My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.
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ORTHODOX BYZANTINE MUSIC (Part II)
By Dimitri Conomos, Ph.D.
Medieval Period
The effect that this concept had on Church music was threefold: first, it bred a highly conservative attitude to musical composition; secondly, it stabilized the melodic tradition of certain hymns; and thirdly, it continued, for a time, the anonymity of the composer. For if a chant is of heavenly origin then the acknowledgment received by man in transmitting it to posterity ought to be minimal. This is especially true when he deals with hymns which were known to have been first sung by angelic choirs - such as the Amen, Alleluia, Trisagion, Sanctus and Doxology. Consequently, until Palaeologan times, was inconceivable for a composer to place his name beside a noted text in the manuscripts.
Saint Ignatius wrote to the Church of Ephesus in the following way:
"You must every man of you join in a choir so that bring harmonious and in concord and taking the keynote of God in unison, you may sing with one voice through Jesus Christ to the Father, so that He may hear you and through your good deeds recognize that you are parts of His Son."
A marked feature of liturgical ceremony was the active part taken by the people in its performance, particularly in the recitation or chanting of hymns, responses and psalms. The terms choros, koinonia and ekklesia were used synonymously in the early Byzantine Church. In Psalms 149 and 150, the Septuagint (Authentic translation from Hebrew to Greek of the Old Testament by 72 Hebrew Scholars) translated the Hebrew word machol (dance) by the Greek word choros. As a result, the early Church borrowed this word from classical antiquity as a designation for the congregation, at worship and in song in heaven and on earth both. Before long, however, a clericalizing tendency soon began to manifest itself in linguistic usage, particularly after the Council of Laodicea, whose 15th Canon permitted only the canonical psaltais, "chanters," to sing at the services. The word choros came to refer to the special priestly function in the liturgy - just as, architecturally speaking, the choir became a reserved area near the sanctuary - and choros eventually became the equivalent of the word kleros.
The development of large scale hymnographic forms begins in the 5th century with the rise of the kontakion, a long and elaborate metrical sermon, reputedly of Syriac origin, which finds its acme in the work of Saint Romanos the Melodos (6th century). This dramatic homily, which usually paraphrases a Biblical narrative, comprises some 20 to 30 stanzas and was sung during the Morning Office (Orthros or Matins) in a simple and direct syllabic style (one note per syllable). The earliest musical versions, however, are "melismatic" (that is, many notes per syllable of text), and belong to the time of the 9th century and later when kontakia were reduced to the ptooimion (introductory verse) and first oikos (stanza). In the second half of the 7th century, the kontakion was supplanted by a new type of hymn, the kanon, initiated by Saint Andrew of Crete (ca. 660-ca 740) and developed by Saint John of Damascus and Kosmas of Jerusalem (both 8th century). Essentially, the kanon is an hymnodic complex comprised of 9 Odes which were originally attached to the 9 Biblical canticles and to which they were related by means of corresponding poetic allusion or textual quotation.
The nine canticles are:
(1)-(2) The two songs of Moses (Exodus 15:1-19 and Deuteronomy 32:1-43
(3)-(7) The prayers of Hannah, Habbakuk, Isaiah, Jonah and the Three Children (1 Kings [1 Samuel] 2:1-10; Habakkuk 3:1-19; Isaiah 26:9-20; Jonah 2:3-10; Apoc. Daniel 3:26-56;
(8) The song of the Three Children (Apoc. Daniel 3:57-88);
(9) The Magnificat and the Benedictus (Luke 1:46-55 and 68-79).
Each ode consists of an initial troparion, the heirmos followed by three, four or more troparia which are the exact metrical reproductions of the heirmos, thereby allowing the same music to fit all troparia equally well.
The nine heirmoi, however, are metrically dissimilar; consequently, an entire kanon comprises nine independent melodies (eight, when the second ode is omitted, which are united musically by the same mode and textually by references to the general theme of the liturgical occasion, and sometimes by an acrostic. Heirmoi in syllabic style are gathered in the Heirmologion, a bulky volume which first appeared in the middle of the 10th century and contains a 1,000 model troparia arranged into an oktoechos (the eight-mode musical system).
(To be continued)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" -- Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George