Byzantine MusicAuthor(s): Egon WelleszSource: Proceedings of the Musical Association, 59th Sess. (1932 - 1933), pp. 1-22Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Musical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/765709 .Accessed: 15/02/2011 14:14

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22 NOVEMBER, 1932.

PROF. E. J. DENT, M.A., D.Mus., PRESIDENT,

IN THE CHAIR.

BYZANTINE MUSIC. BY EGON WELLESZ, D.MUS. (OXON.),

Professor of Music in the University of Vienna. 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 Palcographia Groeca, 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 Univer- sity of Munich-in his Preface to the Anthologia Grceca Carminum Christianorum apologised for deserting the "elegance and fine freedom of the poets of Greece and Rome for the thorny bypaths of medizval 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.

The attitude of Gibbon and his whole account of Byzantium are largely to blame for this prejudice: the very title, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is significant. To the admirer of Roman civilisation the transition from the old freedom of life and thought to the strict ceremonial of the Byzantine court with its interminable political and religious squabbles must seem a decline. To Gibbon these were the striking things about Byzantium, and, his attention all centred on the disappearance of the characteristics of the

2 Byzantine Music

old Rome, he failed to see the birth of the new which took its place.

In answer to Gibbon's deprecating remarks we have only to consider what vigour the Byzantine Empire must have had. Its so-called "decline" lasted a thousand years and yet during this period it was of such importance that the capital of the Empire won the name of " New Rome." It is only from this standpoint that we can obtain a full understanding of the task the Byzantine Empire had before it.

As the furthest outpost of Europe, Byzantium had to face various waves of invasion from the East. This was only possible for a government in which the Emperor combined almost absolute temporal and spiritual power and centralisation was carried to its extremest point. The character, too, of her enemies made it often necessary for treachery and double- dealing to play a part in Byzantine politics; only thus could the Empire be preserved. In the fourth century the attacks of the Ostrogoths began, in the fifth those of the Huns, and in the sixth century the Slavs attacked from the North and reached almost as far as the city itself. In the seventh century the Persian invasions and the struggle with the Arabs began, and in the following centuries Bulgarian, Hungarian and Russian attacks from the North and North-East kept the Empire in a state of perpetual danger. It remained for the Crusaders, prompted by the commercial policy of Venice, to prepare the final downfall of Byzantium. When, after the end of the Latin Empire, the Palaeologi came to the throne, all the strength of the Empire was spent, and in I453 the Turks were able to take the city, her last Emperor dying on the walls. Yet these struggles which often threatened the very existence of the Empire and the metropolis did not prevent the development of an astonishing civilisation and the attainment of an artistic perfection which we can now for the first time appreciate.

There is something insidious in the old clichds of Byzantium's " treacherous diplomacy," the "stiffness of Byzantine art," and in the anecdotes of the theological disputes which continued even when the Turks were already encamped before the city walls. For a long time these clichds and anecdotes managed to obscure the glory of Byzantium's great achievements; consequently in the words of Charles Diehl, one of the most learned students of Byzantine art and history: "Voila comment, sous une anecdote banale et une epithete courante, on 6crase dix siecles d'une civilisation, qui fut peut-etre la plus brillante et la plus raffinee du moyen age."

Byzantine Music

To-day we can see how this prejudice against Byzantium has complicated the work of all those who have hitherto dealt with her art and civilisation. Thanks to the untiring work of the last generation this prejudice has been broken down; but there still exists a feeling, especially common amongst scholars and connoisseurs of classical art, that Byzantine civilisation represents a decay, because it can no longer boast the spirit of the ancient world in its full splendour. We have only to think, however, of the contempt which, fifty years ago, the admirers of the Renaissance professed for Gothic and Baroque, to realise how false all judgments are which praise one era at the expense of another.

The purpose of history, according to one great scholar, is to show " what really took place "; and all efforts are worth- less if they do not serve in the end to bring to light the real nature of Byzantine art, contemporary reaction towards it, and the meaning it may still have for us, both as a historical possession and as a living force.

Twenty years ago I set myself this task in the department of Byzantine music. It has given me great pleasure that an English scholar, Professor Tillyard, has undertaken the same work, viewed from a slightly different angle. We have worked separately at the solution of our problems, but in the last few years we have joined with Professor Hoeg, of Copenhagen, in a plan to publish an edition of the most important manuscripts, in which the treasures of Byzantine church music are contained.

Let us first consider the question of the place of Byzantine, and indeed of all oriental church music in the musical world and then go on to a description of the characteristics of this music and its meaning for us.

I should like to say first, that it is only in the last few years that the science of musical research has reached a level which justifies our placing it on an equal footing with the research carried out in literature and painting. Large tracts of musical history, however, remain still untouched. In the eighteenth century an attempt had already been made to cover the whole field of music from its first beginnings-an attempt which remained unfinished owing to lack of sufficient detail. The regular study of musical origins began later; and gradually there came to light, at any rate for certain periods, such a mass of detail that a real danger arose of intensive study of one period obscuring a general view of the whole.

