Church Composers Research Articles

Священномученик Анатолий, пресвитер Марийский: творчество и судьба

This article is a description of the life path of the Holy Martyr Anatoly Ivanovsky (1863-1918), presbyter of Mari. It attempts to show this new martyr of the Russian Church as a musician, singer and church composer. Therefore, the article pays special attention to the facts of the biography of Priest Anatoly, related to this particular creative side of his life.The article covers the period of his life, and this is the end of the XIX – beginning of the XX century. Historical events, the mood of the society of that time – all this was reflected in the destinies of people, in the fate of a rural priest, a man musically gifted by nature. Having grown up in a pious family of a priest, who loved church singing from childhood and had a wonderful voice, he did not abandon clerical obedience throughout his childhood and youth, right up to his marriage and ordination. Further, Father Anatoly set an example of a zealous and caring pastor, a hard worker, a talented teacher and leader, the father of a large family of gifted children like him, as well as a musician, a connoisseur and connoisseur of church singing.The beginning of the XX century is a time of deep upheavals of the entire Russian society. The terrible persecutions inflicted on the Russian Orthodox Church revealed to the world the true ascetics of piety. In the atmosphere of betrayal and denunciation that engulfed people, they had to make a difficult choice: stay with Christ, faithful to death to Him, or break down under the pressure of the Bolsheviks. The steadfastness shown by priest Anatoly in the most difficult events of his fate showed the world the holiness of this simple village priest, who currently, standing before the Throne of God, is the intercessor and prayer book of all those who turn to him for help.

Liturgical Musicology in Belarus: Pro et Contra

The article presents the field of musicological research, which was designated as “liturgical musicology” in the famous monograph by Ivan Gardner Liturgical Singing of the Russian Orthodox Church. The author provides various variants of the name of the object of study of liturgical musicology and emphasizes the development of research-related interest in the music of the Orthodox Church in its different regions. In a broad sense, “liturgical musicology” signifies musicological research in the field of the liturgical (church) chanting practice and liturgical (church) singing. In a narrow sense, this definition is interpreted as musicology the object of study of which is formed by musically sounded out (chanted) church (liturgical) canonical texts. The article presents an interpretation of the concept of “liturgical musicology” as a method of research, and also describes the operations of its application. Among the large number of research works by scholars in Russia and other countries, liturgical musicology is most vividly represented by the study of Ivan Gardner and the collective works of The Knight of Cantorial Ministry, Father Matthew (Mormyl) and Archpriest Michael Fortunato. Spiritual Testament. The article examines a number of research works devoted to the study of the Belarusian liturgical singing practice of the Orthodox Christian tradition and presents a retrospective analysis of the development of Belarusian liturgical musicology. Russian and Soviet researchers laid the foundation of Belarusian liturgical musicology in the 19th and 20th centuries. They systematized the available historical and archaeological information about church singing in the Kiev Church Metropolis and provided characterization to Belarusian (Lithuanian) church music manuscripts. Present-day Belarusian scholars have reconstructed the history of the development of the national liturgical singing practice formed on the basis of the intonational reinterpretation of the Byzantine, folksong, Polish-Latin and Russian traditions; they have demonstrated its intonational independence and ethnic identity which is determined by the peculiarities of pronunciation of the consonants and the prosody of the sung text. The article provides characterization to the regional peculiarities of the liturgical singing practice and its influence on the formation of personality and examines the individual stylistic features of the musical work of cantorial and church composers which contribute to the diversity of the aural element of church worship. The author analyzes the works of Belarusian scholars in the context of the liturgical musicological method of research.

"Great Vespers" by B. М. Ledkovsky in the singing tradition of the Orthodox Church in America

