Byzantine chant
Byzantine chant
Music of the liturgical rite of the Christian Roman Empire of
the East from the time of the establishment of Constantinople (at
the site of ancient Byzantium) in the early 4th century and
persisting beyond the interruption of the Eastern imperial
succession by the Ottoman conquest in 1453. The rite is still
practiced by tens of millions of Eastern Orthodox Christians whose
native language, or liturgical language, is Greek. Through
translation into Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Church
Slavonic and other languages, it has remained the dominant liturgy
of the Christian East during the past 1500 years. Its influence at
various times has spread as far west as Spain (in the 6th century),
and to north-east and south Italy (where isolated pockets still
exist). It has prevailed in north-east Africa (Patriarchate of
Alexandria), throughout Greece and Palestine (Patriarchate of
Jerusalem), through most of the Christian Near East (Patriarchate
of Antioch), all Russia, other Slavonic nations and Romania. The
main focus of the following discussion is the music of the Greek
rite before the fall of Constantinople. The Byzantine chant
continued, however, to flourish after this event, specifically in
monasteries throughout the former empire and at the patriarchal see
of Constantinople. Almost all the medieval chant repertory survives
in manuscript sources with musical notation, and in this respect
Byzantine chant is wholly comparable to the repertories of the
Roman and Ambrosian (Milanese) Churches in the West.
1. Manuscript sources and their notation.2. Ekphonetic
(lectionary) notation.3. Melodic notation.4. Liturgical
recitatives.5. System of eight modes (oktchos).6. Syllabic psalm
tones.7. Formulaic chants.8. Florid psalmody: prokeimena,
alllouaria and koinnika.9. Byzantine hymns.10. Syllabic hymn
settings.11. Florid hymn settings in classical styles: kontakion
and hypako.12. Post-classical florid styles: the kalophonic style
and the emergence of personal styles.13. The Ordinary of the Divine
Liturgy and Office.14. Paraliturgical and instrumental music.15.
Byzantium and the Slavs.16. Byzantium and the West.17. Byzantine
music theory.BIBLIOGRAPHY
KENNETH LEVY/CHRISTIAN TROELSGRD
1. Manuscript sources and their notation.Byzantine music
manuscripts, whether from Alexandria or Jerusalem, Greece or Asia
Minor, Mount Athos or southern Italy, Thessaloniki or
Constantinople, in general show the same kind of unity of melodic
tradition found among the widely diffused manuscripts of the
Gregorian chant in Western Europe. In earlier times the controlling
liturgical and musical centers seem to have been first Antioch and
then Palestine (during the 6th and 7th centuries); in the 9th
century at the latest, control of the melodic traditions shifted to
the Constantinople region and eventually to Mount Athos and
Thessaloniki, the importance of other centers being markedly
reduced.Of some 12,000 to 15,000 surviving Byzantine manuscripts
dating from before the fall of the empire, an estimated 10% contain
melodic notation (see 3 below), used for the chanting of psalmody
and hymns. In addition there are hundreds of manuscript
lectionaries of the Old and New Testaments, noted throughout with
the auxiliary musical signs of ekphonetic or lectionary notation
(see 2), indicating the musical tones for chanting the solemn
readings of scripture. The earliest surviving sources with
ekphonetic; date from the 9th century, while melodic notation is
documented with certainty from about the mid-10th. There are good
reasons, however, to assume that both systems developed earlier.
Several of the names and shapes of the neumes are common to both
notations (the terminology is known from a number of medieval lists
and exercises), but as their application in both systems is, with
one or two possible exceptions, essentially distinct, a direct
dependence of one on the other seems unlikely. The common features,
therefore, must derive from a secondary influence. Likewise, no
single origin of the various Byzantine notations has yet come to
light; their creation and development probably resulted from
practical needs or other influences, of which the most significant
appear to be the systems of accentuation and punctuation and the
letter classification of ancient Greek grammar.While ekphonetic
notation cannot be interpreted precisely, the melodic notation in
use from about the mid-12th century is fully diastematic, making
transcriptions of the chants possible. Aspects of the melodic
tradition can be traced from the mid-12th century back to the
earliest surviving manuscripts with notation (and in some cases
even beyond) owing to the musical-syntactical punctuation and the
modal assignments found in early books containing liturgical texts.
Important parts of the repertory, however, were not notated until
the 14th and 15th centuries or, in a few cases, even later.
Nevertheless, inferences can be drawn about earlier centuries
partly because of the stability of the later tradition. Thus
virtually the full music of the Byzantine Divine Liturgy
(corresponding to the Western Mass) and Office during the last
centuries of the empire can be reconstructed.
2. Ekphonetic (lectionary) notation.Ekphonetic (from Gk.
ekphnsis: reading aloud) notation served as a mnemonic aid in the
solemn reading of the Prophets, other passages from the Old
Testament, and the Epistle and Gospel texts. In this notation,
every phrase (comma) of the text bears two notational signs, one at
the beginning and one at the end (see Ekphonetic notation, 3).
There are about 20 conventional pairings, each conveying
information about the pitch and formula to be used (see ex.1).
Hegs study of ekphonetic notation (D.i 1935) remains
authoritative and has been supplemented by Engberg (D.i 1987, 1992)
and others. A critical edition of the Constantinopolitan Old
Testament Lectionary (the Prophetologion) with notation has also
been published (Heg, Zuntz and Engberg, D.i 193981).
3. Melodic notation.This was employed from the 10th century for
a wide variety of properly melodic chants. Five principal
manuscript collections contain the majority of these melodies: the
Heirmologion, consisting of hymns (heirmoi) used in the performance
of the biblical canticles; the Stichrarion, a rough equivalent to
the Western antiphoner and processional; the asmatikon, a
Constantinopolitan choirbook containing florid chants of the Proper
and semi-Ordinary; the psaltikon, a Constantinopolitan soloists
book containing florid psalm and hymn settings, complementary to
the asmatikon; the Akolouthiai manuscripts (orders of service), a
group of anthologies originating in about 1300 and containing
traditional and contemporary settings of the Ordinary chants as
well as elements drawn from the earlier repertories, principally
the psaltikon and the asmatikon.Melodic notation may be divided
into three main types: Palaeo-Byzantine, 10th12th centuries; Middle
Byzantine (Round notation), from the mid-12th century to about
1815; and the New Method (Reformed or Chrysanthine notation), from
the 1820s.
(i) Palaeo-Byzantine notation.(ii) Middle Byzantine
notation.(iii) The New Method (Reformed or Chrysanthine
notation).
