Download PDF | Gregorios Th. Stathis, Konstantinos Terzopoulos - Introduction to Kalophony, the Byzantine «Ars Nova»_ The «Anagrammatismoi» and «Mathēmata» of Byzantine Chant (Studies in Eastern Orthodoxy)-Peter Lang.
354 Pages
The anagrams, or more generally, the mathémata and morphologically related kalophonic forms of Byzantine melopceia, constitute the artistic creations by which Psaltic Art is known in all its splendour and becomes an object of admiration. Kalophony as ars nova was born following the recovery of the city of Constantinople after the Latin occupation of Byzantium (AD 1204-1261) during the long reign of Andronicus II (1282-1328) and reached its final form in the first half of the fourteenth century.
During the years 1300-1350, four key composers and teachers of the Psaltic Art imposed a new attitude of melic composition on the preexisting forms and designated new compositional techniques dominated by the beautifying kallopistic element. They created new compositions in the new spirit of kallopismos and musical verbosity. This new musical creation was christened with the term kalophony and this period is the golden age of Byzantine Chant.
Originally published under the title Oi dvaypayipatiopoi Kai ta uaOrpata TAG BuGavtivs pedonotiag (1979 plus seven reprints), this publication thoroughly investigates and reveals for the first time the entire magnitude of Byzantine kalophony with its individual forms, serving as a systematic introduction to the Greek Byzantine music culture and that of the Byzantine Psaltic Art at the height of its expression.
Gregorios Stathis is professor emeritus of Byzantine musicology and hymnology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and a preeminent, internationally recognized scholar in the field. He has studied the vast repository of medieval and late Greek music manuscripts containing Byzantine chant notations the world over, including Mount Sinai and Mount Athos. The author of many publications and choirmaster of numerous recordings of Byzantine and post-Byzantine chant, he is most recognized for his awardwinning catalogue of the chant manuscripts on Mount Athos, now in its fifth volume, as well as his descriptive catalogue of the chant manuscripts in the monasteries of Meteora.
Konstantinos Terzopoulos, one of the author’s doctoral students, is a parish priest, an independent scholar and researcher in Byzantine musicology and Orthodox theology and liturgy. He is the author of works on Byzantine chant, Byzantine liturgy and Typikon. He is currently preparing a critical edition and English translation of the homilies of Anastasius Sinaita.
Author's preface to the English edition
The anagrams [anagrammatismoi], or more generally, the mathémata and morphologically related kalophonic forms [eidé] of Byzantine melopeeia — anapodismot, podes, anaphonémata, allagma, epibolé, parekbole, prologos, kratéma, etc. — constitute the artistic creations by which Psaltic Att [psaltiké techné] is known in all its splendour and becomes an object of admiration.
Kalophony as ars nova was born following the recovery of the city of Constantinople after the Latin occupation of Byzantium (AD 1204-1261) during the long reign of Andronicus II (1282-1328) and reached its final form in the first half of the fourteenth century. During the years 1300-1350, four composers and teachers of the Psaltic Art, Niképhoros Ethikos the domestikos, Iohannés protopsaltés Glykys, Iohannés maistor Koukouzelés and Xenos Kordénés, imposed a new attitude of melic composition on the pre-existing forms and designated new compositional techniques dominated by the beautifying kallopistic element, which resulted in the lengthening of those works. Together with their contemporary composers, they created new compositions in the new spirit of kallopismos and musical verbosity.
This new musical creation was christened with the term kalophénia, kalophony, and this period is the golden age of Byzantine Music, that is, of the Hellenic Psaltic Art of Orthodox Christian worship.
Kalophony has three basic elements: (i) the elaborate and long melos; (ii) the reworking of the poetic text , the anagrams, through the repetition of words and phrases or insertion of new text; and (iii) the insertion of the krateéma — a specific melody using the syllables xena, titi, toto, tororo and especially the terirem — one, two, three or more times at particular points within the kalophonic work. That third element defines the morphological type of composition as single-part, two-part, three-part, many-part or oktaéchon (eight-modal].
In this way, the composers ‘sign’ their creations and the musical art form becomes eponymous and autonomous. Thanks to the wise system of Hellenic music notation born of the Greek alphabet in the mid-tenth century, middle Byzantium, a plethora of composers with their oceanic corpus of works created one of the largest musical cultures of the world (take, for instance, the Polyeleos composition in Constantinople and all the world, works by various ancient and newer composers, Athens, Nat. Libr. Ms. 2458 from the year 1336, fol. 75r).
The fourteenth-century chant compositions of kalophony are masterpieces that filled the magnificent Byzantine Church structures such as the Hagia Sophia, with their evocative mosaics, frescoes and ever-increasing iconographic programmes. As artists, these magnificent composers of chant music are equal in cultural value to the great painters, poets and philosophers of the same noble and aristocratic spirit that would be the last shining moments of the Byzantine Empire, the highest form of artistic and cultural originality and expression that can be observed throughout the long history of Byzantine civilization.