The article deals with a collection of hymns by the famous church composer and regent B. M. Ledkovsky, a representative of the Russian musical diaspora, whose creative path during the last almost twenty-five years of his life was connected with the United States of America. The verbal basis of the collection was made up of the liturgical texts of the Great Vespers service translated from Church Slavonic into English. Without making a detailed excursion into the historical past of America and without having the intention to create a picture of the formation and establishment of Orthodoxy on American soil (this topic, multi-level and multi-valued, is worthy, in our opinion, of more than one special study), the author touches only on individual events and facts of this history. Referring to the modern church-singing practice, which is accepted today in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCOR) only partially, and focusing mainly on some features of the services of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), the author considers "Great Vespers" as a collection that generally corresponds to one of the rites of the Russian Orthodox Church, along with the All – Night Vigil written by B. M. Ledkovsky. The English-language verbal basis used in “Great Vespers” is seen as specific to the liturgical work of B. M. Ledkovsky, who always belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church – both in Russia and abroad after the revolution, but at the same time very consonant with the liturgical practice of the OCA, which gradually switched to the national, English language. Published in 1976 St. Vladimir's Seminary Press (SVS Press), one of the leading theological educational institutions of the Orthodox Church in America, where B. M. Ledkovsky worked as a teacher of church music for a number of years, "Great Vespers", composed by the composer on the order of the Seminary, was published after his death. The final revision and preparation of the collection for publication was made by D. Drillock, a student and junior colleague of B. M. Ledkovsky, E. and J. Erikson, R. Evich. They also, as indicated in the publication, carried out an English-language adaptation of the liturgical texts. It is characteristic that the musical component of most of the Great Vespers chants is the material of Obikhod Ledkovsky (All-Night Vigil), published in 1959 in Jordanville in the printing house of St. Job of Pochaevsky Holy Trinity Monastery. Individual hymns of this collection (litanies, Sunday troparia, and others) were later included in the editions of St. Vladimir Seminary in 1980 and 1982 in English ("Holy Week"; "Divine Liturgy", “The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts”). The proposed article examines the composition of the collection, with its features, based on the material of several hymns, shows the confirming statements of the composer and the approaches to harmonization that are fundamentally important for him, which he uses here and in other works. Some attention is also paid to the analysis of musical and linguistic parameters of harmonizations, the issues of vocalization of the chanted liturgical text.

Repertuar liturgiczny w kościele pw. św. Jana Chrzciciela w Jodłowie na podstawie parafialnego inwentarza muzycznego z 1939 r.

W artykule opisano liczący 81 pozycji inwentarz muzykaliów kościoła pw. św. Jana Chrzciciela w Jodłowie na ziemi kłodzkiej. Zbiór składał się w większości z łatwych do wykonania utworów przeznaczonych na czterogłosowy chór mieszany z towarzyszeniem orkiestry lub organów. Miejscowy zespół wokalno-instrumentalny dysponował m.in.: 34 mszami (w tym sześcioma za zmarłych), siedmioma zbiorami graduałów i ofertoriów oraz dziewięcioma litaniami. Dużą grupę muzykaliów stanowiły różnego rodzaju opracowania chóralne pieśni kościelnych, zwłaszcza maryjnych i pogrzebowych. Uwagę zwraca obecność kompozytorów kościelnych przełomu XIX i XX w. związanych z ruchem cecyliańskim. Cieszy uwzględnienie twórców śląskich, a zwłaszcza działających w kotlinie kłodzkiej. Prezentowana kolekcja świadczy o dość przyzwoitym poziomie kultury muzycznej w kościele parafialnym w Jodłowie, który dorównywał praktyce w innych wiejskich świątyniach ziemi kłodzkiej. Niestety, brak przekazów źródłowych, bez odpowiedzi pozostawia pytanie, jak dalece zawarte w inwentarzu utwory znalazły swoje odzwierciedlenie w repertuarze jodłowskiego chóru.

Orthodox Sacred Music in the Works of Modern Ukrainian Composers: Traditions and Transformations

The relevance and scientific novelty of the research. The review of Ukrainian music of the independence period shows the considerable interest of the national composers in the spiritual music of the orthodox tradition. This field of art is historically very important for the national tradition, which determines the relevance of its research in the fields of musicology, culture and theology. Within the framework of the study, a distinction is made between “church” and “secular” composers who work in the genres of orthodox liturgical music. Methodology of research consists in the application of cultural, historical and comparative methods, which allowed us to analyze the peculiarities of the work of Ukrainian composers in the context of using traditional and avant-garde techniques in sacred music, to consider the significance of their work in the light of the revival of the sacred music of the orthodox tradition in the late 20th — early 21st centuries. Findings and conclusions. The development of Ukrainian orthodoxy music in the sociocultural space of the late 20th — early 21st centuries is taking place in the context of its revival and significant renewal. Composers are divided into those who are priests (Metropolitan Ionafan, I. Sakhno, V. Fainer, etc.) and those who are secular representatives of the music community (L. Dychko, V. Stepurko, M. Shukh and many others). The work of church composers relates mainly to the liturgy. They strive to create compositions taking into account the centuries-old traditions of liturgical practice adhering to canonical requirements both in poetic and musical-stylistic terms. The creative search for secular composers leads to individualization of creative incarnations, genre transformation and combination of the canonical foundations of orthodox music with national folklore and modern musical language and belongs to the paraliturgical and extra-liturgical directions.The significance of the research. The analysis of choral works on the canonical texts of Metropolitan Ionafan, I. Sakhno, V. Fainer, L. Dychko, V. Stepurko, M. Shukh reveals individual stylistic features that characterize their creativity in terms of their belonging to the liturgical, paraliturgical and extra-liturgical directions of orthodox spiritual music.

