Power, Leonel [Lionel, Lyonel, Leonellus, Leonelle; Polbero]

(d Canterbury, 5 June 1445). English composer and theorist. He shared with Dunstaple the leadership of English style in the influential decades between 1410 and 1440. Somewhat overshadowed in reputation by his probably younger contemporary, Leonel (as the sources usually name him) shows a similarly high level of musical craftsmanship and originality in an output only slightly smaller.

1. Life.

2. Works.

3. Style.

For a page of Power’s treatise, see Discant.

WORKS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MARGARET BENT

Power, Leonel

1. Life.

The first dated reference to Power (see Bowers, 1975) records him as instructor of the choristers and second in the list of clerks of the household chapel of Thomas, Duke of Clarence (d 1421), brother of Henry V and heir apparent. The next records his admission to the fraternity of Christ Church, Canterbury, on 14 May 1423. This fraternity included distinguished lay friends of the priory as well as regulars and other ecclesiastics. The suggestion (in MGG1) that Power may have been master of the choir that was maintained to sing services outside the monastic liturgy in the nave or Lady Chapel has been confirmed by the discovery of his name in this context between 1439 (when the post may have been created for him) and his death. There is reference to ‘Lionel Power of Canterbury esquire’ on 20 September 1438 (a ‘release of all personal actions’ to one Thomas Ragoun), with a memorandum of acknowledgment dated 19 April 1444. Bowers now reports that Ragoun’s uncle was Sir Richard Woodville, who had been in the service of the Duke of Clarence since 1411 and by 1423 was chamberlain to John, Duke of Bedford. Ragoun and Power may have become acquainted through a common employer; the possibility that Power might have served in Bedford’s chapel after Clarence’s death is thus slightly enhanced by this relationship (we have no documentation of Power’s employment for most of the 1420s and 1430s). ‘Lyonell Power’ is listed as a recipient of livery from Christmas 1439 to Christmas 1444: whenever a distinction is made he is cited as a Kent man rather than a Londoner. He is listed among the esquires or gentlemen (armigeri, later generosi): that he was a layman therefore seems certain.

Three notices of his death survive. In a Canterbury calendar (GB-Lbl Cotton Tib.B.III, 4v) both date and year are given. The fraternity registers (GB-Lbl Arundel 68 and Llp 20) record his obit on 6 June, the date given for his burial by the chronicler monk John Stone, possibly himself a composer.

On stylistic grounds (discussed in §3 below), Power’s birthdate must lie between about 1370 and 1385. The notoriously unreliable historian Grattan Flood, without knowledge of any of the above information, claimed that he came from County Waterford, Ireland, was related to Bishop Milo Power and Sir Maurice Power and that, as a younger son of a wealthy Anglo-Irish family, he probably studied at Oxford. Why Flood confidently dated Power’s musical works between 1380 and 1395 is not vouchsafed, for in his day Power’s deathdate was not known, and the possibility had not yet been raised that theOld Hall Manuscript, in which he is well represented, might contain 14th-century music. Flood knew Power’s treatise, which he dated about 1390, and referred tantalizingly to an Anglo-Irish contemporary who styled him ‘noster Lionel’.

Power, Leonel

2. Works.

The problems in determining the authentic works of Power are so great that a work-list cannot be left to stand without some discussion. For the nucleus we are dependent on the 40 works that bear undisputed ascriptions to him. Five more anonymous works, all mass movements, can be added by virtue of their musical relationship to movements ascribed to him. A further 12 items have conflicting ascriptions or belong to mass cycles with conflicting ascriptions. Altogether these comprise related and individual mass movements, and settings of Marian liturgical texts. No secular works or isorhythmic motets are anywhere ascribed to Power, nor any canonic compositions. There is no case for rejecting any of the unique or unanimous ascriptions, from which Power’s personal style emerges as marginally more definable than Dunstaple’s and more easily extricable from the characteristics of English music in general. It should prove possible to add further anonymous works to those tentatively assigned to him by Hamm and others. But there is a real danger of confusion with works by other composers showing Power’s influence – of which the anonymous Credo Old Hall no.82 is probably an example. The survival of an elementary discant treatise in his name supports the idea that he may have been a teacher, as does his musical primacy in Old Hall. He andj(ohn) Cooke are the only two composers represented in both layers of the manuscript. Cooke’s mass settings appear to be closely modelled on those of Power, perhaps indicating a tutorial relationship.

