Liturgical Chant Research Articles

Liturgical chants of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra: specifics and sequence of musical notation and printing

Liturgical chants of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra: specifics and sequence of musical notation and printing

Aspects of the Paternity of Metropolitan Iosif Naniescu’s Liturgical Chant (1818-1902)

Abstract The Romanian Orthodox Church in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century had a valuable generation of hierarchs protopsalts, composers, translators and promoters of the psaltic music of the Byzantine tradition. From this exceptional generation, Iosif Naniescu is the most valuable composer and interpreter of the 19th century psaltic music. By his rich musical work, Metropolitan Iosif stands out as a reference point for the composition and translation of Greek psaltic chanting. Thanks to the original compositions and translations from the old music notation system, Iosif Naniescu may be included among the promoters of the Christian music notation system in our country alongside Macarie the Monk (with whom he would collaborate), Anton Pann (with whom he bound a close friendship between 1839-1854), and Dimitrie Suceveanu (whom he promoted as a protopsalter of Moldavia). The quality of his performance is highlighted by the countless written testimonies over time. Iosif Naniescu shows a special talent and zeal in his widespread work of over 100 musical manuscripts (stored in our country and in the Holy Mountain of Athos); he is also acknowledged for the Psalms of Time, which he copied in anthologies besides his own chants. Therefore, the present article comes to assert the origins of his chants and pays tribute to classical music of Byzantine tradition.

The Liber Ymnorum of Notker Balbulus ed. by Calvin M. Bower, and: The Liber Ymnorum of Notker Balbulus ed. by Calvin M. Bower

Reviewed by: The Liber Ymnorum of Notker Balbulused. by Calvin M. Bower, and: The Liber Ymnorum of Notker Balbulused. by Calvin M. Bower Lance W. Brunner TheLiber Ymnorum of Notker Balbulus. Edited by Calvin M. Bower. Volume 1: Text and Music. ( Henry Bradshaw Society, vol. CXXI.) London: Published for the Henry Bradshaw Society by the Boydell Press, 2016. [Note to Reader, p. x; abbrevs., p. xi–xii; introd., p. 1–55; "The Manuscript Sources of the East Frankish Sequence and Notker's Liber ymnorum," p. 56–118; editorial principles, p. 119–26; Liber ymnorum Notker Balbuli coenobiotae sancti Galli, p. 127–292. ISBN -13: 978-1-90749-729-2. $210 (inclusive of both volumes).] TheLiber Ymnorum of Notker Balbulus. Edited by Calvin M. Bower. Volume 2: Commentary. ( Henry Bradshaw Society, vol. CXXII.) London: Published for the Henry Bradshaw Society by the Boydell Press, 2016. [Commentary, p. 1–212; vocabulary used in the Liber ymnorum, p. 213–39; bibliog., p. 240–53; index of Ymniand Prosaeby incipit, p. 255–59; index of melodies by title, p. 260–61; index of manuscripts cited, p. 262–65. ISBN -13: 978-1-90749-729-2. $210 (inclusive of both volumes).] The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. —Muriel Rukeyser, "The Speed of Darkness" History too is made of stories. Through assembling evidence, we try to make sense of people, places, and events in an informed narrative; that is, a story! Medievalists need to be especially scrupulous and imaginative in constructing their accounts of the period, given the paucity of surviving evidence. For musicologists the problem is compounded by the lack of musical notation for much of the early Middle Ages. In some happy instances, however, first-person accounts have survived that illuminate an otherwise obscure time and place. Such is the story left by the ninth century Swiss monk Notker Balbulus (the "stutterer") about how, in his home monastery of Saint Gall, he worked to master a new type of liturgical chant he had recently discovered. Setting text to pre-existing melodies, he compiled one of the most significant collections of Latin poetry of the Middle Ages around the year 884. He called his work Liber ymnorum("Book of Hymns") and offered it as a gift to one Liutward, bishop, abbot, and court chaplain, humbly sharing his story in the dedication. Both text and music of Notker's work have been scrutinized, edited, and written about for generations, yet no one has produced a critical edition of music and text together. This is one reason Calvin Bower's remarkable new scholarly edition of the Liber ymnorumranks as a major contribution to musical and literary scholarship, building on the substantial foundation of previous research while offering new insights and hypotheses that will inspire current and future generations of musicologists, philologists, and performers. Bower received the 2017 Claude V. Palisca [End Page 981]Award from the American Musicological Society for his edition, an honor richly deserved. In order to appreciate the significance of his work, however, a brief introduction to the intricate background of this genre is necessary. Sequences, along with tropes, formed a large body of what has been called medieval, as opposed to Gregorian, chant. The music for the Roman Mass Propers was relatively set and stable by 800, whereas medieval chant arose during the ninth and tenth centuries, along with the rise of musical notation. The sequence was sung between the Alleluia and Gospel reading of the Mass, and appeared as a stunning new category of chant that spread relatively quickly throughout Europe. The surviving manuscripts from the West and East Frankish kingdoms contain distinctly different repertories of pieces, roughly corresponding to the regions on either side of the Rhine. Yet many of the melodies are common to both regions; that is, the same melodies are found with different texts on separate sides of the Rhine, with only a rare text common to both regions. Notker's dedicatory narrative provides important clues to understanding aspects of the early history of the genre. Notker recalled how difficult it was as a youth to remember "very long melodies" ( melodiae longissimae) and how he might "tie them...

