Byzantine Music and its Place in the Liturgy

Abstract

Twenty-Two years ago I had the privilege of talking to the Royal Musical Association about Byzantine music. At that time, Professor Tillyard and I had succeeded in transcribing some Byzantine hymns, after spending long years in trying to solve the riddle of their musical notation. I soon realised that Byzantine liturgical music was not inferior to plainsong and that it was well worth pursuing these studies more widely in order to compare the treasury of Byzantine hymns—hidden in a large number of manuscripts dating from the ninth to the fifteenth century—with the melodies of the Western Church.