(i) Palaeo-Byzantine notation.In the earliest manuscripts
containing examples of this stage of notation there are
comparatively few signs and not every syllable of text is furnished
with notation. It is noteworthy that some of the early chant books
were originally text books to which notation was later added
between the lines. In many cases the notation has been updated once
or twice to a more developed stage or has even been converted into
another type entirely. In the mid-11th century, signs began to
appear above every syllable of text (Strunk, C1966; Floros, D.ii
1970), indicating the melodic features and style of performance
though not the exact pitch. Precise transcription of
Palaeo-Byzantine notation is impossible in isolation; approximate
transcription of the melodies can be achieved only through careful
and critical comparison with their diastematic counterparts in
Middle Byzantine notation.Three types of Palaeo-Byzantine notation
can be distinguished: Theta, Chartres and Coislin. All were used,
with very few exceptions, to notate the syllabic chants of the
heirmologion and the stichrarion. Chartres and Coislin notation are
named after the manuscript collections in France where they were
first observed and studied. Certain basic signs appear in both
these branches, suggesting a common parent notation closest to
archaic Coislin notation (Strunk, C1966). Notational systems with a
mixture of signs from these two traditions are not uncommon. A
unique notation with many big signs (megala smadia) was discovered
in 1965 in a 14th-century manuscript in the cathedral library of
Kastoria, Greece (MS 8; Polits, C1967) and probably represents a
trace of the otherwise lost Byzantine ancestor of the Slavonic
kondakarion notation (see Russian and Slavonic church music).
(a) Theta notation.This is a rudimentary type characterized by
the use of a single sign (or very few signs), often like the Greek
letter theta (probably an abbreviation for thema, in the sense of
figure or formula) or like an acute accent (oxeia) or double acute
accent, over single syllables of the chant text (Raasted, D.ii
1962). Comparison with later, more developed notational types shows
that the theta positions correspond to short melismatic formulae.
Theta notation indicated only the position of a melisma in an
otherwise predominantly syllabic style; the whole melody, including
the melisma itself, had to be supplied from memory or improvised in
the conventional style of the stichrarion or heirmologion
repertories. Possibly the earliest document with traces of Theta
notation is a palimpsest heirmologion (US-PRu Garrett 24; see
ex.2a), whose script can be dated to about 800 (Raasted, D.ii
1992).
(b) Chartres notation.Occurring in relatively few sources, the
earliest of which originated in Constantinople and Mount Athos,
this notation is characterized by the use of many complex signs,
apparently indicating groups of notes or whole melismas (fig.1). It
appears to have become obsolete during the mid-11th century,
probably as a result of the reform of the stichrarion repertory,
after which Coislin notation in its developed form became the
standard Byzantine notation (Strunk, C1966). However, some of the
earliest developments towards diastematy may be seen in Chartres
notation, and in about 1300 a number of its complex neumes
reappeared in Middle Byzantine notation as red or big signs.
(c) Coislin notation.This notation probably originated in
Palestine, judging from the provenance of the earliest manuscripts
in which it appears (Strunk, C1966). Its prevailing feature is the
designation of each melodic step by a separate basic sign and the
use of a relatively limited number of group signs. In its more
developed stages, these signs are often combined in groups. In
time, Coislin notation became refined and more precise in meaning.
By at least 1106, as attested by RUS-SPsc gr.789, it had reached
its most advanced stage and formed the basis for the transition to
Middle Byzantine notation. The two earliest datable manuscripts
transmitting Middle Byantine notation date from, respectively, 1177
(ET-MSsc gr.1218) and 116879 (GR-Psj 221).
(ii) Middle Byzantine notation.The principles of Middle
Byzantine (Round) notation prevailed from the mid-11th century to
about 1815. Whereas Western staff notation, which developed from
the heighted neumes of Gregorian chant, can be described as a
heighted or graphic notation, relative pitch being represented by
relative height on the staff, Middle Byzantine notation can be
described as essentially a digital notation: its conventional signs
designate the number of steps up or down between each note and the
note succeeding it. The notation does not indicate explicitly the
size of the intervals; the singers would have understood these from
the mode (see chos), the genre, and knowledge of the particular
formulae indicated. During the Middle Ages the tonal system was
basically diatonic, although some passages even perhaps whole
melodies might have been performed chromatically, particularly in
the second mode (authentic and plagal).The starting note is
indicated by a special sign, the martyria (modal signature), which
defines the mode itself and gives the final note of the intonation
formula (occasionally written out in full; Raasted, D.ii 1966). The
first neume above the first syllable of the text of a hymn thus
shows the first note to be sung in relation to the end of the
intonation. The most frequently encountered forms of the martyria
and the final notes of their intonations for each mode are given in
Table 1. The signs consist of stylized forms of the first four
letters of the Greek alphabet used as numerals, and of the neumes
that indicate characteristic melodic movements of the particular
mode.
Because the neumatic notation did not represent pitch precisely,
it was not uncommon for Byzantine scribes to insert medial or
reference signatures at cadence points in a melody; these generally
served to confirm the pitch reached at such a point. However, a
medial signature was occasionally used to mark an unexpected
feature, for example, the pitch E at a point where the melody
apparently stands on D, or F where it ostensibly stands on G. This
is generally taken to mean a temporary transposition of the normal
diatonic system. Thus the D signature on the pitch E would cause
the tetrachord EFGA (the D tetrachord transposed up a tone) to be
used in the following passage in place of EFGA; similarly, an F
signature on pitch G would cause an F to be used below the G (EF
transposed up a tone) in place of F.The first lists of Middle
Byzantine neumes did not appear until relatively late; the earliest
known is in F-Pn gr.261, dating from 1289. On the basis of these
lists the signs may be divided into three groups: the smata
(bodies) indicating conjunct movement only (Table 2a); the pneumata
(spirits) indicating leaps only (Table 2b); and signs that are
neither smata nor pneumata (Table 2d), of which the majority are
concerned with rhythmic features or tempo, whereas only a few are
used for melodic movement. Of the last the most important is the
ison, which indicates the repetition of a note at the same pitch as
the preceding one.
The smata express the movement of an ascending or descending
2nd. For the latter there is one basic sign, the apostrophos, but
there are no fewer than six signs for the upward movement, each of
which conveys a special quality of enunciation and/or stress, the
interpretation of which is partly conjectural (Table 2a). The
kouphisma and pelaston occur less frequently than the other signs
and are linked to special positions and genres.The pneumata
indicate only two intervallic steps, the 3rd and 5th, each having
two forms, one for the upward movement, the other for the downward
direction (Table 2b). In Middle Byzantine notation no pneuma could
stand alone; for example, it could be preceded on its left-hand
side by a sma, which would reinforce the direction of the pneuma
and also impart its quality to it. Thus the melodic movement of an
ascending 3rd could be notated in two different ways, as in Table
2c: oligon and kentma (neutral), and oxeia and kentma (accented).
The duo apostrophoi is an exception, for in this case the placing
of signs side by side signifies a rhythmic lengthening; its melodic
function is simply that of a descending 2nd.Other steps such as the
4th or 6th could be obtained by the addition of two smaller
intervals, indicated by special placing of the pneumata above the
smata (see Table 2c): elaphron above apostrophos (descending 4th);
kentma above oxeia (accented ascending 4th).The placing of the ison
(neither a sma nor a pneuma: Table 2d) above any of the smata
cancels the melodic movement upwards; the note is therefore sounded
at the same pitch as the preceding one but with the added quality.
