Methodology Used for the Attribution of Greek Chants from Ukrainian and Belarusian Heirmologia in the Late 16th–18th Centuries

Abstract

Relevance of study. Attribution of the Greek chants from Ukrainian and Belarusian Heirmologia of the late 16th–18th centuries marks a new stage of scientific understanding of the Greek repertoire in the Ukrainian-Belarusian church chant tradition. The effectiveness of the comparative study of Ukrainian-Belarusian and Greek-Byzantine musical manuscripts has provided knowledge of peculiarities of the Byzantine notation in historical development and traditional methods of its study. Thus, the methodological task of the researcher of the Greek chants recorded in the Ukrainian and Belarusian manuscripts is to comprehend and analyze the material based on the approaches and concepts developed in the authentic tradition and Byzantine musicology.The objectives of the article are 1) to characterize the main research methodologies of the Byzantine notation, developed in the twentieth century; 2) to present the Greek chants from the staffnotated Ukrainian and Belarusian Heirmologia of the late 16th–18th centuries in the context of contemporary Byzantine musicology current problems such as exegesis and decoding of the Middle Byzantine notation; 3) to outline the importance of the Ukrainian and Belarusian sources.Scientific novelty. Greek chants written down in the Ukrainian and Belarusian Heirmologia were presented in the context of the Byzantine notation development for the first time. Comparative analysis of the Greek chants from the Ukrainian-Belarusian and Byzantine manuscripts showed that the Byzantine notation was decoded by the Kyivan one. The deciphered works of Byzantine composers are their exegesis (interpretation), their performance realization. Thus, in the Ukrainian-Belarusian manuscript tradition the phenomenon of musical exegesis was fixed almost 100 years earlier than in Byzantine one. The first examples of a more analytical record of the Byzantine works in Greek-Byzantine manuscripts date back to the 1670s .