Chant, Liturgy, and the Inheritance of Rome: Essays in Honour of Joseph Dyer ed. by Daniel J. DiCenso and Rebecca Maloy

Reviewed by: Chant, Liturgy, and the Inheritance of Rome: Essays in Honour of Joseph Dyer ed. by Daniel J. DiCenso and Rebecca Maloy Uwe Michael Lang Daniel J. DiCenso and Rebecca Maloy, ed. Chant, Liturgy, and the Inheritance of Rome: Essays in Honour of Joseph Dyer Henry Bradshaw Society, Subsidia VIII Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2017 xxiv + 572 pages. Hardbound. £60.00. This substantial collection of scholarly essays honors Joseph Dyer, an eminent musicologist (and distinguished organist) whose publications on chant and musical practice are widely recognized as landmarks in the study of the history of Roman liturgy. Dyer's work is distinguished for placing the foundational musical traditions of early medieval Rome into their ritual and spatial contexts, for instance, in his seminal papers on the processions for Candlemas and the Major Litany (litaniae maiores). Following in the steps of Dyer's scholarship, this volume focuses on the city of Rome and highlights its wider impact on Western liturgy. A brief review cannot offer a complete appreciation of this impressive book, and I shall limit myself to those contributions that have caught my particular attention. The first and longest section, "Medieval Rome and Ancient Rites," offers studies on the ritual performance of the Mass and the Divine Office in their urban settings. Charles M. Atkinson illuminates the history of the Doxa en ipsisis Theo (Gloria in excelsis Deo) in the Roman Ordinary of the Mass sung in Greek, which had an enduring presence in the abbey of Saint Denis near Paris well into the twelfth century. The historical role of Old Saint [End Page 302] Peter's as an expression of papal authority in the late ancient and early medieval period are analyzed by Charles B. McClendon. The articles on specific aspects of the Roman liturgy exemplify the complexity of the extant sources that call for a multi-disciplinary inquiry, including architecture, topography and social history. The second section, "The Liturgies of Italy," considers Rome's interaction with, an influence on, other liturgical traditions on the Italian peninsula. The third section "Books, Sources, and Reform in the Wake of Rome," explores the adaptation and transformation of Roman liturgy and chant in the Carolingian reform. The final section, "Roman Foundations: Later Liturgical Developments," widens the scope and takes us beyond the city of Rome. Susan Boynton reads Cluniac identity as mirrored in liturgical practice: the important abbey understood itself as an anticipation of the heavenly Jerusalem. In a spirited essay, Christopher Page reflects on how liturgical chant brings Scripture to life and has a profound spiritual effect on singers and listeners alike. Though different in tone, William Mahrt complements Page by showing how Gregorian chants interpret their biblical text through a supple use of melodic tropes. The editors, Daniel J. DiCenso and Rebecca Maloy, are to be commended for their thorough labors. Individual articles contain illustrations, tables, and music examples. The volume is well provided with an index of chant incipits, an index of manuscripts, and a general index. The depth of the scholarly contributions assembled in tribute to Joseph Dyer appeals above all to specialists in musicology, but any researcher in the broad field of medieval history will gather precious insights into the varied and enduring legacy of the Roman liturgy. [End Page 303] Uwe Michael Lang St Mary's University Twickenham, London, UK Copyright © 2018 Society for Catholic Liturgy

