Byzantine music (Music)

As the major proportion of written and oral tradition of Byzantine Music is delivered (uninterrupted from the 10th century until now) listed or expressed in Greek, it seems perhaps obvious that Greek language has to be recognised as “mother tongue” of psaltic expression. And although, even from a very early age, similar formulations of Byzantine Music in other (mostly Balkan) languages have not only been attempted, but they have also been successfully listed, this attempt seems to be absolutely adherent to every initial Greek musical model (as every foreign musical formulation is usually shaped and formed towards it); that is why, the terminology which was introduced and is used for similar attempts is rotated around the typical term “adjustment”. My recent experience of a corresponding attempt of adjusting Byzantine Music to Korean language, gave me the opportunity to develop additional fertile thoughts on the typical procession and also form (even in an early level) a different relevant methodology, which I hope that it will expand the usual and established procession of corresponding “adjustments”. My speculations launch from the disclosure of the inherent elasticity of Byzantine Music (a crucial component which allows music to actually “speak” in every other language), while they are also related to the obvious dynamic dimension of all idividual parameters (notation, modality, melodic development, etc.). With my observations, I attempt to screen the unlimited prospects of the nature and function of music itself, so as to be extricated from every sterile, dogmatic review. I claim that it doesn’t have to do with some kind of “holy music” that it would be unacceptable to be violated, but for an open and flexible “musical arrangement” that is imposed to change and evolvement, whenever it is necessary and idispensable. In the present paper I try to present aspects of the above speculations.

In a Church that claims an undeniable historical and liturgical link to early Christianity, it is perhaps a supreme irony that in the midst of such a claim, westernized artistic and Baroque, Italianate and romantic musical forms of particularly 17th, 18th and 19th Century Europe have found their home in Orthodox temples, particularly in the Slavic North.  We, particularly in the Orthodox West, have accepted a particular narrative that explains the adherence to monophonic chants in Constantinople, Greece and the Mediterranean as being characteristic to “the Greeks”, harmonized choral music as being characteristic of “the Slavs”, etc., and the implication that there were and therefore are no normative standards of liturgical music in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, but only “national flavours” which are to be maintained for purely “pastoral” purposes.  A study of musical history in the early West, East, Greece, and Russia can quickly dispel such notions that anything but adherence to monophony in Orthodox worship is both an novelty and divergence from the letter and spirit of early church liturgical practice. 
 

In: „Byzanzrezeption in Europa: Spurensuche über das Mittelalter und die Aufklärung bis in die Gegenwart“ (ed. F. Kolovou). Berlin 2012, 41–74:

Die Teile der Missa graeca sind seit über hundert Jahren Gegenstand der wissenschaft-lichen Forschung. Auf den ersten Blick gibt es eine große Fülle an Literatur zur Missa graeca bzw. zu verwandten Themen (siehe Punkt 4 und Bibliographie). Bei einem Großteil der relevanten Studien und Bücher liegt der Schwerpunkt entweder auf der Sondierung der historischen Faktenlage oder aber auf textlichen und philologischen Untersuchungen im Zusammenhang mit der Kenntnis des Griechischen im westlichen Mittelalter. Nur ein kleiner Teil der Literatur nähert sich der Missa graeca von der musikwissenschaftlichen und (wie hier noch zu sehen sein wird) ein noch kleinerer von der byzantinistisch-musiko-logischen Seite her an. Es wäre also an der Zeit, die Fakten und Mythen um die Missa graeca von einem byzantinistischen Gesichtspunkt her aufzurollen. Ehe jedoch das wis-senschaftliche Desiderat, die Kontroverse über die Herkunft dieser griechischen Gesänge von byzantinistischer Seite her neu zu betrachten, erfüllt werden kann, bedarf es zuvor ei-ner aktuellen Standortbestimmung und Zusammenfassung, wie sich die Faktenlage auf der Basis bisher erfolgter Forschungen zur Missa graeca nun darstellt.

Τὸ παρὸν κείμενο ἀναφέρεται, γενικά, στὸ ρόλο τῶν γυναικῶν στὴν ψαλτικὴ τέχνη, δηλαδὴ στὴν ἑλληνικὴ ὀρθόδοξη ἐκκλησιαστικὴ μουσική. Στὴ σχετικὴ βιβλιογραφία ὑπάρχουν (γύρω ἀπὸ αὐτὸ –ἀκριβῶς– τὸ θέμα) ὁρισμένες μελέτες, γραμμένες ἀπὸ Ἕλληνες ἢ ξένους ἐρευνητές, ἀλλὰ –δυστυχῶς– οἱ ὑπάρχουσες πληροφορίες εἶναι πραγματικὰ ἐλάχιστες. Μέχρι τώρα, γνωρίζουμε μόνον λίγα (ὄχι περισσότερα ἀπὸ δύο ἢ τρία) ὀνόματα γυναικῶν ὑμνογράφων, κωδικογράφων ἢ ψαλτριῶν, ἀλλὰ στὸ ἐπίπεδό της μελοποιίας ὑπάρχει ἕνα μόνον μουσικὸ ποίημα, ποὺ ἀποδίδεται (μὲ κάποια ἐπιφύλαξη) στὴν κόρη τοῦ περίφημου βυζαντινοῦ μελουργοῦ (τῶν ἀρχῶν τοῦ 15ου αἰώνα) Ἰωάννη Κλαδᾶ. Πρόκειται γιὰ ἕνα Κοινωνικὸ (Εἰς μνημόσυνον αἰώνιον) μελοποιημένο στὸν τέταρτο ἦχο τῆς βυζαντινῆς ὀκτωηχίας. Κατὰ τὴ διάρκεια μιᾶς παλαιότερης ἔρευνάς μου (γιὰ τὴν ἑτοιμασία τῆς διδακτορικῆς διατριβῆς μου πάνω στὸν Πολυέλεο στὴ βυζαντινὴ καὶ μεταβυζαντινὴ μελοποιία), ἀνακάλυψα μία ἀκόμη ἐνδιαφέρουσα σύνθεση κάποιας ἄλλης γυναίκας συνθέτριας. Πρόκειται γιὰ μέρος (γιὰ τὴν ἀκρίβεια: γιὰ τὸν στίχο Εὐλογήσατε τὸν Κύριον, μελοποιημένο στὸν πρῶτο ἦχο) ἑνὸς πολὺ γνωστοῦ βυζαντινοῦ πολυελέου (γνωστοῦ μὲ τὴν ὀνομασία πολυέλεος τοῦ Κουκουμᾶ), ποὺ ἀποδίδεται σὲ κάποια Καλογραῖα (δηλαδὴ μία γυναῖκα μοναχή). Σ’ αὐτὸ τὸ κείμενό μου τὸ ἐνδιαφέρον μου ἐπικεντρώνεται ἀκριβῶς σὲ αὐτὲς τὶς δύο συνθέσεις, δύο μουσικὲς δημιουργίες γυναικῶν συνθετριών, ποὺ μελοποιοῦν κατὰ τὴν περίοδο τῶν βυζαντινῶν χρόνων στὴν περιοχὴ τῆς Μεσογείου. Ἡ ἔρευνά μου προσεγγίζει σημεῖα ὅπως τὴν περιγραφὴ ἢ τὴ μουσικὴ καὶ μορφολογικὴ ἀνάλυση αὐτῶν τῶν συνθέσεων. Ἐπιπλέον, προσπαθῶ νὰ τὶς συγκρίνω μὲ ἀντίστοιχες συνθέσεις ἄλλων (ἀνδρῶν) μελοποιῶν, προκειμένου νὰ διαμορφωθεῖ μία πρώτη ἰδέα γιὰ τὸν «γυναικεῖο τρόπο» συνθέσεως τῆς βυζαντινῆς μουσικῆς.

There are, undoubtedly, questions raised about the way psaltic art was taught at different given historical times in the mind of any person who studies Byzantine music. Unfortunately, these are questions, which do not have an easy answer for; since psaltic art is based, primarily, on oral tradition, the exact methodology of its instruction is lost in the depth of centuries; the information that has survived on existing written sources is poor and rather fragmentary. Certain testimonies are well known and widely used in research, such as the one by Ioannis Kameniatis (10th Century) dealing with the systematic teaching of psaltic art; he recalls that in each church of Thessaloniki there were orders of priests and systems of readers through whom the chanting of poems was studied and through the movements of hands phonemes were communicated. Nikolaos Mesaritis (end of 12th Century) offers his witness when he describes the two categories of music schools that existed in the School of Holy Apostles in Constantinople: one was for young novices (where "you should see the psalmists along with almost stuttering infants who, while they had just finished nursing, were opening their mouths to speak wisdom and compose hymns", and the other one, advanced and more scientific, for older and advanced students (where "small children and young adolescents, who had just grown old enough not to be children, produced rhythmic tunes and harmonious melodies with the use of their pharynx, mouth, tongue, lips, teeth" and who, additionally, "through the teaching of rules and the movements of hands were taught not to deviate from the harmony, not to lose the rhythm, how to not stray from the melody and how to not make errors on the tune." On the other hand, music texts that date back to the 14th Century and onward give the impression that the instruction of psaltic art was rather a more private business that presupposed a close relationship and a long studying period of the student in the company of his experienced teacher. Teaching was done orally (not only the practical aspect of it, which is self-understood, but also the theoretical aspect of the study); therefore, relevant written sources that exist are deficient in information for, "the ancient poet (as is characteristically indicated on one manuscript on theory of the 17th Century) thought that the teacher should teach everything from the beginning, to deserve the title of master; therefore, the teacher teaches everything in brief. It is impossible to learn the art without a living voice and only through words". Indeed, in survived miniatures of music manuscripts one can see exactly this picture; in the foreground there is the teacher who seems to be the authority of teaching wisdom, moving his hands according to the thesis of the psaltic piece composition; on his feet, zealously stooped over their open music books, one sees two (at the most) music students who emulate the movements of their teacher. This was the matter of importance, the only concern of every student,namely, how "to learn to sing the thesis the way his teacher does" and "this is what matters (the same 17th Century theoretician advises a student) and ask your teacher to confirm it; and if he (the teacher) knows it he, then, is a good master and you should stay with him; if he does not, abandon him quickly and do not waste your time". The emphasis placed here on the element of time in connection with the right selection of a good teacher is critical since (as it is recorded in a known text of a psaltic art instruction method) "the one who wants to learn music and be good at it, / needs much patience, many days, / needs good discipline and fear of God, / ought to honor his teacher and pay him, / then the student learns to even reach perfection". In the present study the issue of Psaltic Art instruction will be examined (as is it made clear by the phrasing of the subtitle) in three periods: The period between the 14th and 19th Centuries (PAST) when the decisive important facts of the imposition of the new method of analytical notation, the publication of the theoretical works of Chrysanthos and, finally, the organization of Psaltic Art instruction through known patriarchal music schools, come as succession to scarce information above mentioned offered by relevant sources. The period between the 19th and mainly the 20th Century (PRESENT), when psaltic art instruction is taught systematically in conservatories and various music schools based on an homogenized educational model which is not always in accord with the facts of the past; in certain occasions it is even influenced by foreign music models. The current period (FUTURE), during which one should hope for a new era in regards to Psaltic Art instruction (considering the rapid progress of the science of Byzantine Musicology in the last years or through the instruction of psaltic art in highest educational institutions). It should be stated from the beginning that among the similar facts regarding the above mentioned three periods there is almost no correlation. For instance, there is abundant information available on the instruction of psaltic art during the 2nd period, whereas there is almost none for the 1st. This is the reason why my interest here will focus on the 1st period; I will dare to undertake a task, which - from what I know - has not been undertaken yet; I will try to re-structure the undercurrent old methodology of Psaltic Art instruction, so that we can suspect how the art was taught until the 19th Century. This will aid in proving that minimal (almost insignificant) elements of this period have been incorporated to the following period. However, scientific research thus far as well as the respective practical experience safely indicate that the deeper we know the facts of the past about psaltic art instruction the better a present we will secure to contemporary music studies, bequeathing, at the same time, a more hopeful, enriched and palpably improved psaltic art instruction method to future generations.