3

Byzantine Music

During the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth, musical research was chiefly concerned with European music from the beginning of the middle ages. It is true that a large number of books on Greek music appeared: but it is in these books that the great difference between accounts of the music and the music itself is most notice- able. And so, although these studies are interesting land- marks in the history of musical scholarship, they remain comparatively unimportant in the history of music.

As far as Eastern music is concerned, a short introductory section dealing with mediaeval music was usually considered enough, Greek and Oriental music being included under this heading. Byzantine music was not mentioned at all. Labels such as "primitive" and "exotic" were attached to Oriental music and there is no trace of any attempt to regard it from a serious historical point of view. In the second half of the nineteenth century the scientific and tech- nical achievements of Europe had reached a point till then untouched: Europeans all over the East came to regard them- selves as the masters and natural superiors and Oriental art as something which, though worthy of their interest and their collections, was in no way comparable with the great artistic masterpieces of the West. We have only to think of the collections and exhibitions of Oriental art durirg the nineteenth century, in which objects of purely folk-lore interest were placed next to real works of art and cheap export goods lay next to masterpieces.

In this period of indifference, Fox-Strangways' Music of Hindustan and Courant's Essay on Chinese Classical Music are brilliant exceptions and form the starting point for a com- pletely new attitude of mind-the first condition necessary before it was possible to understand the character of Oriental music in general and the relationship between the music of Europe and that of the Near East from antiquity to the present day. This relationship, which has been long recognised by students of history, art and liturgiology, must be carefully borne in mind by students of Byzantine church music, if they are to avoid false premises and faulty conclusions. Once again we must try, from another stand- point, to be clear in our minds as to the exact significance of "Byzantium" and "Byzantine."

In 324 A.D., Constantine made Byzantion, a small Greek town, the capital of the Eastern Empire, giving it the rights and privileges of Rome. From this time on the town took the name of Constantinople or New Rome and the name Byzantium disappeared. The inhabitants of the Empire were

4

Byzantine Music

called Romans; for, with Julian the Apostate's championship of Hellenism, the name " Hellenes" and the conception of Hellenism had come into disrepute. Only isolated instances of the use of the name Byzantion or Byzantis occur, and these only in writers with an archaising tendency. It was not until the fourteenth century and the return of the Palaeologi that a new classical movement began and we find once again Byzantium for Constantinople and Hellenes instead of Romans, chiefly in Western writers who saw in Byzantine literature a continuation of the classical tradition.

It was these pioneers of Byzantine scholarship who managed to convince the rest of the learned world that Byzantine civilisation was nothing else but a continuation of the old, and that the language, though it had lost its old vigour, was still the same. Thus it came about that from a linguistic point of view Byzantium came to be regarded as an annexe of the ancient and of the Hellenistic worlds. This undue emphasis laid on the character of the language led people to see in it the significant characteristic of Byzantium, instead of considering her relationship with the civilisation of the Mediterranean, and further, of the Near and Middle East, as history, art and liturgiology all demand.

It is nowadays a matter of common knowledge that we are indebted to the East for many elements in our religious consciousness and philosophical thought, a debt which we can trace back to the Persian and Egyptian elements in the earliest Greek civilisation. After the penetration of the East by Alexander the Great-a penetration which reached beyond Gandhara as far as India, Central Asia and the Far East- military stations were established in the conquered areas and all the higher positions of government were entrusted to Greek officials: the whole Near East, in fact, was subjected to a process of Hellenisation. This process, however, was only rigorously and successfully pursued along the Medi- terranean coast and where roads or rivers led inland. But away from the main roads and far inland the native Eastern civilisation could hold its own against that of the ruling class. Not long after Alexander's death a reaction set in which was both stronger and more fruitful than the Hellenising movement. This reaction made possible an anti-Seleucid union between the newly-formed Parthian Empire and Bactria, the furthest outpost of Hellenism in the East, whose influence extended over an area beyond the Hindu- Kush and the Pamir plateau right into the steppes of Mongolia. This union prepared the death-blow for Hellenic ascendancy

5

in the Near East, though Bactria, through this very union, came into a position of isolation and had to face the attack of the Nomad tribes which poured through the country into the Parthian Empire.

In the struggles which developed between Rome, as heirs of the Seleucids, and Parthia, the influence of Iran became increasingly important. This influence reached its height when the Arsacid dynasty was replaced by the Sassanids, who consciously modelledtheir policy on the old Persian tradition of the time of the Achaemenids. The religious ideas of Iran spread over the whole Mediterranean basin and influenced the west, with the result that a mutual impregna- tion of Hellenism with Eastern ideas and vice versa took place, whence arose the mixture of different cults characteristic of the Near East.