Together with Dunstaple, Power was a pioneer of the unified mass cycle, though the extent of their individual responsibilities cannot be fully established because of uncertain chronology and conflicting attributions in crucial works. Power appears to have taken the initiative in pairing movements of the Ordinary. His four pairs in the Old Hall Manuscript are unified respectively by closely parallel style, structure and motifs (including an anticipation of head-motif technique), by the use of related chants but separate isorhythmic construction, by parallel structure and the appropriate Ordinary chants in the top voice, and by use of appropriate Ordinary chants in the tenor. In all cases, ranges and signatures support the pairing, although the movements are physically separated according to the organization of the manuscript. The only Ordinary cycle ascribed to Power without contradiction is Alma redemptoris mater, in which the tenor (the first half of the plainchant antiphon) is presented in identical, unornamented form in each movement, although there is no internal isorhythm within each movement. The four surviving movements (the cycle probably once had a troped Kyrie) vary in length according to the length of the introductory and interpolated duet sections. Many technical and stylistic features support Power’s authorship (use of pseudo-augmentation, proportional passages and conflicting time signatures; see §3 below).

Power’s claim to the Mass Rex seculorum is shared with Dunstaple, and that to the sine nomine mass with Dunstaple and Benet. Both of these are free tenor masses, the latter so free as almost to impair its unity. Stylistic evidence as to authorship is still inconclusive, although certain rhythmic peculiarities, some wayward dissonances and the downward thrust of many melodic phrases may suggest Power rather than Dunstaple as the composer of Rex seculorum (Power used the rising triadic opening less than Dunstaple). The tenor is an antiphon for St Benedict; it would be Dunstaple’s only use of a non-Sarum chant. The majority ascription to Power in the sources is not decisive but cannot be wholly overlooked. Sine nomine is altogether less characteristic of Dunstaple, and Bukofzer was inclined to favour Benet as the composer. The discovery in Milan of a source ascribing the mass to Power must revive Power’s claim to the work: neither mass, however, shows sufficiently strong personal characteristics to permit any final decision.

Power, Leonel

3. Style.

It is easier to attempt an approximate chronology for Power’s more definitely authentic works than it is for Dunstaple’s. His composing career was probably more extended, and the early part of it is well defined and characterized in his substantial contribution to the Old Hall Manuscript. His 23 compositions in the original layer (which contains nothing by Dunstaple) amount to more than three times the total for any other composer, perhaps indicating some degree of seniority, or a close connection with the compilation. By about 1415 he had mastered all the styles of the generation in which he presumably grew up, whereas Dunstaple left little evidence of activity earlier than this date. This could be a distortion occasioned by the accidents of survival, which may in turn have deprived us of any isorhythmic motets that Power may have written. Otherwise it would seem to indicate that he was older than Dunstaple, or earlier to mature as a composer. His later works are at present known chiefly from continental sources.

Power’s Old Hall music includes the simplest of descant settings, with the chant in the middle voice (sometimes migrant, with very little elaboration), freely composed pieces of lush sonority for four and five voices (the Gloria-Credo pair Old Hall nos.21, 77), isorhythmic mass movements (the Gloria-Credo pair Old Hall nos.24, 84, and the Gloria no.23), four-part compositions with Ars Nova rhythms in C time (the Sanctus-Agnus pair Old Hall nos.118, 141) and settings of an elaborately figured and rhythmically complex upper part supported by slower-moving lower parts (Gloria Old Hall no.22, Credo settings nos.81, 83). His style at this period could be seen as a fusion of the English love of full sonorities, a sensuous Italianate melodic instinct, the syncopated rhythms of the French Ars Nova and the proportional ingenuity of the Ars Subtilior (ex.1). It would be invidious to place simplicity earlier than complexity within this range, although surviving English manuscripts of the late 14th century present no evidence of even mild proportional usage nor, before the Fountains fragment (GB-Lbl Add.40011B), of combinations of the four prolations of the French Ars Nova and use of syncopation, all of which are present in Power’s Old Hall works.

The Old Hall styles, particularly in the case of Power’s paired mass movements, overlap with the next stratum, comprising his one contribution to the second layer of that manuscript, the cyclic mass or masses, and most of the motets surviving in continental sources; these later pieces are usually in time (with use of C) rather than C, and with the treble dominating in the manner of the French chanson. The final stage of this approximate chronology consists of the last four motets of Hamm’s edition, which clearly anticipate the smooth discant writing of Frye’s generation, with their well-integrated duets and increasing participation of the lower parts in the evolution of a more homogeneous texture.