For example, when the ison appears above the petast it cancels
upward movement but acquires stress (Table 2c). Similarly, the
placing of the apostrophos above any of the ascending smata
indicates a downward 2nd with the appropriate quality.
Occasionally, two smata may be placed one above another; for
example, oligon above petast implies the addition of two ascending
2nds resulting in an ascending 3rd with acquired stress (Table 2c).
For an example of Middle Byzantine notation, with a transcription
of various signs, see ex.3 (the transcription code used is that of
MMB, Transcripta, 193659).
In addition to the signs for intervals, there are neumes that
indicate lengthening of rhythmic values (Table 2d): dipl,
interpreted as double length; kratma, a considerable lengthening,
involving some sort of special stress or grace notes; tzakisma,
also called klasma, a moderate lengthening; apoderma occurs
frequently at the ends of phrases, but its meaning is not
clear.Special signs indicate variations in tempo, for example, the
gorgon for speeding up and the argon for slowing down (Table 2d);
whether the individual signs are attached to a single neume or to a
group of neumes (as seems to have been the case in later
centuries), their precise effect is uncertain.In addition to
rhythmical signs, other megala smadia (also called megalai
hypostaseis: big signs or group signs) appear in the melismatic
repertories from the beginning of the period in which Middle
Byzantine notation flourished; in the stichrarion and other
collections the frequent use of these signs occurred later.
Although the megala smadia are often linked to specific
constellations of interval neumes, their exact significance is not
entirely clear. It is thought that they generally indicate agogic
refinements, in some cases reinforcing the melodic contour
expressed by the individual neumes themselves; it is also possible
that they helped singers obtain a quick synoptic view of the
formulae applied; additionally, they may have been connected with
Cheironomy (gestures performed by the choirmasters; see Moran, D.ii
1986). (For a fuller listing of Middle Byzantine neumes see Haas,
D.ii 1973; for a manuscript illustration see fig.2.)The term Late
Byzantine refers to the notation in use between the 15th and 19th
centuries and distinguishes those musical manuscripts copied mainly
after the fall of Constantinople into Turkish hands (29 May 1453)
from those written in preceding centuries. Although megala smadia
were used more profusely in these later centuries, giving a visual
impression of a somewhat different notational practice, all the
basic neumes of Middle Byzantine notation remained in use
throughout the period.From the 16th century onwards there is
evidence to suggest that musicians edited or transcribed parts of
the traditional repertory. These transcriptions or exegeses (Gk.
exgseis) have created the impression that no Byzantine notation
before the 17th century represented melodic movement in all
details, but rather that it served as a shorthand record of a
performance. On the basis of this assumption some Greek scholars
have claimed that Western musicologists (particularly those
associated with the series Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae) merely
follow the metrophnia (signs of duration and melodic steps) but
ignore the real melos, which may be uncovered by interpreting the
megala smadia while making allowance for oral tradition (see
Staths, D.ii 1978).As an argument against the shorthand
interpretation of medieval Byzantine music, the specific nature of
the neumatic notation itself and the adequacy of signs to express
all kinds of melodic movement may be considered. No musical
notation can record with absolute exactness the finer nuances of a
composition and its interpretation, but 17th- and 18th-century
exegesis appears to be concerned with a peculiar stylistic
development that has more to do with a change in musical taste than
with notational usage.Non-tempered musical intervals of various
sizes (e.g. the oriental augmented 2nd) are known to have existed
in 19th-century practice and are used in the current oral
traditional of the Greek Orthodox Church; it is clear that during
the period of Turkish domination some degree of interaction
occurred between Byzantine and oriental music traditions (Zannos,
F1994), but this does not exclude the possibility that such
intervals may have been known in Byzantium before the 15th
century.Transcriptions of chants written in Middle Byzantine
notation depend, as in all reconstructions of early music, partly
on the notation itself and partly on a series of assumptions
regarding its interpretation. The extant musical manuscripts
indicate the intervallic steps between successive notes of a chant,
but such elements as rhythm, dynamic nuance, non-tempered intervals
and tempo cannot be determined exactly. When transcribing chants in
medieval Byzantine notation for performance, it is necessary,
therefore, to consider the living chant traditions of churches
following the Byzantine rite and to compare them with other
medieval chant traditions.
(iii) The New Method (Reformed or Chrysanthine notation).The
181415 reform of neumatic notation is associated with Chrysanthos
of Madytos, Chourmouzios the Archivist and Gregorios the
Protopsaltes, collectively known as the three teachers (Morgan,
R1971). This reform involved a significant reduction in the number
of signs, especially the phrasing signs (megala smadia). New,
special signs were introduced for chromatically altered intervals,
duration and rests; and solmization syllables, based on the first
few letters of the Greek alphabet, were used to define scales, for
example pa, vou, ga, di, ke, z and n, for the diatonic scale from d
to d'. Most important was a theory recognizing the presence of more
than one type of mode, based on the ancient division into diatonic,
chromatic and enharmonic modes. At the same time, the graphic forms
of the intonation signs in 18th-century manuscripts were codified.
The basic neumes that were retained remained similar to the Middle
Byzantine notational forms (fig.3). A vast project of transcribing
the Byzantine repertories as practised in the 18th and 19th
centuries, including ornamented versions of the late medieval
repertory, was undertaken as part of the reform (e.g. the
monumental series of autograph manuscripts by Chourmouzios the
Archivist in GR-An). The New Method spread rapidly, owing to the
systematic pedagogical activities of the Patriarchal School at
Constantinople from 1815 onwards and the introduction of music
printing in 1820. While some aspects of Chrysanthine theory were
subjected to another reform in the 1880s (particularly with regard
to the sizes of intervals), the New Method is still used in the
official chant books of the Greek Orthodox Church and in other
churches following the Byzantine rite (see Greece, IIIII).
4. Liturgical recitatives.From a study of the history of
liturgical chant, it may be seen that, in general, the best-known,
the simplest, the most venerable chants are the last to be taken
out of oral tradition and committed to musical notation. For some
of the commonest Byzantine chants there is written witness only
from the end of the empire or later. Thus for the amen or allloua
that accompany the Trisagion and Cheroubikon, the simple
authoritative versions are late. Only one medieval melody survives
for the deacons exclamation sophia (wisdom), intoned during every
celebration of the Divine Liturgy, and this tradition is from an
isolated town in south Italy. Acclamations of emperors were copied
time and again from the early 14th century, but the more commonly
heard acclamation of the celebrant bishop appears only in a few
Byzantine manuscripts. There is no written music at all for the
litanies, and for some of the most celebrated Ordinary chants, for
example, the Phs hilaron (O gladsome light) of Hesperinos, no noted
version survives from before the 17th century. The simple Ordinary
chants are difficult to recapture, partly because they were
congregational, and therefore too well known to be copied with
notation, and partly because their origins often lay in modal
recitatives or exclamations which lacked characteristic melodic
profiles and thus made no call on notation.