The book in hand, originally published under the title O/ dvaypaypatiopol xe Te uadnuata ths bulavrivinc usdorouac (Stathés 19794), thoroughly investigates and reveals for the first time the entire magnitude of Byzantine kalophony with its individual forms [eidé] of melic composition, basically serving as a systematic introduction to the Greek Byzantine music culture, that of the Byzantine Psaltic Art at the height of its expression.
To sketch the historical and morphological frame within which these truly wondrous monuments of monophonic Byzantine and post-Byzantine melic composition hold the primary position of honour, Part One embarks on a necessary introduction to the related terminology, the genera [gené] and forms [eidé] of melopceia, as well as the developmental periods. All that is examined and said thereafter, on the genesis of the form of the mathéma, the appearance of kalophony and its components, its specialized structures of composition and legacy, even regarding the composers — creators of these compositions and their morphology from the aspects of text and melody — serves to make more understandable and clarify every facet of the principal topic of the kalophony of the Psaltic Art.
Part Two proffers the incipits of the mathémata with their epigraphic description from the eight-volume manuscript Mathématarion and three more volumes of the Papadiké, according to the exégésis transcription into the New Method of analytical chant notation by Chourmouzios Chartophylax (c. 1825). The internal order of the contents of these codices follows the liturgical calendar as it unfolds in the Menologion, Triodion and Pentekostarion ecclesiastical hymnbooks.
The usefulness of these descriptions and their publication is obvious, for it makes almost the entire corpus of the fourteenth- to fifteenth-century and seventeenth- to eighteenthcentury mathémata available to modern chanters and contemporary chant musicologists, transcribed into the present form of chant notation from 1814-1815. Reviewing the folios of those manuscripts, we can chant and enjoy the kalophony of the Psaltic Art.
An opportunity to sample this cultural treasure is provided with the stichéron idiomelon [Zpoturav tyy avaocaow from the feast of the Transfiguration as preserved on the pages of Metochion Panagiou Taphou (MIIT) Ms. 732, fols. 2341-251v (used with permission), and the accompanying comparative transcription into western staff notation and the fifteenth-century Athens, Nat. Libr. Ms. 886, fol. 379Vv. The manifestation of Byzantine kalophony in all its scope and splendour enchanted an entire generation of modern musicologists, made up of the chorus of my many students and doctoral candidates, fifty all together.
Twelve of them dealt with aspects of kalophony in their dissertations and it is both worthy and right to list their names here along with the titles of their papers as it is impossible for me to now go back and reference their works in detail. These papers, as well as others dealing with different aspects of Byzantine chant, are published in the series Meletae of the Institute of Byzantine Musicology of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece.
Anastasiou, Gregorios (2005), Ta xparjuara otyy Yadrixy Teyyy, ed. Grégorios Th. Stathés (Meletai, 12; Athens: Institute of Byzantine Musicology).
Apostolopoulos, Thomas (2002), O Axéatolos Kévatac 6 Xing xal 4 cuuBory tov ory Sewpla tig Movorxis Téyyys, ed. Institute of Byzantine Musicology of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece (Meletai, 4; Athens).
Balagedrgos, Démétrios (2003), H wadrixy napddoorn twv Axohovhey tot Bulavtwvoi Koouxod Tumxod, ed. Grégorios Th. Stathés (Meletai, 6; Athens: Institute of Byzantine Musicology).
Chaldaiakés, Achileas (2003), O Todvédeos ory bulavtivy xai uerabulavtivy uchonotta, ed. Grégorios Th. Stathés (Meletai, 5; Athens: Institute of Byzantine Musicology).
Giannopoulos, Emmanouel St. (2004), H avdyon tye Yadeixne Teyvys otyy Kpyry (1566-1669), ed. Grégorios Th. Stathés (Meletai, 11; Athens: Institute of Byzantine Musicology).
Karagounés, Konstantinos (2003), H zapddoon xal eipyynon tot uéhoue tev Xepoupixwy THs bulaveins xai uetabulavtiys ushonottac, ed. Grégorios Th. Stathés (Meletai, 7; Athens: Institute of Byzantine Musicology).
Karanos, Grammenos (forthcoming), T¢ Kalopwvixd Eipuoldyio, ed. Grégorios Th. Stathés (Meletai; Athens: Institute of Byzantine Musicology).
Krétikou, Flora (2004), OAxdioros' Yuvos ory bulavtiy xai verabolavtiy wehoroua, ed. Grégorios Th. Stathés (Meletai, 10; Athens: Institute of Byzantine Musicology).
Liakos, Idannés (2007), H bulavtivy padtiny xapddorn th Occoadovixns xata Tov 10 aitsva, ed. Grégorios Th. Stathés (Meletai, 15; Athens: Institute of Byzantine Musicology).