Power’s melodic style is not always distinct from Dunstaple’s, though the rising triadic opening (see Dunstaple, John, ex.2d) is much less common, except where the opening is based on a chant with this feature, such as Alma redemptoris mater. Sequential passages, sometimes based on standard cadential figures, are increasingly common in the middle-to-late works (e.g. the Credo from the Alma redemptoris cycle and Mater ora filium). Power was often explicit in his ficta indications, writing bold but logical progressions such as in ex.2. It has been suggested that he abandoned the use of plainchant in his later motets, but chant paraphrase is in many cases unmistakable and cannot be overlooked in assessing his melodic style. In some cases there are clear allusions to the relevant chant, especially in the top part and at beginnings of sections, but consistent use of the chant throughout the composition cannot be claimed. Examples of this include the duets in Regina celi (LP i, 19), and Alma redemptoris mater, where the chant appears after an eight-bar introduction in migrant form, and intermittently thereafter. In other cases the chant can indeed be traced throughout the composition though, admittedly, portions of the melody may be elided, overlapped or compressed; migration or transposition may obscure the outlines; and the melody may get out of step with the words; yet all these features are found in less extreme form in simple descant pieces where the presence of chant is not in doubt (e.g. Byttering’s Nesciens mater).

With regard to cantus-firmus treatment in general, the Old Hall descant settings present the chant in the middle voice with occasional migration to the lowest. The underlay does not always correspond to that of the chant (e.g. Ave regina Old Hall no.43, and see above). Increased melodic freedom is found in Beata viscera, where it is still in the middle part; and most of the subsequent motets that use chant paraphrase it in the treble (Salve regina, LP i, 10, uses the Alma redemptoris plainchant in the treble, an unusual technique at this date). Of his earlier mass movements, most of those whose tenor cantus firmi can be traced use appropriate chants for the Ordinary (one Sanctus-Agnus pair unusually has them in the treble), the exceptions being the Gloria-Credo pair Old Hall nos.24, 84.

Isorhythm in Power’s surviving works is confined to mass settings: the Gloria-Credo Old Hall nos.24, 84, the Glorias no.23 and LP ii, 17 (his strictest and most ambitious isorhythmic construction), and the doubtful Credo for three voices. All except the last are isorhythmic in all parts, and this technique seems to be confined to relatively early works. The Old Hall Gloria-Credo pair show some non-coincidence of colour and talea (see Isorhythm).

It is perhaps in features of rhythm that Power’s personal style is most evident. The simultaneous use of conflicting mensural signatures for limited passages is common in early-to-middle works (e.g. the Agnus and Benedictus of the Mass Alma redemptoris; see also ex.2), and at the same period the notation of one or more parts requiring to be read in augmentation to correspond with the others is found in, for example, the Mass Alma redemptoris, the Glorias Old Hall no.22, LP ii, 17, the Credos Old Hall nos.81, 83 and the Sanctus Old Hall no.115. These features are not confined to Power, though both are more common in his works than in those of other composers. Nor was he the only composer to incorporate very elaborate syncopations and proportional passages, especially in upper parts of his early works, though the complexity of the Gloria Old Hall no.22 and the Credos nos.81 and 83, the last of which uses blue coloration in addition to void and full red and black notes, as well as numerical and graphic signatures, is rarely surpassed (see ex.1). Short passages of this kind recur with diminishing frequency up to the midpoint of his output (as in ex.2). An individual feature of rhythm found throughout his career is a calculated disregard of regular mensuration. This is reflected by fluctuating bar lengths in modern transcription, as in exx.3 and 6 (early and late works respectively), and also ex.4, though shown here with regular barring. Together with this goes a predilection for asymmetry, especially in melodic and rhythmic sequences and imitation (see ex.4). His use of sequences is more extensive than Dunstaple’s; they are often closely packed, sometimes occurring on different beats of the bar – a stretto effect which is sometimes achieved by rhythmic inexactitude in the limbs of the sequence. There is also a little more imitation (see especially ex.6, but also exx.4 and 5).