5. System of eight modes (oktchos).The chants discussed hitherto
are mainly in recitative styles; in their simplicity they stand
essentially outside the Byzantine canon of characteristic musical
modes. Chants that were complex enough to be composed properly in
Byzantium were systematically assigned to one or other of eight
musical modes (choi) which, since at least the 8th century,
provided the organizational framework for Byzantine melodic
practice. The origins of the Oktchos may be found in ancient music
theory and various Near Eastern musical practices. The system was
attached to the corpus of Byzantine chant and was closely connected
with a liturgical cycle of eight weeks, each ascribed to one mode.
The oktchos is traditionally attributed to John Damascene, whose
theological and hymnographic writings date from the first half of
the 8th century at the monastery of St Sabas in Jerusalem. It is
likely that the attempts to regulate chant practice and/or the
dissemination of new chant repertories originated in the area of
Palestine at about this time; these attempts were connected with
early redactions of chant collections such as the heirmologion and
the oktchos (parakltik, tropologion), both of which were conceived
according to the eight-mode system.During the latter part of the
8th century the Byzantine organization in turn left its imprint on
the organization of chants in the West. The eight Byzantine modes
(choi) are, in external order and substance, related to the eight
Western modes: both systems have the four finals on D, E, F and G,
with an authentic (higher-range) form and a plagal (lower-range)
form based on each final. Only the use of co-finals and the
ordering of the modes differ somewhat in detail: in the Western
system, authentic and plagal forms comprising modes 1 to 8
alternate (D authentic, D plagal, E authentic, E plagal etc.)
whereas the Eastern numbering takes the four authentic modes in
order and then the four plagal modes. More important, the
relationship between Eastern and Western modes reaches beyond the
systematic externals of organization to characteristic operating
features of particular modes and specific details of melodic
fabric. Idiomatic turns of corresponding modes may resemble each
other on both sides of the liturgical and linguistic division.
6. Syllabic psalm tones.Each Byzantine mode, like each Western
mode, has one or more varieties of simple psalm tone attached to
it. One common set is shown in ex.4, as first written out in late
13th- and early 14th-century sources; through a remarkable chain of
evidence developed by Strunk (G1960), its lineage has been traced
to the late 8th century. As in the West, there are intonations,
recitation tones and cadences. One characteristic of this psalmody
may place it closer to the origins of psalmody than most Gregorian
examples; this is the use of the four-element syllable-count
cadence, where the last four syllables of a line are applied
mechanically and without regard for word accent to four fixed,
stylized musical elements constituting the cadence. The Gregorian
procedure favours a variety of tonic cadences that make
accommodations for differences in text accent. The simpler, more
rigid Byzantine procedure of the four-element cadence is, as Strunk
suggested, probably the more archaic. (For further discussion of
Byzantine psalmody, including a more detailed example of syllabic
psalm tones, see Psalm, III, 2 and ex.1.)
7. Formulaic chants.The process of assembling a chant as a
selective patchwork (cento) of modally appropriate formulae often
termed centonization is a characteristic of many orally composed
and transmitted repertories. In Gregorian chant it is a common
feature of the structure of the tracts and the F-authentic graduals
(among others), and its use is even more rigorous and widespread
among composed Byzantine chants. Byzantium was also more explicit
in its recognition in music theory of formulaic composition. The
earliest Byzantine music treatise is a 10th-century catalogue
containing elements of music theory, notational signs and names for
melismatic groups or formulae. In about 1300 Joannes Glykys and
Joannes Koukouzeles undertook the elaborate task of weaving
together the music for a great many of these formulae into
continuous didactic chants. Such chants, which found their way into
elementary instruction manuals in Byzantine chant, present a broad
selection of single neumes, groups and formulae from different
genres. Some formulae from To mega ison by Koukouzeles are
illustrated in ex.5.
The basic operations of Byzantine formulaic composition are
familiar from their manifestations in the West. Melodic patterns
and formulae may represent a single mode or several modes, though
rarely all the modes. The relation of formulae to specific pitches
in the tonal system seems often more decisive than allegiance to a
particular mode or modes. Formulae and patterns also tend to
function in specific positions initial (phrase-starters), middle or
cadential within the natural contour of musical phrases, and they
often underline the syntactic structure of texts. The accentuation
of the text also seems to have a strong influence on the choice of
formula, especially in the syllabic genres; thus a specific number
of unaccented syllables before the first accent often results in
the same melodic opening in several pieces of the same mode. The
formulae are also made to serve larger formal designs: they may
embellish a psalmodic framework or combine into some abstract
compositional figuration with symmetries of its own; they may be
attached to a specific category of liturgical chant, or to a
specific performing medium, helping to define a particular style by
their rejection of other categories. The characteristic florid
choral style of the asmatikon and the florid soloists style of the
psaltikon have few formulae in common. The choral, syllabic hymn
repertories of the heirmologion and stichrarion, however, share a
good deal of stock material, some of which is common also to the
psaltikon and the asmatikon.
8. Florid psalmody: prokeimena, alllouaria and koinnika.As in
the West the Psalter has elaborate settings that take the shape of
formulaic embellishments on a psalmodic framework. Corresponding in
function to the Roman graduals (Mass responsories) and Ambrosian
psalmelli are the Byzantine prokeimena (see Prokeimenon), which are
delivered by a soloist before the Epistle at the Divine Liturgy
(some are also used at Hesperinos and Orthros). The prokeimena are
contained in the Constantinopolitan psaltikon; the refrains are
given in a different version in the complementary choirbook, the
asmatikon; and some parallel settings in syllabic, psalmodic style
are found in the akolouthiai manuscripts. Ex.6 shows the refrain of
the Easter prokeimenon in the psaltikon style. Like its Gregorian
and Ambrosian counterparts, this chant is a setting of Psalm
cxvii.24; it is in the plagal mode on G and perhaps has some
melodic substance in common with the parallel Ambrosian chant.
The Byzantine allloua refrain and florid psalm verse
(alllouarion) precede the Gospel Lesson, as in the West (see
Alleluia, II). An old cycle of some five dozen Proper alllouaria
survives in the psaltikon. A peculiar feature of this cycle is the
complete avoidance of the authentic and plagal modes on F. This is
also the case with the Ambrosian alleluia verses; in the Gregorian
repertory the number of alleluias in F modes is smaller in
comparison with those in the other six modes. Ex.7 gives the
allloua refrain and first verse, Anastt ho Theos (Let God arise,
Psalm lxvii.1), for the Holy Saturday Divine Liturgy, in the
version of the 13th-century south Italian psaltikon; this reading
is somewhat more florid than the related version of the standard
psaltikon considered by Thodberg (I1966). The chant is in the
authentic mode on G.
The cycle of Byzantine Proper communions (koinnika) was assigned
to the select choirs (psaltai) of Hagia Sophia and is transmitted
in the asmatikon (see Koinnikon). A representative example is given
in ex.8: the koinnikon for Pentecost, To pneuma sou, to agathon
(Thy good spirit, Psalm cxlii.10), a chant in the plagal mode on G.
