Byzantine Music Research Articles

Cante Jondo: The Soul of Andalusia

Historically and spiritually the songheritage of Andalusia, cante jondo' reflects the race and environment of the andaluz, who composes and sings this provocative music. Cante jondo, a plastic expression of music and poetry, springs from the mysterious creative instinct and artistic genius of the andaluz in a spiritual, almost frenzied, lament, uttering his sacred and pagan culture. For in cante jondo we find synthesized the racial distinction, the elegance, the sadness, the frustration, the dreams, the loves, and the individualism of the andaluz, who sings in a lament that throbs with a passion for life and a spiritual union with death. The origins of the estilo jondo are debatable in so far as the sources of any folklore material consist of imitation and re-creation of existing patterns. However, the musical basis of cante jondo is the intimately profound repetition of a single note. The stressed note has the run of the scale and is limited in range only by the vocal power of the singer (cantaor). The tonal structure raises and lowers the voice, which follows the tightly interwoven pattern of four of the seven main notes of the Arabic scale. This pattern is saved from monotony by the rich lyrical ornamentation of the musical arabesques or appoggiaturas. The modulations on the notes are so intricate and so tightly bound to the intonation of the word that it is almost impossible to distinguish between the spiritual and the material contents of the song. Consequently, the instinctive quality of the rhythm and its full measure seem to be emphasized. The result is the plaintive and passionate, yet strident, sob so characteristic of cante jondo that, once heard, it is instantly recognizable. Three events in Southern Spain possibly influenced, in varying degrees, Spanish music and, combined with Andalusian racial characteristics, resulted in ante jondo. The first of these historical movements was the acceptance by the Spanish Church of the Byzantine liturgical music. Manuel de Falla believed that the marked resemblance of Spanish folk-songs to the sensualism of traditional Indian music was due to Byzantine influence in the Catholic chants used in the centuries during which Spain was converted to Christianity. The earliest known example of an Andalusian melody containing the elements of the Byzantine chant is the siguiriya (seguidilla), which shows a marked absence of metrical rhythm in the melodic verses and in the constantly recurring modulating patterns.2 The two examples of seguidillas that follow are of the nineteenth century:

A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography

A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography

A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography

A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography

Origins of Byzantine Music

Origins of Byzantine Music

Origins of Byzantine Music

Origins of Byzantine Music

Old Byzantine and Russian Liturgical Chant

Old Byzantine and Russian Liturgical Chant

MEDIæVAL BYZANTINE MUSIC

Journal Article MEDIæVAL BYZANTINE MUSIC Get access H. J. W. TILLYARD H. J. W. TILLYARD Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Musical Quarterly, Volume XXIII, Issue 2, April 1937, Pages 201–209, https://doi.org/10.1093/mq/XXIII.2.201 Published: 01 April 1937

Byzantine Music

Until recently the study of Byzantine history and civilisation has had to fight against an almost insuperable prejudice. The whole Byzantine world was considered as petrified, bloodless and decadent both in its life and in its artistic creation, and gifted scholars refused to waste their energy on a study which seemed unimportant. Although a large number of Byzantine manuscripts were brought to Europe in the seventeenth century and, in spite of the publication of Allacci's Studies in the Liturgical Books of the Greek Church, Goar's Commentary on the Euchologium and Montfaucon's Palœographia Grœca, yet knowledge of these works and the study of Byzantine art were confined to a small number of people and aroused no regular interest. Sixty years ago a famous German scholar—Professor W. Christ, of the University of Munich—in his Preface to the Anthologia Grœca Carminum Christianorum apologised for deserting the “elegance and fine freedom of the poets of Greece and Rome for the thorny bypaths of mediæval Christian verse.” The prefaces, too, of later works dealing with Byzantium all contain the same apology, the author wishing to make it clear that he has undertaken his task in a spirit of scientific enquiry rather than out of conviction or enthusiasm.

Ibn Khurdādhbih on Musical Instruments

In an article written in 1926 on “Byzantine Musical Instruments in the Ninth Century” I mentioned that one of the earliest extant accounts in Arabic of the musical instruments of the Arabs and their neighbours is contained in an oration delivered by Ibn Khurdādhbih before Al-Mu'tamid (870–93). The narration appears in the Murūj al-dhahab of Al-Mas'ūdī (d. c. 956). Both of these writers were competent, to some extent, to deal with the question in its general aspect, and for that reason the recital has an added interest. Ibn Khurdādhbih had been taught music by the famous Isḥāq al-Mauṣilī (767–850), who was his father's personal friend. By his books, and by other means, some historical details of music and musicians were preserved, and they have been cited by later writers. Some of this information has, however, been challenged more than once by the author of the Kitāb al-aghānī, who censures Ibn Khurdādhbih for his mere conjectures, and for making statements without sufficient authority. Yet it may be presumed that the details given by Al-Mas'ūdī on the authority of Ibn Khurdādhbih may be trusted. The former, who had the highest opinion of the latter, would scarcely have quoted him at such length without reservations had he not approved. Al-Mas'ūdī was a great traveller and observer, and he had himself dealt with the music and musical instruments of the Arabs, Greeks, Byzantines, Syrians, Nabatseans, Indians, Persians, and others in his various works. If Ibn Khurdādhbih had erred, “the Imām of the historians,” as Ibn Khaldūn has called Al-Mas'ūdī, would assuredly have corrected him.