The Emergence of Ottoman Music and Local Modernity

By the turn of the eighteenth century this Ottoman musical ‘renaissance’ involved also musical theory and notation (with Osman Dede and Cantemir). A fuller development of the new conceptions of usul and melody emerged in the generation after Cantemir (with Zaharya, Haham Musi, et al.). This new music involved a synthesis of Persian, Turkic, and Byzantine elements. The entrance of non-Muslims—notably Greek cantors (psaltes)—into courtly composition and performance brought with them some techniques of Byzantine music, seen even two generations earlier in Itri’s Naat-i Peygamberi. While Byzantine music lacks an usul system per se, it had a richly developed melodic line, which increased in complexity toward the end of the seventeenth century (e.g. Itri’s contemporary, Petros Bereketis [1665–1725], who was evidently familiar with Ottoman music). The stylistic emphasis of Ottoman music was now on an inward turning fusion of secular and mystical styles, including secularized allusions to the music of the Greek church. At the same time the leading Greek church composers began to incorporate elements from secular Ottoman music. This became the musical manifestation of the “locally generated modernity” of the long eighteenth century—to which both Mevlevi dervishes and non-Muslim elites contributed—and left its imprint on Ottoman music throughout much of the nineteenth century as well.

The originality of the modern Ukrainian church oeuvre: on an example of the chants «All-night Vigil» Olena Yunek. Formulation of the problem

The originality of the modern Ukrainian church oeuvre: on an example of the chants «All-night Vigil» Olena Yunek. Formulation of the problem

The originality of the modern Ukrainian church oeuvre: on an example of the chants «All-night Vigil» Olena Yunek. Formulation of the problem

The originality of the modern Ukrainian church oeuvre: on an example of the chants «All-night Vigil» Olena Yunek. Formulation of the problem

드레스덴 궁정의 교회작곡가, 얀 디스마스 첼렌카와 요한 세바스찬 바흐, 그리고 프리드리히 아우구스트 2세

드레스덴 궁정의 교회작곡가, 얀 디스마스 첼렌카와 요한 세바스찬 바흐, 그리고 프리드리히 아우구스트 2세

드레스덴 궁정의 교회작곡가, 얀 디스마스 첼렌카와 요한 세바스찬 바흐, 그리고 프리드리히 아우구스트 2세

드레스덴 궁정의 교회작곡가, 얀 디스마스 첼렌카와 요한 세바스찬 바흐, 그리고 프리드리히 아우구스트 2세

Bach's changing world: voices in the community

The Leipzig middle-class evolved with the cooperation and gratitude of an extravagant, greedy, and disinterested absolutist ruler. Bach's Changing World documents how this community and other German communities responded to a variety of religious, social, and political demands that emerged during the years of the composer's lifetime. An accepted, admired, and trusted member of this community, as evidenced by the commissions he received for secular celebrations from royalty and members of the middle-class alike - in addition to functioning as church composer - Bach shared its values. Contributors include: Carol K. Baron, Susan H. Gillespie, Katherine Goodman, Joyce L. Irwin, Tanya Kevorkian, Ulrich Siegele, John Van Cleve, and Ruben Weltsch. Carol K. Baron is Fellow for Life in the Department of Music at Stony Brook University, where she was co-founder and administrator of the Bach Aria Festival and Institute.