Not only is this melody also found in 12th-century Slavonic
sources, but it probably existed in the Greek tradition of the 11th
century or perhaps even the 10th.
9. Byzantine hymns.Unlike the Western Church, where hymns have
had a relatively restricted role (they are practically excluded
from Mass, and at Rome they were accepted for the Office only in
the 11th century), in the Eastern Church the growth of hymnody far
exceeded that of the psalmodic chants. Over 60,000 incipits of
Byzantine hymns are recorded in Follieris six-volume Initia
hymnorum ecclesiae graecae (J196066), which draws only on hymns in
published sources. Other thousands lie unpublished in medieval
manuscripts, and other tens of thousands must have disappeared as a
result of the violent theological-political controversies that
accompanied spiritual movements such as Iconoclasm.Pitras
19th-century study Hymnographie de lglise grecque (J1867) did much
to illumine the poetic nature of Byzantine hymns, yet some details
of the poetic process are still in dispute. The vast majority of
hymns are strophic, and metrically the standard verse is governed
by accent and not (as in ancient Greek poetry) by quantity.
Line-symmetries are tailored, more or less flexibly, to the number
of syllables and the position of accents within a line. A kind of
formulaic poetic procedure the artistic accommodation of a select
vocabulary of poetic-theological units is as obvious a factor in
the formation of the literary style of some hymns as it is in their
musical setting.
10. Syllabic hymn settings.
(i) Troparion.Most Eastern hymns have simple music, generally
based on the principle of one note to each syllable of text, to
render them suitable for congregational singing. A miscellaneous
class of early monostrophic hymns also known as troparia (see
Troparion) goes back in some instances to the 4th century. For
these, no early written music survives since the tunes were
familiar to everyone. The Ordinary hymn at Hesperinos, Phs hilaron,
had (as already observed) no written music before the 17th century.
For the Doxa en hypsistois The (Gloria in excelsis Deo), dating
from the 4th century or earlier and sung at the conclusion of
Orthros, there are only partial settings from the 13th century; and
the troparion melody sung at the beginning of every Divine Liturgy,
Ho monogens huios (O only-begotten Son), attributed to Emperor
Justinian I (d 565), was written down at a very late stage.
(ii) Kontakion.The first major form of Byzantine hymn writing
was the Kontakion, a kind of long metrical sermon that was
cultivated in the 5th century or early 6th, drawing on the Syriac
tradition of church poetry. Kontakia are poetic-narrative
elaborations on biblical texts, often of 20 or 30 long stanzas or
more. The metrically similar stanzas, called oikoi (from Gk. oikos:
house), have a short concluding refrain (ephymnion), and they are
normally linked by their opening letters into an acrostic that
incorporates the name of the poet-composer (meldos), or the
liturgical occasion of the poem, or the letters of the alphabet.
The whole set of oikoi is prefaced by an introductory strophe
called the koukoulion or prooimion, which is of differing structure
and metre; it shares the common refrain and the musical mode of the
oikoi but may be a later addition.The foremost composer of kontakia
was Romanos the Melodist, born in Syrian Emesa (Him) and active at
Constantinople during the first half of the 6th century. Some 85
works are attributed to Romanos, including kontakia for most major
feasts of the liturgical year. His rich poetic style touches
extremes of grandiloquence and pathos. Kontakia must have been
intended originally for a syllabic musical setting, whether
recitative or properly composed, because the hundreds of lines
comprising each of these metrical sermons would take too long to
perform in any other way.However, the earliest surviving melodies
(?9th century or 10th) were florid (see 11 below), consisting of
settings of the prooimion and the first oikos from the psaltikon
collection. A cycle of kontakia in syllabic style is preserved in a
small group of 13th- and 14th-century manuscripts, most notably
RUS-SPsc 674 (ex.9a). The main purpose of these syllabic kontakia
was to serve as model melodies for contrafact troparia; they are
similar in style to the rest of the model melodies of the troparia
as well as to the model melodies of the stichra automela (see
Stichron). It is possible that the occasional citations from
kontakia found in the syllabic stichra preserve characteristics of
earlier syllabic kontakia (Levy, K.ii 1961). It would seem,
therefore, that the syllabic and florid traditions co-existed for a
considerable period. Although the earliest tradition of the
kontakion was undoubtedly syllabic, it is difficult to identify
with any certainty the archaic elements in the surviving examples
written in syllabic style: during centuries of oral transmission
the melodies were probably modified and reshaped; certainly, in the
few extant sources, they display considerable variation.
(iii) Kann.The second large-scale strophic form of Byzantine
hymnody is the Kann. Although kontakia of reduced length were still
being produced in the 9th century, it seems that from the later 7th
century the kann was favoured above the kontakion. The first master
of the new form was Andrew of Crete (c660-c740), whose Great Kann,
sung in mid-Lent, is of the exceptional length of 250 stanzas. A
kann is in substance an elaborate nine-section poetic trope on the
nine biblical canticles sung at Orthros, among whose verses it is
interspersed. (For a list of the biblical canticles see Canticle,
2; for the musical recitation of the canticles see Psalm, III.)Each
biblical canticle has corresponding to it an ode (d) of the
nine-ode kann; each ode consists normally of three or four
similarly structured strophes sung to the same music. The first
strophe of an ode is its heirmos or model-strophe; the succeeding
strophes are called troparia. The eight or nine odes of a complete
kann (ode 2 is often omitted) are united by references to the
general theme of the liturgical occasion, by the same musical mode
and, at times, by an acrostic; but in other respects they are
independent. Kann composition reached its peak in the 8th and 9th
centuries, first in Palestine with the works of John Damascene (d
c749) and Kosmas of Jerusalem (fl 1st half of the 8th century),
then in Constantinople with Abbot Theodore of Stoudios (d 826), his
brother Joseph, and the two Sicilians Methodius (d 846) and Joseph
the Hymnographer (d 883). Although kann texts continued to be
produced into the 13th century and beyond, after the 8th century or
the 9th new texts were simply adapted to the music of existing
heirmoi (model stanzas). For the heirmoi, the classical chants in
syllabic styles are collected in a book called the Heirmologion,
which may contain as many as 2000 model stanzas. Like a Western
tonary, the heirmologion is divided into one section per mode.
Within each mode there are two systems of internal organization: in
the first, the full series of eight heirmoi follow each other; in
the second, all odes with the same number are grouped together. One
of the earliest surviving heirmologia (US-PRu Garrett 24; 2nd half
of the 8th century to the early 9th) is a palimpsest manuscript
containing only works ascribed to the Palestine masters (Raasted,
D.ii 1992). The manuscript is outstanding not only because of its
age and its use of a primitive melodic notation but also because,
like the Slavonic and old Georgian heirmologia, it follows the
second system of organization. The oldest extant heirmologion with
full melodic notation dates from the 10th century.The simple
melodic style of the classical heirmos is illustrated in ex.10;
this is the first ode of a Resurrection (Sunday) kann in the
authentic mode on E, attributed to John the Monk (?St John
Damascene). The style is almost wholly syllabic. The use of
formulae plays a decisive role in the development of the musical
fabric. The hundreds of heirmos melodies in each mode are patched
together from a limited repertory of melodic patterns and formulae
characteristic of the mode. Extreme care was given to the
syntactical structure and to the proper accentuation of the
text.
