Power (Powero, Polbero, etc.), Leonel (Lionel, Leonell, Leonelle, Leonellus, Lyonel
Power (Powero, Polbero, etc.), Leonel (Lionel, Leonell, Leonelle, Leonellus, Lyonel
Power (Powero, Polbero, etc.), Leonel (Lionel, Leoneil, Leonelle, Leonellus, Lyonel , etc.), important English composer; b. place and date unknown; d. Canterbury, June 5, 1445. He is first recorded as an instructor of the choristers and then as a clerk in the household chapel of Thomas, Duke of Clarence, brother of Henry V. On May 14, 1423, he was admitted to the fraternity of Christ Church, Canterbury, as a layman; also served as master of the choir for the non-monastic liturgical services there. He was a contemporary of Dunstable and one of the leading and most original representatives of the English style of the day; his style so approximated Dunstable’s that it is not always possible to determine the authorship of a number of works by the two. He also was author of the treatise Upon the Gamme (c. 1450; reprinted by S. Meech in Speculum, July 1935). Among his works are Mass cycles, Mass movements, and various other settings of sacred Latin texts. See the complete works as ed. by C. Hamm in Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, I (1969–76), and The Old Hall Manuscript as ed. by A. Hughes and M. Bent in the same series, XLVI (1969–72). See also the complete works of Dunstable as ed. by M. Bukofzer in Musica Britannica, Vili (1953; 2nd ed., rev., 1970).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire