The Byzantine Chant, since 2019 inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, is one of Byzantium’s heritages that still exists today “beyond Byzantium”: the Byzantine Ecclesiastical Music has been and continues to be an integral part of a genuine “Byzantine” tradition. Evidence of this is its actively practiced tradition, e.g., on Mount Athos, in Orthodox worship life, or through research activities connected to art performances. In the past, an increasing number of scholars has engaged with different methodological approaches to study a variety of topics related to the Byzantine ecclesiastical music tradition. One main discussion point among researchers and chanters is how to “correctly” read and understand the Old Notation as well as how to interpret and perform Byzantine chants in a “traditional” way. The Thematic Session aims at exploring new approaches to the source-based analysis and interpretation of Byzantine compositions and at addressing challenges to study its performance in past and present. Bringing together experts from around the world—most of them both researchers and choir masters—the discussion will consider, among others, how the Old Notation before 1814 can best be deciphered and transcribed; which new methodologies have emerged for its study and performance; and where previously unknown musical manuscripts may still be preserved, particularly on Mount Athos. It will further examine how the interaction between melodic lines (θέσεις), mode (ἦχος), and compositional genre (γένος) can be more precisely understood; and how a consistent and coherent terminology for Byzantine music theory might be developed, especially in view of its intersections with the Eastern Maqām system.
The so-called “Themata”, i.e. short stereotype melismatic figures found on the last one or two syllables of musical phrases, are a characteristic of the otherwise syllabic old sticheraric and heirmologic style. Other, more free, melismatic parts can also be found mainly in stichera, which could be generally called “Melismata”. While the presence of a poetic…
Chrysanthos of Madytos defines composition (melopoiea) as “a chant creating ability.” He emphasizes that this ability involves not merely chanting long-established psalmodies but also inventing and composing new chants that are pleasing to listeners. This perspective surprisingly elevates chanters to the status of composers. In various sections of his work, Chrysanthos highlights the presence of…
In this paper I will examine ways in which change (or the lack thereof) has been understood by practitioners of the psaltic art of Byzantine ecclesiastical psalmody and their relationships to broader discourses of religious and ethnic identity. I will begin with a brief historical survey of these matters in the East Roman cultural sphere…
The hymns of the sixth-century Byzantine composer, Romanos the Melodist, were performed during the pannychis of Constantinople and in monastic communities in Bithynia, Athos, Patmos, and South Italy. However, the Fourth Crusade and the Fall of Constantinople disrupted the liturgical context of these hymns—or kontakia, as they came to be known—and their performance was reduced…
In the past few decades a number of sources have come to light that seem to represent a kind of intermediate stage: the familiar neumatic notations have not yet developed, but punctuation signs, accent marks, and other symbols are apparently being used to direct auditory aspects of the oral performance of texts, extending beyond their…