Liturgical chant bibliography 26

This issue sees the last Liturgical chant bibliography prepared by Dr Günther Michael Paucker. Having inherited this position from Peter Jeffery in 1996, he has produced, year after year, a total of twenty-one bibliographies, all with an admirably comprehensive coverage of studies on chant across the full range of languages. The journal could not have imagined a more meticulous, thorough and loyal editor. We remain truly thankful to him for all the Herculean efforts he has put into his Liturgical chant bibliographies from 1997 to 2017. They have been tremendously useful to chant scholars and will remain a lasting monument to his generosity of spirit.

Les Paysages sonores: du Moyen Âge à la Renaissance. Sous la direction de Laurent Hablot et Laurent Vissière.

This interdisciplinary volume combines essays by historians, literary scholars, and musicologists, all of whom bring diverse approaches to the representation of sound in the literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (its ‘soundscape’). Divided into three parts, the book addresses questions of order and disorder in the soundscape, songs of war and war cries, and closes by considering the sounds of everyday life. As Jean-Marie Fritz writes in the book’s excellent Conclusion, the task of exploring the soundscape of an era so long past is inherently fraught: ‘on est toujours dans l’aporie, dans le manque et, par voie de conséquence, dans l’hypothétique et dans la fragilité d’une reconstitution’ (p. 290). The volume’s authors attempt to reconstitute elements of this soundscape through a variety of primary sources, including liturgical chant, legal documents, trouvère song, vernacular polyphony, and Arthurian romance. Interesting contributions discuss the role of sound in judicial proceedings (Romain Telliez), the noises that accompany death (Karin Ueltschi), as well as propaganda songs (Élodie Lecuppre-Desjardin). As a whole, contributions train their attention on sounds that are unmusical and inarticulate, focusing on cries of various kinds (see the essays by Sophie Albert, Telliez, Hablot, David Fiala, Martine Clouzot, Isabelle Ragnard, Christelle Cazaux-Kowalski, and Nelly Labère). The soundscape of the period was undoubtedly noisy and disorderly. The somewhat odd focus on shouts and cries prevents the emergence of the kind of immersive, holistic aural picture painted in Fritz’s work. Readers hoping for a broad introduction to the topic of medieval and Renaissance soundscapes or a complete review of literature from the burgeoning field of ‘sound studies’ will likely be disappointed. (The volume does not include a separate bibliography.) The authors only occasionally bring their readings into dialogue with a broad array of relevant English-language scholarship (Fiala’s and Fritz’s up-to-date chapters are the exception).

Mamadysh Kriashen Folk Music Traditions in Contemporary Recordings (review of materials collected in 2013)

The article characterizes folk music traditions of Kriashens, the Christianized Tatars of the Volga-Ural region. The author focuses on materials collected during an expedition in 2013 to the Mamadysh region of Tatarstan, Russia. Recordings of music and poetry samples, notation, transcription of verbal texts, and photographs were made by the author. The author presents remarks on the genre structure of the material (including lore associated with calendric rites and divination; life cycle rites; game and dance songs; childlore; religious lore as well as the instrumental musical tradition) and discusses the current state of the Mamadyshsky Kriashen tradition. In the villages of Vladimirovo, Iukachi, Ziuri and Komarovka the core of the folk music tradition is mainly composed of ritual songs. In the village of Nikiforovo, liturgical chants (a folk version of Orthodox prayers) tend to dominate the tradition.