Some new Specimens of Byzantine Music

As an illustration from a good manuscript in the Round Notation I have chosen a Canon of which I can present a reproduction from my own photographs. It is in the First Authentic Mode, and belongs to the Sunday before Christmas (fourth in Advent). This Canon does not find a place in the service-books now in use, but the words are in the printed Hirmologus. As poetry they are neither better nor worse than the ordinary run of Byzantine Canons.Our text is from the Hirmologus, Cryptoferratensis E. γ. II, date about 1280. Our facsimiles contain another Hirmus coming before the Advent Canon, namely, the last ode of the Canon, ω̨̕δὴν ἐπινίκιον ἄ̣σωμεν πάντεσ,2 likewise in the First Authentic Mode.Translations. Canon ᾠδὴν ἐπινίϰιον last ode: ‘Let us all magnify the light-bringing Cloud, by whom the Lord of all, like rain from heaven upon a fleece of wool, came down; and for our sake was made flesh and became man, though He was from everlasting—let us magnify her, the Holy Mother of our God.’

Byzantine Musical Instruments in the Ninth Century

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The Stenographic Theory of Byzantine Music.

The Stenographic Theory of Byzantine Music.

Byzantine Music and Hymnography. By H. J. W. Tillyard. The Faith Press. 4s. 6d.

Byzantine Music and Hymnography. By H. J. W. Tillyard. The Faith Press. 4<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>.

Byzantine Musical Notation. — A Reply.

Byzantine Musical Notation. — A Reply.

Byzantine music

Byzantine music

BYZANTINE MUSIC

BYZANTINE MUSIC H. J. W. TILLYARD H. J. W. TILLYARD Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Music and Letters, Volume IV, Issue 3, July 1923, Pages 269–274, https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/IV.3.269 Published: 01 July 1923

Some Byzantine Musical Manuscripts at Cambridge

The whole subject of Byzantine music deserves far more attention from musicians than it has yet received. The richest store-houses of Byzantine musical manuscripts are the great monastic libraries of Athos, Patmos, and Sinai. There the copying of liturgical books was an important industry in the Middle Ages, and the monasteries, being also the centres of musical study, produced standard works for their own use, besides distributing them among the leading Churches in the Christian East. Valuable collections are also kept in the National Library at Athens, the Vatican, at Grotta-Ferrata, Vienna and Paris. But there are many other libraries in different parts of Europe into which a few Byzantine musical MSS. have found their way, and in our own land a few specimens have been lying for years or centuries, neglected and unread.

The Modes in Byzantine Music

In the attempt at reviving the music of bygone ages the question of the scales employed, or, in other words, the tonality, confronts us at the very outset. Until this is answered our transcriptions must lack all reality. The case of ancient Greek music shews that nearly all the discussion has been about the nature of the modes; and there, in spite of copious original authorities, no hypothesis, not even the orthodox view, has been framed with sufficient plausibility to escape attack from many quarters. Now in Byzantine music the notation can be deciphered (in MSS. of the thirteenth century and later), as far as it gives us the melodic progression, while I have tried to prove that the indications of rhythm can be consistently and adequately interpreted. But when we study the modes we find scarcely any data to help us. The interval-signs make no distinction between whole-tones and any smaller steps: the mediaeval theorists tell us little or nothing about the character of the intervals. Furthermore the series of modern Greek scales differs entirely from the mediaeval systems of Europe; and western and Neohellenic theorists in discussing Byzantine music have usually, with some honourable exceptions, gone their own way without the slightest regard for contrary opinions. But obviously no final understanding can be expected before this disagreement is faced and, if possible, explained and accounted for.

Rhythm in Byzantine Music

A Uniform method of transcription, immediately applicable to all Byzantine melodies, is the great desideratum of musical theorists in order that this music may become available for general study and performance. At present there is a tolerable agreement about the interval-signs, which indicated the progression of the melody, both in the Round system, beginning in the late twelfth century, and also in its offshoot, the Cucuzelian system, whose use lasted until the reforms of Chrysanthus, about 1821. The Linear systems prevailing in the eleventh and twelfth centuries are obscure, but our knowledge of the Round system, gained since 1870, is no mean achievement and bodes well for further progress.While the melodic signs are intelligible, the utmost disagreement prevails about rhythm and tonality. Every student tries to please himself, and the result to the ordinary reader is entire perplexity. The rhythm of Byzantine hymnody forms the subject of the present article. The matter is made more difficult by the lack of any positive check on the ultimate result. If in working out the interval-signs we make a false step, the outcome will be an impossible cadence. But the rhythmical indications are too vague for mathematical certainty to be attainable. Nevertheless I am venturing to put forward what seems to me a fair and reasonable method of transcription both for the Round and for the Cucuzelian systems. The problem of tonality is beyond the scope of this paper. I hope to return to it at some later date, and meanwhile have followed the most generally accepted views.

Fragment of a Byzantine Musical Handbook in the Monastery of Laura on Mt. Athos

The musical Notation of the Greek Church is decipherable as far back as the beginning of the Round System in the thirteenth century. Some examples of this were given in my article in last year's Annual. But before the invention of the Round System another kind of notation was in use, called for convenience the Linear System, the rules of which are very obscure. The reading of the Round System was made easy by the familiar little treatise called the Papadike, which occurs in many MSS., and explains the main principles of the notation. Nothing of the kind seems to have been known dealing with the Linear System. But the fragment which I am now to place before the reader may be expected to throw some light upon it. I photographed this fragment on my visit to the Monastery of Laura in 1912: and so far as I know, this is the first time that anything has been written about it.The fragment is a single leaf of parchment bound up with the MS. Laura Γ 67, a small quarto codex containing some of the Stichera of the Triodium and Pentescostarium, i.e. the original hymns (excluding Canons and words set to tunes not specially composed for them) sung at the movable days in Lent, Holy Week and Eastertide. The manuscript is written in a bold well-formed hand, the text in black, the notes in red.