Christianity started in one of the border provinces of the Roman Empire whose sphere of influence came to an end immediately behind the Lebanon. This province was adminis- tered by a Graeco-Roman governing class, the population consisting of a mixture of Aramaeans, Cappadocians and Armenians, as well as the Jews. Since Christianity was at first a popular faith in direct opposition to the authorities, it was natural that the art which developed with the new ritual should be to a large extent the product of native artists. The future study ot music will have to reckon with this fact, if a clear idea of the method and first growth of ecclesiastical melody is to be obtained. Studies of this kind will have to be closely connected with liturgiology. Up till now we have had to content ourselves with conjectures and conclusions drawn by analogy from developments in kindred spheres. With one exception no written record of the earliest Christian music has been preserved: this one exception is formed by the fragment of a Hellenistic hymn found at Oxyrrynchus. The rest are either lost, or, as seems more probable, the music was never committed to writing in the earliest times, but transmitted orally. The Coptic Church of the present day has preserved something of this tradition; its cantors and choir-singers are mostly blind, it being thought that only such people can be expected to have the seriousness and other-worldliness necessary for the correct singing of ecclesiastical melodies.

Were these songs original productions? Yes, at any rate in part. It is hardly conceivable that the

members of the new religion which was in opposition to the official cult should compose their own melodies. At a time, when religious gatherings could only be hald in secret, and

6 Byzantine Music

Byzantine Music

every kind of loud singing must be avoided, there can have been very little more than a kind of "cantillation" of the Psalms. As Christianity spread these conditions naturally changed. It is most likely, therefore, that the new songs were sung to familiar tunes, just as already existing heathen hymns were adapted to the new faith. A period of real creative musical activity cannot have begun until still later, when Christianity had gained strength and Christian ritual had begun to develop. This activity first showed itself in Syria and Armenia.

Although nothing of this music is extant in the direct form of manuscripts, we should regard it as having travelled West- wards with the Christian faith, rather than as lost, and look for it in the treasures of Byzantine and Latin melodies. Liturgiology would support this hypothesis; but detailed investigations are only possible when we have manuscripts with some kind of notation to which we can assign a date.

From the ninth century onwards there exists a complete system of notation common to Byzantium, Armenia, Georgia and Ethiopia; and traces of a notation are found in Syrian and Coptic Manuscripts. The Slavonic and South Russian notations come directly from the Byzantine. Parallel, how- ever, to these systems of notation, which serve the purpose of fixing the melody, there exists an early, simpler system for the correct reading of the Lections. All systems of musical notation originated with the system of lection-notations which continued everywhere unchanged until the thirteenth century.

The appearance of these lection-signs had been con- sidered only in Byzantine and Armenian Manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments, until I was able to point to the appearance of a similar system in fragments of Evangelaria and Nestorian hymns from the caves of Turkestan. Similar signs are also to be found in manuscripts of religious writings from Cambodia, while polychrome signs exist in Tibetan prayer-rolls. It is clear, therefore, that the system of lection- signs is not confined to Christian texts, but appears in the holy books of other religions as well. The object is always to stress particular words or phrases and to give directions for the cantillations. A further principle was established in the case of Byzantine Evangelaria. The lections-or Pericopes-for each day are so arranged that the last sentence of each section always has one of three or four variations of sign-order. At the end of the section the most emphatic signs appear, indeed each sign is generally doubled. From this we gather that the priest who read the lection was

7

8 Byzantine Music

expected to read the last sentence of the Pericope with the greatest emphasis, almost singing it, in order that the con- gregation might be prepared for the end and ready to join in with an "Amen." As every sentence in Byzantine prose had to end with a rhythmic cadence, the feeling for the rhetorical period being very strong, the reading of each Pericope was so arranged that the final sentence formed a crescendo which closed with the reading.

The ecphonetic signs are an aid to the reading of the Old and New Testaments, while Byzantine notation not only served to fix the hymn tunes, but also as a notation for the secular acclamations composed by court poets and composers for the Emperor.

The individual systems of notation are so distinct from each other that the peculiarities of each are visible at the first glance. On this point no differences of opinion among scholars have arisen. Fundamental differences exist, how- ever, with regard to the dating and naming of certain periods. The widest divergence is found between the dates given in the Greek catalogue and those assigned by Western scholars. A certain rivalry between the various monasteries must be taken into account, each monastery trying to make out that the manuscripts in its possession are older than they really are. Another difficulty arises from the deliberate archaising script of the liturgical books which baffles even the most expert palaeographers and leads to differences of several centuries in the assigning of dates. For instances, in the Pericopes of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, the scribes try to imitate the older uncial script of the fifth and sixth; and only in a few places, where in a hasty moment they forget to archaise, can one see that the whole process is one of imitation. An archaistic style is found in the hymn books also, for the scribes were instructed to copy already existing manuscripts and to preserve the exact spacing of the originals. Hence the text came to be regarded as a pattern to be pedantically copied. The musical signs were often added later in the space left for the purpose: they are generally in another hand-presumably that of a musician- and though they are often ill formed, they are always legible.