Hallazgos de fragmentos de canto gregoriano en Chile

The study of liturgical chant fragments has a well established historiographical tradition. However, in Latin America few scholarly contributions have been focused on this type of written sources, being almost nonexistent in Chile. Thus, this paper makes a innovative review on the studies on fragments of Gregorian chant in the country to subsequently locate, identify and describe the findings. Despite the limited sample found, we will offer some significant results and conclusions.

Wild Strawberries from Reichenau: Ruminations on Authority and Difference in Eleventh-Century “Gregorian” Chant

One of the paradoxes of Gregorian chant is the way in which written sources become ever more plentiful across the Middle Ages while commentaries on its cultural and intellectual status take the opposite direction, becoming rare after the ninth century. An exception to that trend is the essay De varia psalmorum atque cantuum modulatione (On the Varied Modulation of Psalms and Chants), a substantial yet little known offering from the music theorist and liturgist Berno of Reichenau (d. 1048). Previously considered to be of uncertain authorship and doubtful musical value, the work is now shown to be an authentic witness, in part through evidence provided by a rediscovered manuscript (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Mus.ms.theor. 95). This permits a new appreciation of the author's unique and revealing agenda—to soothe the many tensions reportedly incited by the textual content of chant. With resonances in contemporary music theory, De varia psalmorum testifies to divergent practices in need of a new theoretical underpinning, as well as to previously unstudied cultures of textual correction existing between the ninth and twelfth centuries. In so doing it offers a rare insight into the liturgical chant traditions of the post-Carolingian age, both in Berno's native Germany and further afield.

‚Komponist‘ und ‚Komponieren‘ im frühen Mittelalter zwischen Umbruch und Kontinuität

AbstractSince around 800 in Europe, new music has been constantly created to an ever increasing degree, so that the early 9th century has the character of an epochal shift in music history. The creation of new music, first of broadly liturgical chants, is testified, on the one hand, by manuscripts transmitting texts and melodies, and on the other hand by literary sources (chronicles, lives of saints, etc.) which speak of the production of new musical items. It has often been doubted whether these creative processes can be qualified as acts of ‘composing’ in the modern sense of the word. In this essay, however, the main question will be what can be learned by the existing sources, if one asks what kind of information they offer regarding an early-medieval attitude towards ‘composers’ of music and the nature of their activities. In addition, it seems that this discourse had its beginnings mainly in the 9th century, and that it retained certain traits, and remained faithful to a restricted number of ideas (such as questions of

Yury Falik’s “Liturgical Chants”: The Problem of Cyclicity

The article is devoted to the problem of cyclicity of Yu. Falik’s choral composition “Liturgical Chants”. The relevance of the topic is associated with the increasing importance of spiritual music in the sphere of national culture, with the creation of musical works in a variety of genres and forms, oriented both to liturgical and concert performance. The novelty of solving the problem is determined by the consideration of this cyclic work in the context of the genre typology of the works of Russian sacred music, which includes a triad of traditional genres, mixed genres and non-traditional genres. The choir cycle of Yu. Falik, consisting of 15 chants for canonical texts for choir a cappella, belonging to different services, different church holidays, refers to the genres of mixed type. The article deals with the features of the dramatic construction of the choral cycle, the use of musical expressiveness means, the image-thematic content, which is based on the liturgical idea, consonant with the main Orthodox divine service — Liturgy: purification, enlightenment, soul’s transformation through the Eucharist, adoption of the Holy Communion. An important observation of the article’s author is the presence of systematicity in succession of the chants that are not associated with a specific church service or holiday. In the first part of the cycle, before the Cherubic Song, the theme of repentance prevails, in the second — the theme of hope for salvation, the glory of the Lord. Finally, the author draws a conclusion about the characteristic features of this work, which is, on the one hand, close to the cantata-oratorio genre, on the other hand, it bears the features of the liturgical and singing tradition.

