DICTIONARY OF MUSIC - El Atril

666 LEGGIERO LEHMANN
original edition will at once show the intended
effect ; for examjile
Chopin, 'Valse,' Op. 64, 'So. 2, Original Ed.
liS|li?pS^i^l
Ditto, Klindworth Edition.
Sir iisiSig
An example of legatissimo touch, in which the
notes are written of their full value, may be
found in No. 5, Bk. ii. of Cramer's Studies.
The opposite of legato is staccato—detached
[see Stacc.-ito], but there is an intermediate
touch between legato and staccato, in which
the notes, though not connected, are separated
hy a barely perceptible break. When this
effect is intended the passage is marked non
legato. An example occurs in the first movement
of Beethoven's Sonata in C minor, op.
Ill, in the passage immediately following the
first appearance of the short Adagio pln-ase.
[See PHEASI>fG.] F. T.
LEGGIERO (Ital. also i(;(7(7/eramcnfe), lightly.
The word is usually applied to a rapid passage,
and in pianoforte playing indicates an absence
of pressure, the keys being struck with only
sufficient force to produce the sound. Leggiero
passages are usually, tliough not invariably,
piano, and they may be either legato or staccato ;
if the former tlie fingers must move very freely
and strike the keys with a considerable amount
of percussion to ensure distinctness, but witli
the slightest possible amount offeree. Examples
of legato passages marked leggieraincnte are
found in the twenty -fifth variation of Beethoven's
op. 120, and in the finale of Mendelssohn's
Concerto in G minor (which also contains
the unusual combination oi forte with leggiero') ;
and of staccato single notes and chords in the
finale of Mendelssohn's Concerto in D minor.
On stringed instrunrents leggiero passages are
as a rule played by diminishing the pressure of
the bow upon the strings, but the word generally
refers rather to the character of the movement
than to any particular manner of bowing. The
Scherzo of Beethoven's Quartet in EK, op. 74,
is marked leggiermente, although it begins forte,
and tlie same indication is given for the second
variation of the Andante in the Kreutzer Sonata,
which is piano throughout. F. T.
LEGRENZI, Giovanni, composer and conductor,
born about 1625 at Clusone near Bergamo
; in which town he learned music, and
received his first appointment, that of organist
to the church of St. Maria Maggiore. He next
became maestro di cappella of the church of the
Spirito Santo at Ferrara, where he still was
in 1664. When Krieger, capellmeister to the
Duke of Weissenfels, visited Venice in 1672,
he found Legi-enzi settled there as director of
the Conservatorio dei Mendicanti. In 1681 he
became vice-maestro, and in 1685 maestro di
cappella of St. Mark's, and exercised both
functions till his death, July 26, 1690. He
entirely reorganised the orchestra of St. Mark's,
augmenting it to thirty-four performers, tlius
disposed—eight violins, eleven violette, two
viole da braccia, two viole da gamba, one violone,
four theorbos, two cornets, one bassoon, and
three trombones. He composed industriously,
and left specimens of his skill in most depart
ments of music—
[church sonatas, 1654, 1655
1663, and 1677], motets [1655, 1660, 1670,
1692], masses, psalms [1657,1667], instrumental
music of various kinds, and seventeen operas,
of which the most remarkable are
' Achille in
Scire,' his first (1664) ;
' La Divisione del
Mondo' (1675); ' I due Cesari' (1683), mentioned
in the Paris Mercure Galant (March
1683); and ' Pertinace ' (1684), his last.
[The number in tlie Quellcn- Lexikon is 14.]
They were nearly all produced in Venice. Like
Scarlatti, and other composers of his time, he
did not attempt to banish tlie comic element
from his serious operas. One of his orchestral
compositions is in seven real parts, and all are
important. His best pupils were Lotti and
Gasparini.
Legrenzi's name will be handed down to
posterity by Bach and Handel, both of w^honi
have treated subjects from his works, the
former in an organ fugue in C minor on a
' Thema Legrenzianum elaboratum cum subjecto
pedaliter '
' (B. -G. xxxviii. p. 94); and the
latter in the phrase ' To thy dark servant light
and life afford, ' in the Chorus ' first-created
beam ' from ' Samson. ' This is
motet of Legrenzi's—
' Intret in
taken from a
conspeotu, ' of
w^hich a copy in Handel's handwTiting is to be
found among the MSS. at Buckingham Palace
(Chrysander, Handel, i. 179).
LE HEURTEUR, Guillaume, a
F. G.
French
composer in the earlier part of the 16th century,
was a canon in the Church of St. Martin at
Tours. His works appeared chiefly in Attaingnant's
collections from 1530 to 1543, among
them four masses, which Ambros ranks with
those of Sermisy, a few magnificats and motets,
and a number of chansons. Two of the chansons
are given in Eitner's Selection of Chansons,
1899, Kos, 28, 29. Fctis mentions some independent
worlvs of Le Heurteur, which, how-
ever, Eitner has not been able to verify. (See
Qnellen- Lexikon.^
LEHMANN, Elizabetta
j. k. m.
Nina Mart
Frederika, known as Liza Lehmann, born
July 11, 1862, in London ; daughter of the late
Rudolf Lehmann, the painter, by his wife Amelia,
daughter of Robert Chambers of Edinburgh, the
author and publisher. She was first taught singing
by her mother, a highly cultivated amateur,
' This ia tile fURUe about the autograpli of which Mendelesohn
writes. June 18, 1839.