Examples of the earliest period of Byzantine notation have been preserved in manuscripts dating from the ninth to the twelfth centuries; no manuscript with musical notation is known earlier than the ninth century. But the developed state of the signs, which resemble Latin "Neumes" of the same period, suggests that it is only owing to external circum- stances, particularly to the Iconoclastic controversy, that we

Byzantine Music

have no earlier document. This notation has this in common with the Latin Neumes, that it does not provide for an exact statement of intervals. Gradually this was seen to be unpractical; but whereas the West adopted lines to show the pitch of each note, the East entirely reformed its notation. In the middle period there appeared, in place of the old approximate system, an exact notation of intervals, and, more than this, an exact system to show the rhythmical value of each note. Professor Fleischer, of Berlin, has been able, by means of a theoretical treatise-one of the many Papadike-to decipher the melodic line. But there still remains a great deal unexplained with regard to the signs. Why, for example, were there six different signs for a rise of the interval of a second ? In the theoretical treatises I found the following solution, giving the key for a satisfactory transcription. These six signs for the interval of the second represent six different shades of rhythm. If these different rhythmic nuances are to be observed in the case of another interval-a third, fourth, or fifth, each of which is represented by its own special single sign, then the following rule was observed. The rhythmic sign in question, which had previously also represented the interval of a second, was added to this new interval-sign, but merely in its rhythmic capacity. By this means the so-called "round" notation of the middle period has become legible. In my publication of 1918 I selected corresponding signs, taken from our modem notation, for these rhythmic nuances. I am pleased to say that, when Professors Tillyard, H6eg and myself discussed the question, my choice was accepted, with a few modifica- tions. Our transcriptions, therefore, of the music will agree to the last detail.

The middle period of Byzantine notation began, as my latest investigations show, a great deal earlier than was formerly supposed-namely, at the end of the eleventh century. The old Neume-notation existed parallel to the new for some time, while the improved notation of intervals was being introduced. The middle period lasted into the fifteenth century and was followed by the late Byzantine period during which the complementary red notes were introduced. This period lasted until the beginning of the nineteenth century. The signs had by then become so numerous that the singers could no longer understand them and the reformed Greek notation was therefore introduced which is still used in the printed choir-books.

The question of the part played by the changing of the notation now arises: that is to say, whether we can hope to

3 Vol. 59

9

Byzantine Music

penetrate the secret of the early Byzantine notation and whether the melodies in this notation are any other than those we already know in the middle period notation. Before I answer these questions, I must say something of the nature of the poems to which these melodies were sung-namely: the Kontakion and the Kanon.

Defined according to its contents, the Kontakion may be called a poetical sermon. It consists normally of from eighteen to twenty-four strophes, all structurally alike. At the beginning stands a strophe in another metre, the Kukulion: the individual strophes are connected alphabetically. Recent investigations have shown that the Kontakion is Syrian in origin and all its essential features are preserved in the chief forms of Syrian poetry-Memra, Madrascha and Sugitha. But how did Syrian ecclesiastical poetry come to influence Byzantine ? Syria was spared the waste of energy caused in Greek-speaking countries by the hostility of the educated, on the one hand, towards Christian ideas, and on the other, by the Christian refusal to accept heathen artistic forms. In Syria the new civilisation was a Christian one, and so the influence of the great Syrian poets-Ephrem, Narses, Kirillonas and Jacob of Sarug-on the new Byzantine ecclesiastical poetry is easy to understand.

The connection with Syria first became really important with Romanos, the greatest of the Byzantine poets. Romanos was born in Aleppo, at the end of the fifth century, of Jewish parents, and grew up in Beiruth, coming to Constantinople under the Emperor Anastasios. The decisive impression of his youth must have been the Syrian poet Ephrem. Many of Romanos's Kontakions are translations from Ephrem and the rest are written entirely under his inspiration. This influence of Syrian poetry is not confined to Romanos, but is noticeable in other Kontakion writers.

This form of poetry reached its first bloom at the beginning of the sixth century. From then on the Kontakion played a large part in the liturgy, until in the eighth century it was replaced by a new form of poetry, the Kanon. The Kanon is composed of nine odes, each of which consists of several (generally four) rhythmically similar strophes. The odes are modelled on the nine Canticles of the Old and New Testaments. From the fifth century onwards the recitation of the canticles played an important part in the liturgy, in company with the chanting of psalms, prayer and preaching.