Are the Latin Responsories of the Jeu d’Adam the Source of the Play?

The seven responsories that are included in the vernacular dialogue of the Jeu d’Adam have been traditionally interpreted as being the source of the play. The French sections would be an example of the technique of farcitura, in other words they would be translations of a Latin model. In this article, I argue that this interpretation is incorrect. Close textual analysis of the Jeu d’Adam shows that these liturgical chants are not the starting point of the play but were subsequently added to it. The resemblance between the responsories and the French text can be accounted for by the author’s habit of paraphrasing the biblical text.

Tradition and innovation in late- and postbyzantine liturgical chant, II: Proceedings of the congress held at Hernen castle, the Netherlands, 30 October –3 November 2008. Edited by Gerda Wolfram and Christian Troelsgård (Eastern Christian Studies, 17.) Pp. xxiv + 328 incl. 8 tables, 1 plate, 51 figs and 50 musical examples. Leuven–Paris–Walpole, Ma: Peeters, 2013. €60 (paper). 978 90 429

Tradition and innovation in late- and postbyzantine liturgical chant, II: Proceedings of the congress held at Hernen castle, the Netherlands, 30 October –3 November 2008. Edited by Gerda Wolfram and Christian Troelsgård (Eastern Christian Studies, 17.) Pp. xxiv + 328 incl. 8 tables, 1 plate, 51 figs and 50 musical examples. Leuven–Paris–Walpole, Ma: Peeters, 2013. €60 (paper). 978 90 429 2748 3 - Studies on the liturgies of the Christian East. Selected papers of the Third International Congress of the Society of Oriental Liturgy, Volos, May 26–30, 2010. Edited by Steven Hawkes-Teeples , Bert Groen and Stefanos Alexopoulos . (Eastern Christian Studies, 18.) Pp. x + 305 incl. 3 ills. Leuven–Paris–Walpole, Ma: Peeters, 2013. €69 (paper). 978 90 429 2749 0 - Volume 68 Issue 1

Le chant monastique au XIe siècle: le chant grégorien. Le vécu à l’abbaye de Saint-Trond

It is important to have a clear understanding of the monastic day, ordered by all the offices specified by the Rule of St. Benedict. However this does not say anything specific about chant. We are referring to Gregorian chant, ‘the chant known as Gregorian’, whose history is briefly traced. This highlights the importance of a geographical area corresponding to present-day Belgium and the southern regions of Belgium, with Metz as centre, where Bishop Chrodegang played a leading role. For centuries all chant was performed using memory alone, for there was no musical notation. The ninth century will see the development of neumes, as simple memory aids, like tropes. Only in the eleventh century, especially with Guido d’Arezzo, will the designation of notes and writing on staff lines appear. Only then can one sing what one reads. This study then focuses on the Benedictine monastery of St Trond where musical annotation was introduced at the end of the eleventh century by Rudolph of St Trond. The question is how Gregorian chant was performed at St Trond. One cannot avoid the question of the possible contrasts between the beauty of the liturgical chant and the many troubles that gripped the abbey at the time. A question valid for the eleventh century: a question of contrast valid for our time. Like the romanesque art of its time, this chant was of the eleventh century and remains forever the meeting point of the human and the divine.

