DICTIONARY OF MUSIC - El Atril

658 LEACH LEADING NOTE
Edgcumbe thought him ' a very pleasing singer
with a sweet tenor voice.' During the Carnival
of 1794 he sang at Milan, with Grassini and
Marches!, in Zingarelli's ' Artaserse ' and the
' Demofoonte ' of Portogallo, and bore the comparison
inevitably made between him and those
great singers. He sang there again in 1795,
and once more in 1798, appearing on the latter
occasion in Cimarosa's 'Orazzi' and Zingarelli's
later. He published a ' New
Psalm Tunes, etc' (Preston, London, 1789) ;
and a ' Second Sett ' of the same, probably about
1794. His tunes are found in several of the
American collections, as the Easy Iiistriictor
(Albany, New York, 1798), and the Bridgewater
C'ullei:tion (Boston, 1802). The David Companion
or Methodist Standard, (Baltimore, 1810) contains
forty-eight of his pieces. For more details see a
letter signed G. A. C. in the Musical Times for
April 1878, p. 226. In the Rev. H. Parr's
be found
mil ' Church of England Psalmody '
Mount Pleasant, Oldham, and Smyrna, by him,
wliich used to be favourites in certain congregations.
His ' ' Psalmody was brought out in
1886, with a biographical sketch by Thomas
Newbigging. Leach died from a stage-coach
accident, near Manchester, Feb. 8, 1798, and
is buried at Rochdale. G.
LEAD, TO, in fugues or imitative music is
to go off first with a point or subject, which is
afterwards taken up by the other parts successively.
Thus in the Amen Chorus in the ' Messiah
' the bass 'leads,' the tenor taking up the
subject at the sixth bar, the alto at the tenth,
and so on. In the separate voice parts the
fact is often stated ('Tenors lead,' etc.), that
the singers may be on their guard, and the part
is then said ' to have the lead. G.
LEADER. The chief of the first violins is
the leader of the orchestra, the Conrertmeister
of the Germans, and Chefd'aUaque of the French.
He is close to the conductor's left hand. The
position is a most important one, as the animation
' and attack ' of the band depend in great
measure on the leader. The great precision and
force of the Gewandhans orchestra, for instance,
is said to have been mainly due to David being
for so long at the head of them. It is the
leader's duty to play any passages for solo violin
that may occur in works other than violin
concertos ; and in orcliestras that are not
organised institutions the leader often makes the
engagement with the individual members. G.
LEADING NOTE (Fr. Note sensible ; Germ.
Leitton). In modern music it is absolutely indispensable
for all harmonic progressions to have
an appreciable connection with a tonic or key-
' Meleagro, ' with Riccardi and Crescentini. In note, and various lines converge to indicate
1801 he was one of the Optra, Baffa troupe at that note with clearness ; among these an
Paris, where he was again heard to advantage important place is occupied by the Leading
by Lord Mount-Edgcumbe (1802), singing in
company with La Strinasaochi and Georgi Belloo.
Note, which is the note immediately below the
keynote, and separated from it by the smallest
But his voice had now lost much of its fresh- interval in the system, namely a semitone.
ness, though the great style remained. Lazzarini Helmholtz has pointed out that in actual relation-
published two volumes of Italian airs, and a ship to the tonic it is the most remote of all
Pastoral, both at Paris (Garli). His portrait the notes in the scale, since the supertonic,
was engraved there by Nitot Dufrene, an operatic which also appears to be very remote, at least
singer. j. m.
LEACH, James, born at Wardle, near Roch-
comes nearer in being the fiftli to the dominant,
while the leading note is only the third. For
dale, Lancashire, in 1762, wasatfirstahandloom this reason, and also from its not being capable
weaver. From 1789 he was a tenor singer and of standing as a root note to any essential
teacher in Rochdale, and at Salford a few years
Sett of Hymn and
diatonic chord in the key, it seems to have no
status of its own, but to exist mainly as preparatory
to the tonic note, for which, by reason
of its close pjroximity, it seems to prepare the
mind when it is heard ; and the melodic tendency
to lead up to the most important note in the
scale is the origin of its name.
In many scales, both of civilised and barbarous
peoples, it has found no place. In many of
the mediaeval ecclesiastical scales, as in the Greek
scales from which they were derived, the note
immediately below the tonic was se[tarated from
it by the interval of a whole tone, and therefore
had none of the character of a leading note ;
but as the feeling for tonality gained ground
in the Middle Ages hand in hand with the
appreciation of harmonic combinations, the use
of the leading note, which is so vital to its
comprehension, became more common. Ecclesiastics
looked upon this tampering with the
august scales of antiquity with disfavour, and
Pope John XXII. passed an edict against it in
1.322 ; consequently the accidental which indicated
it was omitted in the written music ; but
the feeling of musicians was in many cases too
strong to be suppressed, and the performers
habitually sang it, wherever the sense of the
context demanded it, nor do we learn that the
ecclesiastics interfered with the practice as long
as the musicians did not let the world see as
well as hear what they were doing. Notwithstanding
this common practice of performers,
the scales maintained their integrity in many
respects, and there resulted a curious ambiguity,
which is very characteristic of medifeval music,
in the frequent interchange of the notes, a tone
and a semitone below the tonic. Musicians
were long beguiled by the feeling that the true
scales should have the note below the tonic
removed from it by the interval of a tone, and