Nothing definite is known of the origin of this new form, which reduced the Kontakion to a few strophes: recent

IO

Byzantine Music

investigations show that, as in the case of the Kontakion, Eastern, particularly Syrian and Armenian, influences were strong. In any case the Kanon exemplifies one principle which seems to me to be of ever growing importance for the whole of Eastern art-namely the principle of reiteration and variation, whether it be of a thought, of a pictorial representa- tion, or of a musical idea.

I will try to explain this in a few words. A wall painting in an Egyptian temple or a Buddha figure

in an Indian temple are both repeated countless times in order to print the picture, as it were magically, on the memory, and, on the same principle, we find wearisome repetitions in the Buddhist writings, the hour-long performances or Arabian song-cycles and the reiterated melodic phrases of Egyptian witches.

The European creates a work of art with a view to one single, short, intensely passionate moment of aesthetic appreciation: the Oriental repeats the representation, or provides it with almost unnoticeable variations, so that the appreciation of it becomes a form of meditation. This principle of variation may have worked its way into the Byzantine liturgy and the Kanon poetry under the influence of the new ideas made current by the development of the power of Islam, but the tendency was already there, and was merely accentuated.

It is generally said that the Kontakions are finer than the Kanons, but if so, how is it that the Kanons superseded the Kontakions? The only explanation is that the Kanons expressed the ideas and atmosphere of the eighth -century better than the poems of earlier generations. These highly elaborate variations on one idea clearly affected the faithful to such an extent that the individual words were lost and the many invocations and ejaculations of praise combined to form a mystical atmosphere in which the spoken word became merely a means to a state of ecstasy. (Some of these Kanons have been known for a long time in England, in the trans- lation of John Mason Neale, entitled Hymns of the Eastern Church, but it would require all the skill of a great poet to give a rendering of them which would reproduce the force of the original language and the boldness of the original images.)

In the eighth and ninth centuries a large number of new poems appeared, the most famous of them connected with the names of Andrew of Crete, John Damascene, Cosmas, Theodore, and Joseph of the Studion Monastery. The

II

Byzantine Music

production was so great that by the end of the ninth century hardly any new poems were admitted but these Kanons were regularly taken over into the liturgy.

What was this liturgy then ? Before all else it had the characteristic, at once Oriental

and mystical, of binding its hearers as by a spell. In this it is in direct contrast with the gravitas and majestas of the Roman liturgy. The congregation experienced the action of the sacred office, as the action of a mystery play, with Protagonist, Deutero- and Tritagonists. Exactly as in ancient mysteries, there was one moment of illumination when the presence of the Godhead was felt. The singers felt them- selves as " symbols of the angels," as one church writer says, " who guided the congregation to the song of the cherubim." They sang We who in secret set forth the Cherubim, and at the Communion in the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, they passed to eschatological mood and broke into the triumphant hymn Appear, appear, thou New Jerusalem.

As has been said before, for a long time the Canticles played a large part in this liturgy. These odes from the Old and New Testament were considered as divine hymns. But when the odes of the Kanons took the place of the Canticles, they were considered as earthly symbols of the heavenly hymns, in the same way as the singers symbolised the angels. Therefore, although these odes were composed for particular festivals and saints, they had still to be variations of the old Canticles. There was no question of a free, individualistic handling of a theme. But it would be a great mistake to see in this repeated treatment of the same narrow circle of subjects a poverty of invention. It should be regarded rather as something much deeper, as an example of the Oriental conception of the art permissible in an act of worship. There is no trace here of the Western conception of man's relation to the Deity: every detail of the cult, every ornament of the church was a trans- position of a divine appearance or power into something which earthly eyes and ears could seize.

The same is true of the music. The hymn tunes show different patterns on which a number of other melodies are modelled. The explanation must be that the composer did not have to compose an entirely different tune for a new Kanon: his task was rather that of a modest artisan who wished to add to an admired model something which seemed to him permissible as an intensification, a beautifying, or a small variation. The melodies sung in church were, to the composer and the congregation, imitations of the hymns

12

Byzantine Music 13

sung in God's praise by inspired saints and martyrs; these hymns in their turns imitating the divine canticles sung unceasingly by the angels in heaven. The composer's task was, therefore, not to compose as many original melodies as possible, but to write variations on a given melody in which some new feature appeared, despite a close connection with the original. The artist's expression must adapt itself to the liturgy and is never allowed to break the iron laws of the hierarchy by adopting a personal accent in its relations with the object of worship. The artist felt himself, in company with all other artists, as a link in a chain, with his place in the ranks of the faithful, his position determined by the measure of his piety. This ordering of the faithful passes over into the ranks of the celestial hierarchy, which one of the Fathers of the Byzantine church, Dionysius the Areopagite, explained so wonderfully. This art developed rather than evolved, its growth was directed inwards not outwards, and only a proper understanding of this principle can give a proper understanding of Byzantine Church music.