Muzyka podczas papieskich pielgrzymek w archidiecezji krakowskiej (1979–2006)

Muzyka podczas papieskich pielgrzymek w archidiecezji krakowskiej (1979–2006)

The Old Chants for St. Gärima: New Evidence from Gärˁalta

The article presents an old folio kept in the church of Däbrä Śaḥl (Gärˁalta, northern Ethiopia), one of a few other leaves, all originating from a codex dating to a period well before the mid–14thcentury. The codicological and palaeographical features reveal the antiquity of the fragment. The content of the folio is remarkable since it contains chants dedicated to St. Gärima (also known as Yǝsḥaq) which can be identified as the chants for the Saint from the Dǝggwa, the main Ethiopian chant book. In the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥǝdo Church the feast of Gärima is celebrated on the 17th of Säne. By means of the fragment of Däbrä Śaḥl, the composition of the liturgical chants for Gärima can be dated to a time much prior to the mid-14th century. Moreover, both the chants and the 15th-century Acts of Gärima by Bishop Yoḥannǝs refer to a famous miracle worked by the Saint. This fact proves that the miraculous account, in whatever form, was in circulation prior to the mid-14th century.

Liturgical chant bibliography 25

The Liturgical chant bibliography 25 retains the traditional format: (1) Editions and facsimile editions, (2) Books and reprints, (3) Congress reports, (4) Chant journals, (5) Colections of essays and dictionaries, (6) Articles in periodicals and Festschriften. Additions to the bibliographies of previous years (mostly reviews) are listed directly after this introduction.

A Byzantine Chant Collection From Sicily. A Cοllaboration Between Cοpenhagen and Piana degli Albanesi (Palermo)

The aim of this paper is to give an account of the collaboration between a collector of the Byzantine chant tradition of Piana degli Albanesi (Palermo) in Sicily, namely fr. Bartolomeo Di Salvo, and the editorial board of the Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae, i.e. an institution under the aegis of the University of Copenhagen. Before describing precisely how this collaboration has developed, I will briefly introduce the “Sicilian-Albanian” oral liturgical chant tradition. Among his publications are Oral performances in a (post)-literate society (Lund, 2016), The songs of the roots (forthcoming chapter on Cretan music, University of Vienna), Creative performance in the liturgy: a formulaic melodic language in the Sicilian-Albanian chant tradition (forthcoming, University of Joensuu, Finland), and several articles as chapters of his doctoral thesis.

Kult świętego Klimenta w hagiografiach i podaniach ludowych (wizja macedońska)

Saint Clemence from Ohrid is the most known pupil and follower of Saint Brothers from Thesalonic, Cyril and Methodius. His incredibly literary output by this days gives us a lot of very usefully information about the organization of orthodox people life, moralizing Christian education and wide comprehend literature on the area South Slavs. About his person by this days you can hear a lot of legends and stories, cult of this important saint is such strong, that it permit to the folklores, what is manifest in still strong tradition and maintain Saint Clemence’s cult. Saint Clemence is very interesting personage. His work has contributed a cyrylic alphabet to the range of more prestige, although the first alphabet which was in use on the area of Saint Clement’s activity (Ohrid and the western Macedonia) was the glagolic alphabet. His achievements are various and universal. Apart from the values mentioned above, we should underline the creation and organization of first "Slavic university" in Ohrid, where a group of monks and secular pupils afford the knowledge in various sphere of Christianity life (writing, prayers, proper celebration of church holidays, liturgical chant). In Macedonia his cult is treated timeless and he enjoy the unimpaired respect. He is also patron of all orthodox people and Macedonian Orthodox Church and a lot of public institutions like libraries, schools or streets are named by Saint Clemence.

The poetics of liturgical chant between oral and written tradition

In this work the authors explain the relevant terms from the Old Testament, biblical tradition and the Scripture, as well as from liturgical songs and prayers, which refer to liturgical music - chanting. On the basis of the translations from Hebrew into Greek, Latin and Church Slavonic, their original meaning is identified, and some new or possible discrepancies, created in the process of translation, or new meanings are pointed out. In this way, the role and meaning of the Christian liturgical poetics are stressed as well as its inseparable connection with the church chanting. Namely, liturgical chanting is a prayer, ?the theology of sound?, and that means that the word is more important than the music - although it is more complete with the music, and music is to follow and show the meaning of words, and to help their adoption.