(iv) Stichron.The other major collection of classical Byzantine
hymns whose full music survives is the Stichrarion. Unlike the few
dozen extant medieval heirmologia (the tunes were probably too
simple and familiar to warrant much copying), there are hundreds of
surviving stichraria which normally transmit a repertory of some
2000 longer hymns in a slightly more elaborate style than that of
the heirmologion. The stichrarion resembles in style and content a
collection of Latin antiphons. Much of its content dates from the
8th century, although some must go back as far as the 7th or
earlier (as Strunk has demonstrated for certain Easter hymns); on
the other hand, hymns such as the hethina, or Morning Hymns, by the
Emperor Leo VI (886912), are later, even as late as the 12th
century for saints recently entered in the Calendar. Most stichra,
as the individual hymns are called (see Stichron), serve as choral
interpolations among the concluding verses of the ordinary psalms
at Hesperinos and Orthros. The musical style and procedures are
like those of the heirmoi except that the stichra are more lavishly
punctuated with embellishing melismas, which in some cases may be
quite lengthy. The opening of an elaborate stichron for the
Veneration of the Cross (sung in the fourth week of Lent) is given
in ex.11.
11. Florid hymn settings in classical styles: kontakion and
hypako.Two related classes of Byzantine hymns are transmitted in
the classical, florid, formulaic styles of the asmatikon and
psaltikon rather than the syllabic formulaic style of the
heirmologion and stichrarion. The kontakia, in the music
manuscripts represented by the introductory strophe and first
oikos, had complete cycles of settings in both the soloists style
of the psaltikon and the choral style of the asmatikon (the latter
known mainly through derived 12th- and 13th-century Slavonic
copies). Only for the most celebrated of all kontakia, the
anonymous Akathistos Hymn, whose 24 strophes are still sung in full
on the Saturday before Passion Sunday, is there a complete florid
setting of all the strophes in psaltikon style; this hymn survives
in a south Italian tradition of the late 13th century (transcr. E.
Wellesz, MMB, Transcripta, ix, 1957).The shorter monostrophic hymns
called hypakoai (analogous to the Western responsories) also
received florid settings in both psaltikon and asmatikon styles.
The beginning of the kontakion-hypako for the Sunday of Orthodoxy
(the 1st Sunday in Lent), a text of the mid-9th century, is given
in ex.12 for both melodic traditions.
12. Post-classical florid styles: the kalophonic style and the
emergence of personal styles.The traditional syllabic stylizations
of the heirmologion and stichrarion may be traced back with
certainty to the 10th century; possibly they had already taken
their definitive shape by the 8th century or even some centuries
earlier. The classical florid stylizations of the psaltikon and
asmatikon probably existed during the 11th century (by which time
the Asmatic repertory was borrowed by the Slavs); and there are
indications that they were formed by the 9th century. With the 12th
century, however, the traditional formulaic styles had begun to
give way to new styles. There were new techniques of embellishment
that gave greater scope to the individual musicians taste. By the
later 13th century an enormous outpouring of such freer creative
effort had taken place, and a new, post-classical stylization had
emerged for handling the traditional melodies. Described by the
Byzantine term kalophonic (i.e. beautiful-sounding or embellished),
it is a style of extravagant embellishments, loosed from the
restraints of the formulaic procedures of the psaltikon and
asmatikon. Much freedom is given to vocal display: there are many
sequences, repeated articulations of a single pitch, and wide
leaps. The expansive, kalophonic versions of traditional chants are
recorded with great notational precision in new classes of
manuscript: the kalophonic stichrarion, kalophonic heirmologion,
kalophonic kontakarion (oikmatarion) and similar florid
collections. (See also Kalophonic chant.)Parallel with this was a
new attitude towards composition. Musical style was previously an
anonymous fusion of prose or poetry with the traditional formulae
of the musical vocabulary. Now, instead, the composer cultivated a
personal style and attached his own name to the composition. A
specific compositional technique was applied in the kalophonic
stichrarion. Taking a traditional piece in syllabic style as their
point of departure and frequently preserving the
syntactical-musical division and the scheme of internal
modulations, composers would repeat and/or embellish parts of
words, single words and even short phrases, rearrange the text
(anagrammatismos) and often add whole melismatic passages on
meaningless syllables (teretismata or kratmata) towards the end of
each section. The kalophonic stichra normally ended, however, with
a melodic or textual quotation from the syllabic original, at which
point the choir joined in (apo chorou). Many composers are known
from the last century and a half of the empire but few from before.
And these men were animated by an unprecedented sense of artistic
competition. The most celebrated composer of the period around 1300
was the Constantinopolitan mastr Joannes Koukouzeles, the organizer
of the big anthologies of the current musical repertory called
Akolouthiai (orders of service). These were the first Byzantine
collections to contain in a single volume almost all the Ordinary
music needed for the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and Office.
From the time before Koukouzeles there are works attributed to
Michael Aneotes (or Ananeotes), Kampanes and others (see below);
later the leading composers were Joannes Glykys and Nikephoros
Ethikos (both slightly older contemporaries of Koukouzeles); then
Xenos Korones (perhaps a younger contemporary); the late 14th
century had as its leading composer the lampadarios Joannes Kladas,
and the mid-15th century, Manuel Chrysaphes. Competitive kalophonic
elaborations of a single traditional chant are a common occurence.
Three versions of the stichron Meta to techthnai, a hymn in the
plagal mode on G for the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin in
the Temple (21 November), are given in ex.13: ex.13a shows the
first two lines in the classical syllabic style of the stichrarion;
ex.13b is an elaboration attributed to the early kalophonic master
Kampanes with further embellishments by Joannes Koukouzeles; ex.13c
is what is supposed to be the same embellished version by Kampanes,
but with more elaborate embellishments by Xenos Korones. All
classical repertories, both syllabic and florid, were subsequently
subjected to modernizations and individualizations of this nature.
The most exuberant examples of the kalophonic style are the long,
freely composed kratmata, which were commonly interpolated among
verses of the vesper psalms and elsewhere. Some of these last ten
minutes or more in performance.