Simon Boyleau and the Church of the ‘Madonna of Miracles’: Educating and Cultivating the Aristocratic Audience in Post-Tridentine Milan

The cappella musicale at Santa Maria presso San Celso in Milan, also known as the church of the ‘Madonna of Miracles’, was originally charged with the performance of individual plainchant Masses on specified feasts, Vespers as a choir daily in the summer and on those specified feasts, and Compline as a choir during Lent. In 1535, however, its duties were expanded to include a High Mass and a Vespers service on the first Sunday of each month. With Carlo Borromeo's ascension to the seat of archbishop of Milan in 1560, the cappella's Vespers service became central to public worship, and attracted foreign visitors as well as the Milanese aristocracy. As a result, public worship services featuring the cappella were expanded to include a Compline service on Saturday evenings. Simon Boyleau, the first documented maestro di cappella at Santa Maria presso San Celso, was a madrigalist familiar to the Milanese aristocracy. His compositions for Santa Maria presso San Celso reflect not only Borromeo's attempts to shape the Milanese liturgical style according to Tridentine aims, but also Borromeo's desire to spiritualize and theologically educate the Milanese aristocracy. Boyleau's tenure at Santa Maria presso San Celso, which featured the cultivation of sacred and secular audiences alike, defined the activities of the church's composers for the next 50 years.

Compositional techniques in roman catholic church music in Uganda

Modern Kiganda church music is essentially a mixed style. It has two components: Western hymnody and traditional Kiganda song. African church composers are literate musicians, expert in reconciling a genre they have learnt only by ear, with a style they know through scores. This reconciliation is not without strains, both musical and social. The tonal and quantitative structure of the Luganda language is highly resistant to setting in regular Western prosodies or in strophic form; the polychronous rhythm of Kiganda music leads to irregularities, both of word setting and notation, when confronted with texts in Latin or English, or with Luganda translations from these langugages. Different styles of church music have evolved and this study shows various solutions which composers have found to bridge the gap between Western and traditional Kiganda music.

Grundtvig, Laub og kirkesangen

Grundtvig, Laub and Church Singing.By Peter ThyssenThe article deals with the importance that Grundtvig’s hymn writing acquired for the development of church music in Denmark through the 19. and 20. centuries. At first, the lack of tunes for the hymns written by Grundtvig for his own metres, resulted in the appearance of a great number of romantic hymn tunes which became widely used in church singing all over the country through the 19. century. Compared with these new lively and romantic tunes, however, the old chorales, isorhytmical at that time, were bound to seem more and more »stiff« and »dead« when used in the church service. Inspired by the reform movements in church music, which had developed in Germany since the 1840s, Thomas Laub (1852-1927), the organist and composer, advocated a restoration of the old chorale tunes in accordance with their original melodics, rhythmics, and tempo (in his book Om kirke-sangen (On Church Singing) from 1887). After his work on the restoration of the old church tunes in the years 1888-1910, Thomas Laub embarked in earnest on the task of composing new tunes for Grundtvig’s hymns (thus, out of 100 original hymn tunes by Laub, 68 were composed for hymns by Grundtvig). Laub’s hymn tunes were written with .the old church tone. as a source of inspiration, but are equally influenced by the late romantic tone of his own age.The point then is that Laub’s work on the historical and modem mode of expression of church music can be understood as a parallel to Grundtvig’s hymns, viz. as a »renewal on the foundation of the old church« - a programme that Laub himself explains in the book Musik og kirke (Music and Church) from 1920. Owing to this »Grundtvigian programme«, Laub’s tunes have not only achieved a unique congeniality with Grundtvig’s hymns; among Danish church composers Thomas Laub is also the one who has created the largest number of original hymn tunes still in use in church services in Denmark today. Thus, modem Danish church singing has been decisively influenced by the two »learned artists«, N.F.S. Grundtvig and Thomas Laub.