This leads us back to the question whether there is a real continuity in the Byzantine melodies preserved in manu- script, or whether the different notations correspond to contemporary groups of melodies which replaced each other as one notation replaced another.

As long as we were compelled to suppose that the round notation did not exist before the fourteenth century-a supposition based on the fact that our first manuscripts dated from between I250 and x300-it was impossible to know the relationship between the melodies in this notation and those of the early Byzantine. The early Byzantine was not a nota- tion of intervals and was therefore only legible to someone who already knew the melodies and used the notation as an aid to his memory, exactly as in the case of the Latin Neumes. Now, however, manuscripts have been found dating from the end of the twelfth century and I have managed to obtain a photograph of a Hirmologion from the Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos which must date at latest from the beginning of the twelfth century, probably from the end of the eleventh.

A comparison of the same poem set to music written in early and then in middle-Byzantine notation shows, by the similarity of the signs and their grouping, that in each case the melody is the same. I then inspected the manuscripts of the early Byzantine period more closely in order to see whether the same melodies appear in the early manuscripts I was able to establish their identity as early as a ninth

century fragment. This means that from the manuscripts which are preserved we can establish the continuity of a melodic tradition from the ninth to the fifteenth century. The old Neume notation of intervals was partly preserved in the twelfth century, while the new interval-notation was already coming into use. It is noticeable, too, that between the ninth and the fifteenth centuries not only did signs appear which regulated the rhythm and the manner of singing and make the grouping of the notes clear, but the melodies themselves became rather richer.

Let us take it then as an established fact that from the ninth to the fifteenth century we have a continuous tradition of melodies sung to the Kanons-that is, over a period beginning after the Iconoclastic controversy when a new intensive religious movement began, and extending over the full flower of the Empire in the tenth century, the Latin Empire and the rule of the Palaeologi, right to the fall of the city in I453. From all that we know of Byzantine religious art we have no reason to suppose that the Kanon writers of the eighth century set their odes to any other melodies than those which were used fifty and a hundred years later. We have every reason to believe that melodies existing in the ninth and tenth centuries were the same ones as those used by the Kanon poets. It is now known that the Hymnographers did not compose new melodies, but used already existing ones; that is to say, they took the Kontakion melodies and set them to new texts. But these Kontakion melodies date from the sixth century, even if some of them were not perhaps taken over from older times and were not originally Syrian. Therefore we see that a part of the melodies-before all else those of the model strophes, the Hirmi-go back to the sixth century and remained in use almost unchanged until the fifteenth.

After the fifteenth century Byzantine music changed its character under the influence of the Turkish domination. The church-singers were forced to earn their living by playing Turkish music in the houses and palaces of the Pashas. Their own style was thus corrupted and the old Diatonic character of the music changed. At this time new, highly- ornamented melodies began to replace the simple old ones, with the result that a reform of Byzantine music in the countries where the Greek church predominates was possible only by a return to the manuscripts, and only thus could new life come to the old music.

Let us now take a melody from the beginning of the Triodium, the book which contains the offices for the

Byzantine Music 14

Byzantine Music

Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee to Holy Saturday inclusive:-

---~ - E-p~-~_ _I.___L_Z_~__A #a * ps - -a os K - V - o - it p- Ke K fjutvos

ll ' . -

Karl Tc - A - v rp , u- a. - vo- t - Yd - /AYos,

> off-

rpo, - .A - oL -o_ - ._ - t- 8bwr - ro_

- ro.

A wc ^ rt ^^. e

&AA' o / u Kav-iXc . d . E -I vo0 J - OlE - -

orrv a-o y s8wi d O 6 - f 9tyd - X - o' - VOS

* - t - - TrV &w - pf - av 4V Tro - rotS To7S

0r-fv - y - /Ao7s arc-pl - JY ,(s, Xp-oT- r f 6 sE

A

S^FS ^- . T77 t) s - -

&s & .-d - Op - wos

This is a highly developed melody in the 1st Tone. If we compare it with the Introit of the Missa de Confessore Pontifice of the Latin church, we find a noticeable similarity which cannot be overlooked.

15

Byzantine Music STATUIT EI DOMINUS

A

.EfEK,______. :........

Sta -tu-it e - i Do - mi - nus

te - sta-men-tum pa - cis t prin

t J 4 I i . .

_ _

ci-pem fe - cit e - um ut sit il - li

_F ;_ _+-E+___ +K2 ^aK-^^-M-^-m-m~~^"m\? -w"

Byzantine Music

the Stichera for Lent and Eastertide, the Resurrection hymns from the Oktoechos and the Lenten Prosomoia, that is, strophes on a previous model-the Eothima or morning hymns of the Emperor Leo, the Exaposteilaria of Constantine Porphyrogenetes, and the Theotokia of John Damascene. It is very seldom, however, that such complete Sticheraria are found: one or more of the groups is generally wanting.