13. The Ordinary of the Divine Liturgy and Office.The most
important applications of the kalophonic procedure, however, were
to the chants of the Ordinary. The Byzantine Ordinary includes
textual counterparts to the Western Gloria in excelsis (at Orthros)
and Sanctus. The Credo may have been sung at Byzantium in early
times but in the middle and late Byzantine periods it was not sung,
and the only independent melodies are from the mid-15th century and
later. There was no Agnus Dei at Byzantium, but the Eastern rite
has Ordinary or semi-Ordinary chants for some functions that in the
West are Proper chants. The Byzantine offertory chant, known as the
Cherubic Hymn or Cheroubikon, is Ordinary (with three alternatives
for special liturgical occasions during the year). There is an
Ordinary chant for the communion during Lent, based on Psalm
xxxiii.8. The Trisagion, which is used at Rome principally on Good
Friday, is Ordinary at Byzantium. Such chants never appear in
earlier Byzantine musical manuscripts since they were intended for
the congregation and their simple musical versions required no
notation. During the 13th century, the Ordinary chants began to
appear in manuscript, though not in their syllabic, congregational
forms but rather in florid kalophonic elaborations. At times these
offer glimpses of a simpler underlying chant. Thus for the
Cheroubikon, Hoi ta chroubim, there were some two dozen settings by
kalophonic composers, produced between the later 13th and mid-15th
centuries. Nearly all these use the same underlying materials of
the plagal E or related plagal G modes. The earliest surviving
tradition for this chant is given in ex.14, according to an
authoritative 13th-century manuscript.
14. Paraliturgical and instrumental music.Closely allied to the
liturgical ceremonial of the Church is the public ceremonial of the
Byzantine court. Practically no music survives from Byzantium that
is not directly connected with the church service. But rich details
concerning the genres of chant and the instruments used at
receptions and imperial processions are contained in the Book of
Ceremonies. In this book, transmitted under the name of the Emperor
Constantine VII Porphyrogennetus (90559), a large number of chants
and their modal assignments are cited, and likewise also in the De
officiis of Pseudo-Codinus, dating from the mid-14th century.
Various wind and string instruments are represented in artistic
monuments. Organs, which were excluded from church use, had an
important part in imperial ceremonies. The chronicler Theophanes
the Confessor (9th century) reported that the Emperor Constantine
VI and Empress Irene had such instruments in their baggage when
they visited the military frontier at Thrace in 784. It was the
importation of Byzantine organs to the West that helped revive
interest in the instrument, the most notable occasion being the
organ sent to the Frankish King Pippin in 757. There is a
16th-century description of the reading of lessons at Hagia Sophia
where bells were rung at the end of paragraphs. Each section of the
reading was repeated three times in succession by different readers
posted at different points in the church. The bellringing indicated
to the distant reader when the previous reader had finished. At
Patmos this was still the practice in recent times, although the
triple reading was no longer needed.To Western ears the most
striking Byzantine performing practice is the use of an ison or
drone to accompany liturgical singing. This is still heard in
Orthodox churches. Rubrics in music manuscripts provide the
earliest hints for the practice; this evidence can be traced back
to about 1400, although the practice probably existed throughout
the Middle Ages. It was described in 1584 by the German traveller
Martin Crusius: more utriculariorum nostrorum, alius vocem eodem
sono tenet, alius, Dra Dra, saltatorium in modum canit. There is no
independent Byzantine polyphony of the kind that developed in the
West.Liturgical musical drama at Byzantium is scarcely documented.
Only for the Akolouthia ts kaminou (the drama of the Three Children
in the Furnace) is music extant, dating from the 15th century (for
a full discussion, and details concerning the traditions in
Byzantium and Russia, see Velimirovi, O1962).Popular, orally
transmitted traditions for liturgical chants have been
insufficiently studied, although there is some documentation of
such traditions in Greek enclaves by the Black Sea (Azov Greeks),
in Crete, the Eptanese Islands and Corsica, and among the Albanian-
and Greek-speaking minorities following the Byzantine rite in south
Italy (Apulia, Calabria and Sicily).
15. Byzantium and the Slavs.Byzantine liturgical influence began
its decisive impact on the Slavs with the evangelizing mission of
SS Cyril and Methodius to the south Slavs in the mid-9th century.
It is possible that by this time the full complement of Byzantine
liturgical books had already been translated into Old Church
Slavonic; and there is also some possibility that the Byzantine
liturgical melodies were transmitted with the translated texts.
This was certainly the case by the 11th century and the heyday of
Kievan Rus'. The vast corpus of Byzantine liturgical texts were
translated, and there was wholesale appropriation of the liturgical
melodies, apparently without significant alteration except for
slight adaptations of the melodies to take into account the
different number of syllables and the Slavonic accentuation.
Through the early 13th century, the Slavic copies of the
heirmologion, stichrarion and asmatikon (no full Slavic copy of the
psaltikon survives) were essentially faithful to the melodic
traditions of their Greek originals (see Russian and slavonic
church music, fig.1) and it would appear from the evidence of the
extant Greek versions that Slavic liturgical conservatism even
conspired on occasion to preserve a more authoritative version of a
traditional melody. After the Mongol invasions during the mid-13th
century, however, the musical traditions grew apart.The oldest
layers of Slavic neumes are based on pre-diastematic stages of
Byzantine notations. They cast precious light on early melodies for
which Greek sources are lost or incomplete, but they themselves
cannot generally be transcribed without a counterpart Greek melody
as a guide. (Such counterpart transcriptions have been published by
Velimirovi, Strunk, Levy, Floros, Schidlovsky, Konstantinova
Ulff-Mller, Shkolnik and Shkolnik; see bibliography, P). The great
wealth of early Slavic musical manuscripts that exist in libraries
in Russia are yet to be examined in detail.The Byzantine-derived
chant repertories of the early south Slavic rites and the Kievan
rite were absorbed by stages into later branches of the Slavic
rites, those of the Bulgarians, Romanians, Serbs, Ukranians and
others. However, the synthesis between Byzantine and national
idioms in these musical traditions has not yet been fully
explored.
16. Byzantium and the West.The wholesale musical borrowings that
took place between Slavic and Byzantine chants did not occur
between Byzantium and the West. Yet there are two important
interrelationships between the Greek and Latin chant repertories.
