Zur kalophonen Bearbeitung des Stichīron τῷ τριττῷ τῆς ἐρωτήσεως (original) (raw)
Related papers
2018
This paper aims to present the way in which the sticheron "Χριστου τον ιeραρχην", written in honour of St Athanasius the Great, in the plagal of the second mode, is set to music firstly according to the old (non-kalophonic) compositional style and secondly according to the kalophonic one. I shall then try to present the two compositions by contrasting and comparing the two melodies, examining the main notes on which each melody (melos) is constructed. To make this comparison more comprehensive I refer to the work of Chourmouzios and to the way in which these compositions are conveyed from the old notation system to that of the New Method (exegesis). Musicological analyses of various types follow this comparison, helping the attempt to suggest an answer to the question as to whether we can refer to the kalophonic compositional style and its practices by using a term such as ars nova or not.
A fourth unit will be about the origins of the traditional methods of the thesis of the melos, and their books. One concern of this lecture is the cathedral rite, the surviving Greek and Slavonic manuscripts of kontakarion and asmatikon will be regarded as a reception outside Constantinople, although the Slavonic one seems somehow between the original books, their notation and their tonal system (of sixteen echoi) and their transcription into the monastic oktoechos notation, they also have traces of a very original local style. There are two focuses on this secular tradition, the genre kontakion and the cherouvikon. The history of the kontakion will treat Romanos’ propaganda role during the Justinian era, when the Hagia Sophia was constructed and inaugurated, but also how the genre has changed until the 14th century. The cherouvikon is the very heart of the divine liturgy, it was introduced by the end of the 6th century, since a change in sacred architecture caused, that there must be a procession at the beginning of the second part of the liturgy, reserved for the baptised. For each formular of a divine liturgy there is only one offertory, known as the cherouvikon for the one ascribed to John Chrysostom. According to the Byzantine rite, it existed only in the devteros echos. Only by the end of the Byzantine empire, Manuel Chrysaphes replaced the cherouvikon asmatikon with a papadic oktoechos cycle, so that the cherouvikon could be sung according to the echos of the week. The other concern is the development of a monastic hymn repertoire composed as oktoechos melodies. Today it is simply regarded as the creation by Ioannes of Damascus and his step brother Kosmas during the 8th century. Recent papyrus studies gave evidence, that the oldest Greek tropologia which preceded the notated chant books of the 10th century (sticheraria, heirmologia, great oktoechos, oktoich) are related with other redactions which were older than the Christian Byzantine empire, such as the Syriac tropligin, the Georgian iadgari, and the Armenian šaraknoc’. The first Greek tropologion was created by Syrian hymnographers in Jerusalem, but it has only survived in Syriac translation since the 6th century. When Ioannes and Kosmas entered Mar Saba, a monastery of this Patriarchate whose territory was outside the Byzantine empire, a synodal reform had already established an oktoechos reform which was opposed against the Constantinopolitan rite. Today their particular role is regarded as their contribution to the heirmoi and to more complex unique melodies of the sticheraric repertoire known as idiomela which we do only know by the “unnotated” tropologia. The whole repertoire as it is known today was completed by many hymnographers (also female hymnographers in Constantinople) until the 11th century. They were either mainly based in Mar Saba at Jerusalem and St Catherine’s at Sinai (Coislin types of Old Byzantine notation), or in many metochia associated with the Mone Stoudiou in Constantinople (Chartres types of Old Byzantine notation). The Slavonic translation at Ohrid conservated the complex system of hymn melodies organised between idiomela, avtomela, and prosomoia, or kanones composed according to the heirmoi, they did not care so much about the literal meaning of the Greek hymns. Later new literal re-translations in Kiev and Novgorod provoked an entire recomposition of its melodies, in peripheral regions it was mastered by an oral tradition based on simple oktoechos recitations (sometimes in multipart forms of recitation).
Workshop Byzantine Music (1): The current tradition of Orthodox Chant (1814-2018)
2018
This lecture aims simply an introduction into “Byzantine music” following a kind of archaeological approach. The first unit starts with the living tradition defined by the Neo-Byzantine reform of 1814 and the establishment of Chrysanthos’ New Method, when monodic church music and its oktoechos system was redefined by the distinction of four chant genres (troparic, heirmologic, sticheraric, and papadic), their tempo, and their mele. This lecture introduces to the common print editions of chant books (anthologies for Orthros and of the Divine Liturgies, the doxastaria, the two parts of the heirmologion, and the anastasimatarion or voskresnik). The notation reform will be less regarded as a simplification of the Middle Byzantine notation than as a creation of universal notation which was based on an oral tradition of the different performance styles (oktoechos, makamlar, traditional music of 2 different regions of the Mediterranean). It will also treat the printed anthologies of makam music (mismagia, a Greek corruption of the Ottoman divan called “mecmua”) and the New Method to transcribe makamlar as aspects of the oktoechos. The oral tradition of oktoechos performance will be presented by historical field recordings, including own fieldwork.
Byzantine Chant Notation – Written Documents in an Aural Tradition
2014
This paper has its focus on the character of Byzantine musical notation, its development, varieties, and specialisation for various chant genres of the monastic and cathedral rites. Special attention is given to the complementarity of memory, notated chant books, and liturgical books without notation (including text-only hymnals and liturgical orders, the so-called typiká). Further, mechanics of oral-aural transmission of Byzantine chant are discussed. Finally, the impact of location and architectural space on the aural side of the chant transmission is addressed. 1 Introductory remarks Byzantine chant might be defined as the music used for the celebration of the Byzantine Rite, and at the same time having historical links to musical traditions of the Byzantine Empire. Such a definition is neither exclusive with regard to language, nor to geographical area and ecclesiastical affiliation, and it focuses on the functional nature of ritual music. In addition, a close relation between m...