As we have already said, the Hirmi are the models on which others are composed. They are the oldest and most simple melodies.

Here is the first strophe of a Hirmos of the ist Tone taken from a morning-office for Low Sunday at the beginning of the Hirmologion.

_

> A -

'A- cr - ev, Tdv - frs hao2, 7ry K fvi - Kpss S o- Xou - as

*^gE^^^^ES^^ A

w

a

^- ? - . I----^ t -

*a-pa - ? rbv 'I - pa- -A ar- a - Ad - tav - nL

____> _ y_-_________ A __

Kal Y ,flu - 9(i 9a - Adr-

x8 Byzantine Music

composed. In the nineteenth century a wave of European influence led, in Greece, to the harmonisation of the old melodies, and consequently to a complete destruction of their original character. The same process will have to take place with the melodies of the Greek church as has already taken place with Gregorian music,-liberation from false harmonisa- tion and a restoration to their early simplicity. The position of Greek church music is much more favourable than was that of the Gregorian, since the Byzantine notation is much dearer in its rhythmical and dynamic signs. But one thing is necessary above all: the most important manuscripts must be published in facsimile and the melodies then published in their best versions, on the basis of a comparison of manuscripts. Hoeg, Tillyard and I have made every preparation for the work of publication; we are only waiting for the deciding impulse for the work to begin.

Let us now turn to secular music to see what part it played in the public life of Byzantium.

When a victorious Emperor returned to the capital at the end of the war he was hailed with acclamations in which his exploits were sung. These acclamations were written and composed by court poets and musicians. At Nikephoros's processional entry after the defeat of the Saracens the people sang:

Behold the morning star whose beams darken the sun: The Saracens' doom, Nikephoros the Ruler appears.

Then there followed a second acclamation called Polychronion since it contained wishes for a long life for the Emperor:-

Long life to Nikephoros the Ruler ! Honour him, all ye nations and bow low before the

mighty prince ! When an Emperor entered the Hippodrome he was

greeted by choirs of the Greens and the Blues singing anti- phonally and the same happened at church festivals. The most ceremonious were the Christmas celebrations when the Emperor came from his apartments into the full assembly. While he prostrated himself before the Ikons, a choir sang:-

May God protect thy majesty, divinely ordained, crowned and protected, mighty and holy for many years !

These acclamations were not exclusively confined to Emperors; princes of the church were also greeted. In this case the acclamations were included in the liturgy under the name of Euphemesis, and in this form they survive to the

present day. The ritual-books and the descriptions of foreign ambassadors give a picture of these festivals and show what a large part music played in the public life of Byzantium.

On Christmas Eve the Emperor came to the church to pray and receive communion. The court and clergy were assembled beforehand, the princes of the Empire and the Church with their flags behind them. The Emperor's chaplains then entered, fully robed, and behind them again the Imperial musicians (flutes, horns, trombones and cymbals). The Emperor with his suite then mounted the Tribune which was hung with curtains. He changed his robes and, when the curtains were drawn, he was fully visible, alone. The singers then started the Imperial hymn, the instruments joined them and continued after the end of the hymn, until the Emperor gave with a cloth the sign to cease. The singers then started the Christmas hymn, Christ Who crowned thee Emperor is born. Several strophes followed, with acclamations for the Emperor and the Empress. While the curtains were drawn the Imperial hymn was sung again and with another fanfare the ceremony closed.

This one example may serve to show how magnificent the many other festivals were. Their year was full of them- the Christmas festival at which the prisoners of war were fed; the performance of the Christmas play; Palm Sunday ceremonies; the Washing of the Feet on Maundy Thursday; the Good Friday procession; the Easter festival; the Blessing of the Grapes; and the races to commemorate the founding of the city.

Nothing of all this music remains, except ecclesiastical fragments. Only the spirit of the music lives on in the festivals which the West took over from Byzantium and still celebrates.

What I have tried to say in a few words here will have shown you, I hope, that the problem of Byzantine Music is the problem of the art of a peculiar civilisation. You may perhaps feel as I did when I first realised the beauty and strength of these melodies, that this music enlarges our view of the world. The Byzantine Empire united East and West. In the same way an understanding of her music brings us to an understanding of the East and its music. What we need to-day is not merely to assimilate new kinds of knowledge, but rather to make every truly great and significant creation a part of ourselves. The purpose of this lecture will have been fulfilled if it has aroused in you a feeling that in Byzantine music a great art speaks to you.

Byzantine Music I9

Byzantine Music

DISCUSSION. THE CHAIRMAN: It is a great privilege for us to listen to-day to a most distinguished foreign scholar, one distinguished not only in research in various fields, but distinguished also as a composer for the theatre.