Mazera-Mamalé, Sebé (2007), Ta Meyaduvdpia Ocotoxia tHe Vadrixie Teyvys, ed. Grégorios Th. Stathés (Meletai, 15; Athens: Institute of Byzantine Musicology).
Spyrakou, Euangelia (2008), Of Xopol Yadrwv xara cyv Bulavriv) napddocy, ed. Gr. Th. Stathes (Meletai, 14; Athens: Institute of Byzantine Musicology).
Terzopoulos, Konstantinos (2004), O mpwrowdarns tig Meyddys tot Xpirrod Exxdnotac Kwvorareivos Bulévtios (t 30 Tovviov 1862). 4 cvuBory tov ocyv Yadriny Teyvy, ed. Gr. Th. Stathis (Meletai, 9; Athens: Institute of Byzantine Musicology).
Having reached the end of the present work for a second time, I extend once again my heartfelt gratitude to all those who contributed to the writing and publication of this book in its first edition. As an academic textbook used during my twenty-five years as professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, it is already in its seventh printing since first being published by the Institute of Byzantine Musicology in 1979. It is now made available in English translation for the first time owing to the efforts of my doctoral student, the Revd Dr Konstantinos Terzopoulos.
Through his dedication in promoting the advancement of Byzantine and post-Byzantine Hellenic Psaltic Art, with the hope of substantially contributing to the historical and theoretical documentation for a growing international following, including the area of Orthodox worship all around the world, and interest in the study of the notation of this wondrous Psaltic Art, Dr Terzopoulos has taken care to offer the contents of this book in a coherent and vibrant fashion; I thank him wholeheartedly.
Although I cannot worthily express my gratitude, special appreciation must be directed to THE J. F. COSTOPOULOS FOUNDATION for its kind support toward covering the majority of the costs for publication.
Also, a grant from PSALTIKI, INC., an American non-profit organisation dedicated to the Byzantine chant heritage, faithfully covered the remaining publication expenses. We wish them continued success in their mission.
Finally, this author is also grateful to Peter Lang International Academic Publishers for the unique honour of inaugurating their new series, Studies in Eastern Orthodoxy. | congratulate them on their new series and sincerely thank them.
6 August 2013 Gregorios Stathés, professor emeritus of the University of Athens.
Translator’s note
Although Byzantium has been the subject of much study in recent decades for inspiring religious splendour through its artistic, especially iconographic and architectural artefacts of the Middle Byzantine period (AD 843-1204) and the so-called Palaeologan Renaissance (1261-1325), including the areas of literature, learning, theological controversy and liturgy, the opposite is mostly true of Byzantine musical culture. Clearly, the main reason for this is that the analysis of the preserved artefacts of Byzantium’s musical life, namely, the Medieval manuscripts containing Byzantine chant notation, have been the specialized domain of musicologists, whose observations have been largely unavailable to an English-reading audience.
Even in optimal circumstances, no single scholar could ever be expected to sift through the thousands of extant Byzantine music manuscripts, presupposing the necessary permissions, time and resources to travel to remote locations for the painstaking and tedious task of manual inspection.
This is exactly why this important, seminal study by Grégorios Stathés, an internationally renowned Byzantine musicologist, professor emeritus of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and my doctoral professor, is such a significant contribution to the discussion of Byzantium’s musical legacy. He possesses an intimate knowledge of the vast caches of Medieval manuscripts containing Byzantine chant notation in the numerous libraries on the Monastic Republic of Mount Athos in northern Greece and beyond — and his monumental cataloguing is now in its fifth volume.
Within the great multiplicity of styles and forms utilized in the Byzantine chant repertoire, there exists the compositional technique referred to as kalophony [kalophénia], meaning beautiful voice or beautiful singing. This highly artistic and virtuosic musical expression, that reached its height in the fourteenth-century homo byzantinus, is the ars nova of the latter Byzantine spirit. The publication of this Introduction to Kalophony, translated into English for the first time, brings this lesser-known and often misunderstood chapter in the cultural and musical history of Byzantium to an English-speaking readership, thus making it more available to musicians, scholars and students of music history and Byzantium.
While much has transpired since the writing of this original work in 1979, it still remains an essential resource for anyone interested in attaining an informed knowledge regarding Byzantine chant because the work succinctly, and yet in a detailed and thorough manner, covers all the basic genera [gené] and forms [eidé] of melopeeia, thus simultaneously offering the reader a foundation upon which to stand when approaching any other aspect of the rich Byzantine chant heritage.
For this reason, special care has been taken in the translation to assure technical accuracy in the terminology used here. In this way, even the novice and non-musical reader is initiated into the Byzantine Music lexicon foundational for further study. Toula Polygalaktos, Dr Peter Jeffreys and Oonagh Walker provided many helpful suggestions in their proofs of my translation for which I express genuine appreciation.
This work is broader than most of its kind. Those who can take in its contents will receive an advanced education. It is my distinct honour and pleasure to contribute in this way to the advancement of the world treasure that is our Byzantine chant heritage.
KT Aegina Island, 2014
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