A constant refinement of harmony and texture can be traced in Power’s development. His love of full sonorities is evident in his Old Hall compositions (no.15, exceptionally, has a 3rd in the final chord), and he often luxuriated freely over a single note or chord with free-wheeling imitations, as in ex.5 which also demonstrates the asymmetrical rhythms mentioned above. His music shows a preference for relatively low notated tessituras (ex.6). Dissonances are prepared with increasing care, and the final motets are completely pan-consonant. Leaps of 4ths and 5ths are common in the early duets (ex.3); simultaneously sounded dissonances are not avoided, though simultaneous leaps are quite rare. Power’s late duet writing has greater poise and fluency and is largely conjunct, with a few leaps of 3rds as well as carefully placed larger intervals (see exx.4 and 6). Early works in three or four parts gradually give way to three-part compositions with extensive duets; in the very last works the duets are shorter again, but more integrated (as in ex.6).

Power’s music shows little awareness of text declamation, except on the occasional isolated word. None of his compositions is as consistently declamatory as Dunstaple’s Quam pulchra es, though Power’s setting of this text contains more careful declamation than any of his other works (ex.6). A few distinct habits in early mass settings, though not confined to Power, include the telescoping of the Credo text (Old Hall nos.73, 77, 83, and the anonymous three-voice setting), and perhaps the commencement of polyphony not at ‘Patrem’ but at ‘factorem’ (no.73, also the anonymous three-voice setting; similarly the anonymous Gloria printed as no.10 in the complete works of Dunstaple).

The treatise (GB-Lbl Lansdowne 763) is headed ‘This tretis is contrivid upon the Gamme for hem that wil be syngers or makers or techers’ and concludes ‘Quod Lyonel Power’. It precedes an anonymous treatise on faburden and one on proportions ascribed to Chilston. The volume was copied by John Wylde, a 15th-century preceptor of Waltham Abbey, and contains 20 musical treatises of which the three mentioned above are in English, the remainder in Latin. Power’s treatise deals with the sights of Discant, naming them mean, treble and quatreble. ‘To enforme a childe in his counterpoynt’, Power gave exhaustive permutations for the two last-named (the highest; as master of the Lady Chapel at Canterbury, he would have been concerned primarily with training boys). In advocating contrary motion, he forbade parallel perfect intervals in descant, and permitted up to three consecutive imperfect intervals of the same kind, six of mixed kinds.

Power, Leonel

WORKS

Editions:Leonel Power: Complete Works, ed. C. Hamm, CMM, 1 (1969–76) [LP] (motets only)John Dunstable: Complete Works, ed. M. F. Bukofzer, MB, viii (1953), rev. 2/1970) [JD]The Old Hall Manuscript, ed. A. Hughes and M. Bent, CMM, xlvi (1969–73) [OH]

single mass movements

other settings of sacred latin texts

works of doubtful authenticity

all anon.

Power, Leonel

BIBLIOGRAPHY

HarrisonMMB

W.G. Searle, ed.: The Chronicle of John Stone, Monk of Christ Church 1415–1471 (Cambridge, 1902)

W.H.G. Flood: A History of Irish Music (Dublin, 1905, 3/1913/R, 4/1927)

S.B. Meech: ‘Three Musical Treatises in English from a Fifteenth-Century Manuscript’, Speculum, x (1935), 235–69 [incl. edn of treatise]

M.F. Bukofzer: Geschichte des englischen Diskants und des Fauxbourdons nach den theoretischen Quellen (Strasbourg, 1936/R)

T. Georgiades: Englische Diskanttraktate aus der ersten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1937)

M.F. Bukofzer: ‘English Church Music of the Fifteenth Century’, NOHM, iii (1960/R), 165–213

N. Bridgman: ‘ Un manuscrit milanais (Biblioteca nazionale Braidense Cod. AD. XIV.49)’, RIM, i (1966), 237–41

C. Hamm: ‘The Motets of Lionel Power’, Studies in Music History: Essays for Oliver Strunk, ed. H. Powers (Princeton, NJ, 1968/R), 127–36

M. Bent: The Old Hall Manuscript: a Paleographical Study (diss., U. of Cambridge, 1969)

R. Bowers: Choral Institutions within the English Church: their Constitution and Development, 1340–1500 (diss., U. of East Anglia, 1975), esp. 4033, 5036ff

R. Bowers: ‘Some Observations on the Life and Career of Lionel Power’, PRMA, cii (1975–6), 103–26

A.-M. Seaman: ‘The Music of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lincoln College Latin 89: a Postscript’, RMARC, no.14 (1978), 139–40

For further bibliography see Old Hall Manuscript; Dunstaple, John.