Byzantine music has for a long time been a very obscure subject, and the interpretation of it was confused and indeed erratic. Thanks to the work of Professor Wellesz and his collaborators, among whom I am glad to find our eminent Cambridge scholar, Prof. H. J. W. Tillyard, we are now on the way to a clear understanding of this difficult problem, based on sound historical and palaeographical research.

The importance of this research is twofold: in the first place it throws light on the history of Byzantine culture, and secondly, it points onward to a further musical problem which future generations will have to resolve. If we could obtain a really comprehensive view of all the earliest music of the Eastern churches, we should then be able to find out how much of our Western plainsong was derived from Oriental sources.

Mr. ROYLE SHORE: I recently met the Archimandrite of the Greek Cathedral in Bayswater who was naturally very interested in the subject of this lecture and would have liked to have come to it. But unfortunately, although an invitation had been sent to him, he had been prevented at the last moment from coming.

The music sung by the Clergy officiating in this Cathedral is the Byzantine form of plain-chant which obviously has affinities with the more familiar Western plain-chant, as one of this afternoon's examples plainly shows. This is inevitable. The singers, always unaccompanied, sing ancient melodies harmonised for voices in a modern diatonic form, and not with the modal restrictions used in harmonising Western plain-chant.

The West is like the East in that they have no written records of the use of notation in early days. Instruction was entirely oral. It is said that it took ten years to make a singer in the West.

I am very glad to hear the lecturer say that the music is being published: it is most desirable that it should be.

The LECTURER: It is important to distinguish between the practice of the present day and that of the " Golden Age" of Byzantine music. During the decay of the Byzantine Empire and particularly after the capture of Constantinople, Byzantine church music underwent important modifications, as I have already pointed out. At the present day traces of

20

Byzantine Music 21

Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Slavonic influences are all noticeable, influences which had a great effect on the rhythm as well as the melody. We cannot therefore be too careful to avoid making our conclusions, drawn from the present state of formality, apply to the middle ages.

Dr. FROGGATT: I understand that there are eighteen different scales in Byzantine music formed from seventeen tetrachords. Is that so ?

The LECTURER: In answer to the question of scales, theoretical treatises of modern Greek music speak of eight scales. Modern harmonisation naturally changed entirely the character of Byzantine melodies. The same is true of Gregorian music and the present tendency is to make all organ accompaniments as simple as possible; they should be merely a support to the voices. Nowadays attempts are often made in Catholic churches to sing Gregorian music with no accompaniment whatever.

In this connection I should like to refer to the collections of gramophone records (His Master's Voice), which were made two years ago in Solesmes.

Dr. COLLES: The lecturer has already answered to Mr. Royle Shore the question I was going to ask about the scale system in Byzantine music, but I should like to put a supplementary question. Was there any period at which the scale system was organised on a theoretical basis for this music, comparable to the Gregorian system of Latin plainsong ?

The LECTURER: I am more and more convinced that the question of scales was treated independently from the teaching of music. There exists a description from Mesante of the Church of the Holy Apostles where we read that directions such as nite, paranete, etc. " which nobody nowadays under- stands " were taught by mathematicians, but that " singing was taught by masters who conducted with their hand the course of melody" (Xffpovocia). The scales were gradually evolved from the melodies by a process of grouping certain melodic formulae (maqam) on which all melodies were built. I have studied the section " echoi" and have found that there the mode is not absolutely connected with a certainfinalis, but with the occurrence of a group of maqams which form the melody of each mode. The question of the scales and the maqams has not been approached from this angle until quite recently. It is a very important subject which should receive more attention. But it can only be studied successfully when the Byzantine melodies are better known, that is when they are published in a collected edition.

22 Byzantine Music

Mr. ROYLE SHORE: Has not the Byzantine modal system much in common with the Western system ?

The LECTURER: Yes, it has. Mr. ROYLE SHORE: Some early Western music, as it has

come down to us, appears to have been composed without regard to any modal system. This may have been the case with Byzantine music. Practice invariably precedes theory.

The LECTURER: Yes, that is true. The meeting closed with a vote of thanks to the Lecturer:

Article Contentsp. [1]p. 2p. 3p. 4p. 5p. 6p. 7p. 8p. 9p. 10p. 11p. 12p. 13p. 14p. 15p. 16p. 17p. 18p. 19p. 20p. 21p. 22

Issue Table of ContentsProceedings of the Musical Association, 59th Sess. (1932 - 1933), pp. i-xxiv+1-120Front Matter [pp. i - xix]The Musical Association. Report [pp. xx - xxiii]Byzantine Music [pp. 1 - 22]Musical Origins in the Light of the Musical Practices of Bushman, Hottentot and Bantu [pp. 23 - 33]The History of the Evolution of Pianoforte Technique [pp. 35 - 59]The Apprehension and Cognition of Music [pp. 61 - 84]The Romantic Spirit in Music [pp. 85 - 102]William Lawes and His String Music [pp. 103 - 119]