BYRD AND AMEN

As for the Motets and other grave music, you must in them come with more deliberation in bindings to the close , says Morley. The writing of elaborate and beautiful Amens to various motets, anthems and liturgical settings seems to have been a favourite practice with our Church composers of Byrd's day, so often do we find their pieces terminated by rich and uplifting polyphonic settings of the word, prognosticating the modern coda. Surprisingly the cult-if it is not too much so to call it-of Amen appears as peculiarly English: the volumes of the Continental masters of the period contain remarkably few Amens of artistry and proportions similar to those, say, in Gibbons's Verse Anthems. Yet again the wind blew where it listed. A lead in the direction of expanded Amens was given by Tallis in his Latin works, though earlier examples are not scarce. Byrd and his contemporaries-Weelkes, Morley, Tomkins, Batten and others-developed the trend to the full, and Gibbons rounded it off with some superlatively fine settings. Of more than sixty Amens which stand to Byrd's credit, about a third are merely functional-routine closes of the kind recommended by Morley in his 'Plain and Easy Introduction', or even simpler. If we attempt a categorization of the remainder, the mainly imitative or canonical Amens stand out as a most stimulating class. Those in the three Masses are ingenious, especially in the Creed of the three-part, the Gloria of the four-part, where there is a 7/8 movement between soprano and alto, and the Creed of the five-part, a particularly glowing one in which the tenor only just avoids canon with the soprano. It is axiomatic that these longer Amens should be sung at a markedly slower tempo than the preceding movements. The seven-part Amen to the Benedictus of the Great Service is a marvel of close imitation; the entries crowd in with almost precipitant haste. The Creed has a similar figure, whereas in the Magnificat the point is reverted. Among the numerous motets possessing imitative Amens we must notice the famous ' O Lux Beata Trinitas ' (Cant. Sac. 1575), whose Gloria has three parts out of six in canon; 'Ave Maris Stella' and 'Quem Terra Pontus' (Grad. Lib. I), both in three parts; and 'O Quam Gloriosum' (Cant. Sac. 1589), a work steeped in Catholic atmo-

Salzburg Influences in Mozart's Church Music

Research Article| October 01 1945 Salzburg Influences in Mozart's Church Music Carl A. Rosenthal Carl A. Rosenthal Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Bulletin of the American Musicological Society (1945) 8: 3–4. https://doi.org/10.2307/829374 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Carl A. Rosenthal; Salzburg Influences in Mozart's Church Music. Bulletin of the American Musicological Society 1 October 1945; 8 3–4. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/829374 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of the American Musicological Society Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1946 The American Musicological Society, Inc. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748): His Life and His Organ Works

WALTHER has been ignored largely because he was overshadowed by his friend Johann Sebastian Bach and others of greater talent, but deserves our consideration not only because he undoubtedly contributed to the growth and development of Bach, nor merely because his music reflects the musical tendencies of his day, but also because his compositions are worthy of greater consideration. He was a deeply religious man, a painstaking scholar, a master of counterpoint, and a church composer of uncommon ability. His choral and vocal works have practically all been lost. Frotscher (Geschichte des Orgelspiels und der Orgelkomposition) claims that the influence of North-German composers on him was greater than that of Pachelbel, stressed by Mattheson. Brodde (Johann Gottfried Walther, Leben und Werk) claims that Samuel Scheidt's influence was the greater. The problem can best be solved by making a careful study of the organ works of Walther.

A Short Account of Our Great Church Composers, 1540-1876

A Short Account of Our Great Church Composers, 1540-1876

Irish Church Composers and the Irish Cathedrals

I have been honoured by an invitation to contribute to your proceedings, by selecting as the subject of a paper, some account of Irish Church musicians and Irish Church music generally—a subject, hitherto, not much worked up by English musical historians between two covers. I am by no means unmindful of the admirable lecture delivered by the late Sir Robert Stewart in the Irish capital in 1863. This, however, was not confined to ecclesiastical music, but embraced Irish art generally. It will be my endeavour, in the course of the remarks I am allowed the privilege of making, to put you in possession of the most trustworthy knowledge of the subject, as far as I have been able to collect and compress it within the limited demand, which such a paper ought to make on your time and patience.

Irish Church Composers and the Irish Cathedrals

I closed the first portion of this paper, as you may doubtless remember, with a sketch of the life of Sir John Stevenson. I now beg to present to your notice a few details about one of his most distinguished contemporaries in the Dublin choirs. In 1795 the capitular authorities heard of a fine tenor at Lichfield, and, as the result of their negotiations, John Spray was induced, by the ample salary offered, to make the Irish metropolis his home. Spray was a native of Southwell, and he became a chorister in the Minster there under Thomas Spofforth, the organist, uncle of Reginald, the famous glee-writer, and of Samuel, who afterwards (1807–1864) held the appointment of organist of Lichfield Cathedral.