(Perotinus; fl. late 12th-early 13th c.). Because he composed liturgical vocal polyphony at Notre-Dame for two, three, and four parts (each part sung by a soloist) and employed the rhythmic modes, sophisticated devices of repetition and voice exchange, unprecedented length, and important notational innovations, Pérotin was the most significant musical figure of the early 13th century. His achievements profoundly influenced the course of Western music. The music theorists Johannes de Garlandia and Anonymous 4 mention “Magister Perotinus,” but only the latter lists seven of his musical compositions and chronologically places him as “the best discantor” among other singers, composers, and notators working in Paris from the late 12th to late 13th century. Anonymous 4 credits Pérotin with the polyphony found today at the beginning of each of the three major extant Notre-Dame sources (W1, F, and W2): the Graduals Viderunt omnes and Sederunt principes, both for four voices, and adds to the list threepart polyphony for the Alleluia Posui adiutorium and Alleluia Nativitas, and three conductus, the three-part Salvatoris hodie, the two-part Dum sigillum, and the mono-phonic Beata viscera. On the basis of stylistic affinity with these works, several other works in the Notre-Dame sources have been credited to him. Anonymous 4’s statement that Pérotin made many clausulae and edited, revised, or shortened Léonin’s Magnus liber organi has led many to attribute to him one or more of the series of independent discant clausulae that survive in W1 and F.
Petrus, succentor (subcantor) of the cathedral ca. 1207–38, has been proposed as the most probable identity for Anonymous 4’s “Perotinus optimus discantor,” partly because responsibility for the daily services at the cathedral would have fallen to the succentor rather than the cantor, whose post had become largely administrative. Petrus’ dates seem to correlate with Anonymous 4’s description of Léonin’s Magnus liber organi, which he stated was in use until the time of Pérotin, while Pérotin’s “book or books” were used in the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris up to Anonymous 4’s own time, probably the 1280s. Hans Tischler and others have maintained, however, that Pérotin lived ca.
1155/60–1200/05, largely on the basis that ordinances issued in 1198 and 1199 by Odo de Sully, bishop of Paris, sanctioned performance of three- and fourpart organum at Notre-Dame during Christmas Week. That Pérotin’s composition of the four-part polyphony for Viderunt omnes and Sederunt principes might have elicited these decrees can only be conjectured. The dating of Pérotin’s polyphony is particularly important to a history of the musical style of the period. If it dates generally before 1200, that would mean that the rhythmic modes and their notation as well as the discant clausula and consequently the early motet were well advanced at the very beginning of the 13th century.
Pérotin. Works, ed. Ethel Thurston. New York: Kalmus, 1970.
Tischler, Hans. “Perotinus Revisited.” In Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: A Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese, ed. Jan LaRue. New York: Norton, 1966, pp. 803–17.
Wright, Craig. Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris, 500–1550. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 288–94.
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