical items at the feasts of the Circumcision and of St Stephen, explicitly mentioning polyphony. The four-voice graduals Viderunt omnes and Sederunt principes, attributed to Perotinus, are often dated from that document, although it is not unlikely that they were already in the repertory before the reform, or that they were composed in response to it, perhaps in 1201 or later.

Training and academic title

The title magister given to him by the sources indicates that Perotinus took the master's degree in arts, almost certainly in Paris, and was licensed to teach. His diminutive name, Perotinus, derived from Petrus and linked to the French form Pérotin, may have been a mark of affection or respect from his colleagues. The epithet magnus, used by Anonymus 4, reveals the esteem in which he was held long after his death.

Identity and ecclesiastical life

Several identifications have been proposed with real members of the cathedral administration, among them the theologian Petrus Cantor, who died in 1197, though chronology makes this unlikely, and Petrus, succentor of Notre Dame from 1207 or earlier until about 1238, a more plausible candidate given the succentor's role in overseeing the liturgy. Another hypothesis, linking him to the parish church of St Germain-l'Auxerrois and to a role as court composer to King Philippe-Auguste, is no longer accepted. His most probable collaborator was the poet Philip the Chancellor, who died around 1237, with whom he shared texts and pieces.

His works and the Magnus liber

Almost everything known about his musical activity derives from a passage in the treatise of Anonymus 4, which describes the Magnus liber organi attributed to Leoninus as a repertory that Perotinus revised. The phrase abbreviavit eundem has been read in different ways: some take it to mean shortening the pieces, but it more likely indicates a new redaction or edition, which could have included replacing many clausulas with better ones and adding entirely new compositions. The same testimony suggests that Perotinus used a more developed rhythmic notation than Leoninus, one in which the full system of rhythmic modes was in use, along with some elements of mensural notation. According to Anonymus 4 he wrote organa for three and four voices, conductus for one to three voices, and numerous clausulas. Although he is called optimus discantor, the best in discant, there is no reason to think he did not also compose organa dupla.

No work is ascribed to him directly in the musical sources, but Anonymus 4 mentions seven of his compositions, several of which can be identified with reasonable certainty in manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Other works have been attributed to him by modern scholars on stylistic grounds.

Style and resources

Perotinus's compositions for three and four voices are milestones in the history of Western music. His upper voices often lie in similar ranges and move in phrases of equal length, suggesting that the polyphonic fabric was first conceived in two parts and that the additional voices arose by imitation. Dissonance is cultivated within a consonant frame: at the opening of Viderunt omnes, each phrase begins with a major seventh against the tenor and projects that dissonance before resolving it, giving the underlying consonance an unprecedented strength and span. Among the resources praised by Anonymus 4 are the colores, such as rondellus or voice exchange, which in Sederunt principes comes to dominate the texture, and cadential flourishes of the cadenza type.

His writing is careful about formal balance. He alternates passages of sustained notes with others of differentiated rhythm, in which the voices move in different rhythmic modes. His organum purum, more disciplined than Leoninus's, is organised in symmetrical phrases and clearly defined rhythms, which narrows the stylistic gap between sustained parts and discant clausulas and strengthens the unity of the whole work. Even in his monophonic music, such as the conductus, the same taste for tonal clarity and melodic order is evident.

Legacy

Perotinus's work set the course of Western polyphony. His tendency towards clarity, order and balance, visible in melodic profile, phrase structure, rhythmic planning and harmonic idiom, became a defining feature of much later French music and of thirteenth-century English polyphony. His name remained linked to the Magnus liber long after his death, and Anonymus 4 still remembered him as the great master of the Notre Dame school.