The broad classification of Gregorian chants into eight modes (with
all that it entails the symmetrical system of four finals, the high
and low forms with each final, the canon of intonation formulae and
psalmodic differentiae etc.) owes its definitive shape to Byzantine
influence probably exercised most intensively during the latter
half of the 8th century. On the other hand, there are a number of
possible melodic borrowings (again from East to West) that can be
dated variously between the 6th and 9th centuries. Notker reported
(Gesta Karoli, ii.7) that Charlemagne himself during the first
years of the 9th century ordered the translation of the well-known
series of antiphons beginning with Veterem hominem, for the octave
of Epiphany. Carolingian musical liturgists also experimented with
a full missa graeca for Pentecost, elements of which made their way
into a Greek Mass in honour of St Denis. The Good Friday antiphon O
quando in cruce/Otin to stauron, found in both Latin and Greek
forms in the Beneventan rite and in Latin in the Ravenna rite, is
likely to have been borrowed from the Greek troparion Hote t staur
by the mid-8th century, for at that point the submission of Ravenna
to Lombard and eventual papal rule detached the former exarchate
from primary Byzantine influence. The Ambrosian rite contains a
number of melodic borrowings, among them the Maundy Thursday
ingressa or post-evangelium Coenae tuae mirabili (based on the
Byzantine Cheroubikon alternative Tou deipnou sou tou mystikou);
and the ingressa Videns ne Elisabeth, for the special Ambrosian
Marian Mass on the 6th Sunday in Advent, which is based on a
stichron idiomelon, Blepe tn Elisabeth, sung in high medieval times
at the feast of St John the Baptist. The Mozarabic rite also
includes chants in Greek, and possible traces of Byzantine chant
can be seen in early Spanish psalmody.Some traits common to both
Eastern and Western repertories are old enough to be traced
directly to the early Christian chant tradition. Thus the Gregorian
communion Omnes qui in Christo for Saturday in Easter week (based
on the baptismal troparion Hosoi eis Christon) and the Sanctus of
the Pentecostal missa graeca, while they probably represent
specific borrowings of the 6th and later 8th centuries
respectively, embody earlier melodic traditions. The modal and
structural concordances in some florid responsorial psalm settings
(prokeimena/gradual responsories and allelouaria/alleluia verses)
might also reflect an early interrelationship between East and
West.
17. Byzantine music theory.Byzantine music theory is less
abundant and less concerned with specific cases than its Western
counterpart. One conservative line simply continues late classical
speculation and is minimally focussed on contemporary practice. The
Quadrivium of Georgios Pachymeres (c1242c1310) and the Harmonics
transmitted under the name of Manuel Bryennius (?c1320) are both of
this nature. The earliest Byzantine theoretical documents are
simple catalogues of neumes and melodic formulae. The oldest, found
in the 10th-century manuscript GR-AOml .67, lists rudiments of the
tonal and modal systems together with names and signs for various
formulae of the so-called Chartres variety of early Byzantine
melodic notation (see 3(i) (b) above). Similar catalogues of the
11th and 12th centuries detail the elements of ekphonetic
(lectionary) notation; there are corresponding catalogues in the
Georgian language.A different type of theoretical document, again
relatively early, appears within the classical stichrarion itself;
this contains a handful of multimodal stichra that progress
systematically through some or all of the eight modes. (Examples of
such hymns, which illustrate the behaviour of the individual modes
and the nature of the tonal and notational systems, were published
by Strunk, R1942, and by Husmann, Modulation and Transposition,
R1970.)Perhaps the earliest discursive theoretical statement occurs
in an anonymous fragment, the Hagiopolits, which ostensibly details
the practice of the Holy City of Jerusalem (ed. Raasted, R1983).
The most important source is F-Pn gr.360 which probably dates from
the first half of the 14th century, and there are various later
derivatives of this treatise, including I-Rvat gr.872 (see Tardo,
R1938, pp.164ff). The Hagiopolits contains observations about the
Byzantine modes (including modes supplementary to the standard
eight) and intonation formulae. It also provides references to
different layers of Palaeo-Byzantine and Middle Byzantine notations
and quotes extensive passages from ancient theoretical works.The
main line of Byzantine theory is represented by the so-called
Papadik, a manual first compiled perhaps in the later 13th century
at Constantinople or within the orbit comprising also Mount Athos
and Thessaloniki. There are many elaborations of the basic
materials of this handbook. From the early 14th century, a version
of the papadik often prefaced manuscript copies of the Koukouzelian
Akolouthiai. The usual beginning of the treatise was Arch, mes,
telos (The begining, middle, end and system of all the signs of the
psaltists technique is the ison [the sign for tone-repetition]).
One of the simplest versions is that found in the 15th-century
manuscript I-Rvat Barber. gr.300 (ed. Tardo, R1938, pp.151ff),
which contains the names and signs of the rising and falling
intervals, the modulation signs (phthorai), the nomenclature of the
modes, the megala smadia (stenographic and dynamic indications),
the intonation formulae of the eight modes, a discussion of the
tonal system, and, finally, a recapitulatory dialogue. The papadik
presents an essentially different tradition of grouping Byzantine
neumes from that of the Hagiopolits; mixed forms and divergent
classifications are also found.Related to the traditions of the
papadikai are a number of mostly anonymous lists of signs and a few
didactic chants whose theoretical doctrine is set to continuous
music. The most influential of these is by Koukouzeles, beginning
Ison, oligon, oxeia, kai petasth. Based on earlier, partly
anonymous lists, especially that of Joannes Glykys, the melody
illustrates each of the neumes and formulae as they are mentioned
in the text (see ex.5; also ed. Alexandru, R1996; facs., after
I-Rvat gr.791, in Tardo, R1938, pp.17982). A number of other
didactic chants (methodoi), some of them anonymous, are also found
in the manuscripts; these concern intonations (mostly anonymous),
hand signs (cheironomiai, by Joannes Glykys and Xenos Korones),
solmization and modulation (anonymous), the eight modes, the
stichrarion style (ascribed to Korones), and the kalophonic style
(Korones and Koukouzeles).A number of treatises from the later
Middle Ages include full discussion of theoretical and stylistic
questions. While containing invaluable evidence on the history of
music instruction and chant practice in Byzantium, these texts must
be interpreted with caution; most of them were intended for those
already proficient in the performance of chant, and they are often
imprecise with regard to basic questions of rhythm, ornamentation,
the exact tuning of scales (including the question of diatonicism
versus chromaticism), vocal techniques etc. A group of dialogues
beginning Eg mn, paides, the so-called Pseudo-Damaskenos (ed.
Wolfram and Hannick, R1997) is perhaps the oldest of these. The
treatise of Gabriel, hieromonk at the monastery of Xanthopoulos in
Constantinople in the first half of the 15th century, gives
important details on notation and technical nomenclature (ed.
Hannick and Wolfram, R1985). An anonymous treatise on musical signs
(ed. Schartau, R1997) provides some evidence concerning the
relationship between chant theory and practice. An important
treatise on the history of the kalophonic tradition and on the use
of modulation signs (phthorai) was written by Manuel Chrysaphes in
the mid-15th century (ed. Conomos, R1985). Somewhat outside the
mainstream of Byzantine music theory is the 16th-century treatise
by the Cypriot Hieronymos Tragodistes which advocates a reform of
Byzantine notation by analogy with the contemporary harmonic system
of the West (ed. Schartau, R1990).Finally, Byzantine theorists
designed various graphic schemes to assist the learner (see
Alygizaks, R1985). Two of these, a tree and a wheel, both
illustrating the tetrachordal relationships between the eight
modes, are traditionally attributed to Koukouzeles and are probably
the two oldest. Other schemes to assist solmization (metrophnia)
and modulation (parallag) exercises are attributed to Gabriel
Hieromonachos, Joannes Plousiadenos and Joannes Laskaris.For the
subsequent development of Orthodox chant see Greece, IIIII; see
also Russian and Slavonic church music; Armenia, II; Coptic church
music; Ethiopia, II; Georgia, II; Romania, II; and Syrian church
music.
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