Medieval Academy of America

Review
Author(s): Miloš Velimirović
Review by: Miloš Velimirović
Source: Speculum, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul., 1977), pp. 641-643
Published by: University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2854910
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 Reviews 641
rejectthe significanceof funeral orations,which Cohen uses to establishthe motifsof
some tombs. Nothing said by the preacher of Henry II's funeralsermon can convince
me (as it does Cohen) that the artistof the tomb made Henri II's "transi"a symbolof
"glorifiedresurrection"(p. 172). To my eye the figureis the antithesisof a resurrec-
tion image. This illustratesCohen's main problem: it is one thing to explore the
subjective affinitiesthat exist between the funeral director's plan, the preacher's
funeral oration, the deceased's plan for his or her tomb, and the artist's(or artists')
execution of that plan, and put all these mattersinto the context of contemporary
thought and practice, but quite another to establish sound historicalrelationships
between them. Cohen sees the affinitiesbut exaggerates the relationships.She has
searched too far and seen too much. But this fault is less to be censured than its
reverse,and it can be forgiventhe more easilyin lightof the overall scholarlyquality
of the work.
RALPH E. GIESEY
Universityof Iowa

DIMITRI E. CONOMOS, ByzantineTrisagia and Cheroubikaof theFourteenth and Fifteenth

Centuries:A Studyof Late ByzantineLiturgicalChant. Thessaloniki: PatriarchalInsti-
tute for PatristicStudies, 1974. Pp. 383.
THE scholarlystudy of the Byzantine liturgicalchant has progressed by leaps and
bounds withinthe last quarter of a century.Some thirtyyears ago the total number
of scholars involved in the investigationof thisbody of music could easily be counted
on the fingersof one hand. Now there are many more, and a great deal has been
published on various aspects of the historyand evolutionof liturgicalmusic and even
on some areas of prosopography of composers of Byzantine music. Since the high
point in the mid-1960s, the number of published studies has decreased, but the
quality of the more recent works continues to rise.
The author of thisbook, ProfessorDimitriE. Conomos, was the last studentof the
"patriarch" of modern musicological study of the Byzantine Chant, Egon Wellesz,
who died in 1974 in his ninetiethyear. His study, dealing with two of the most
importantchants of the Byzantineliturgy,is not intended for a beginner but for an
advanced scholar who has mastered more than the rudimentsof this esoteric field.
The author presupposes a thorough background in liturgicalstudies in addition to
musicologicalexpertise. For anyone who is not up-to-date with recent liturgiological
studies, the introductorychapter on the Byzantine liturgies(pp. 13-21) may seem
bewildering, with statements begging for additional explanations and footnotes.
However, as a summaryof the "state of the art,"thischapter is succinctand presents
the background for the more detailed musicologicalinvestigationsof the two chants
which follow.Chapter one (pp. 25-41) presentsthe historicaldevelopment of several
types of Trisagia and Cherubic hymns and of their substitutesfor special services.
Since the author is a Greek (though raised and educated in Australia and trained at
Oxford), he occasionallyuses termsinsufficiently clear even for a well-readstudentof
the subject. For example, is the term "economy of God" (p. 32) identical in meaning
with "Condescension" (p. 275)? Why not use "coverings" instead of "kalymmata"
(p. 39) ?
Aftera thorough descriptionand enumeration of manuscriptsources (pp. 42-49),
Conomos makes an importantpoint about the monasticecclesiasticalchant- that it

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642 Reviews
emerged during the synthesisof the ByzantineOfficein the course of the fourteenth
century,and not before. The main body of the studyfollowson more than 300 pages
containingnumerous transcriptionsof melodies withappropriate commentaries.The
complex structuringof the renditionof the Trisagion is examined in great detail, and
the author submitsno less than seventeen differentmelodies of thisimportantchant
with an exegesis that is a masterpiece of erudition and scholarship. The related
exclamation "dynamis"appears in seven differentshapes and melodic variantsas do
the doxologies and special chants related to this segment of the Byzantineliturgy.I
mightadd that Lavra MS Lambda 165, cited indirectlyby Conomos (p. 70), definitely
is a fifteenth-century source. Of special interestare some settingsof the Trisagion
fromthe late fifteenth centuryattributedto Isaiah the Serb and located in a bilingual
source, MS 928 in the Athens National Library. The apparent conservatism in
melodic lines in some of these settingsappears to reflectthe problem of the transmis-
sion of melodies into another language, yet at the same time it seems to mirrorthe
gradual curtailmentof elaborate liturgicalpractices followingthe fall of Constan-
tinople in 1453.
The Cherubic hymn,which is sung at the beginning of the "Mass of the Faithful"
upon the departure of the Catechumens, has never before been presented withsuch
clarityand such a multitudeof settings.Conomos presentsfulltranscriptionsof some
sixteen differentmelodies, some of which are attributedto specificcomposers and
which reveal individual compositional styles.In addition the author discusses eleven
differentsettingsof "Nyn dynamis" (the substitutefor the Cherubic hymn in the
Liturgyof the Presanctified),four settingsof "Tou deipnou sou" sung on Maundy
Thursday (previously studied by Kenneth Levy), and the Holy Saturday hymn. If
there is any specificcriticismthat mightbe raised in connection with the transcrip-
tions,and some of these are quite long (one version alone covers fourteen pages of
tightlyprinted music!), it is that Conomos ignores chronology and selects what he
believes to be the "authentic" or "best" version of the hymn. He does not offerthe
reader a directinsightinto the chronologyof the variants,whichare quite profuse in
a number of manuscripts.It is clear, however, that a comparative examination of
melodic variants(not all of which are important)would have swelled the size of this
volume to unmanageable proportions. Besides, anyone interestedin variantshas in
this volume the basic version and can proceed with comparative research into the
styles and idiosyncrasies of various scribes. On the basis of my experience with
Byzantine musical manuscripts,I believe that more detailed studies will in no way
invalidate the basic premises of Conomos's findings,though such studies will be
necessary to reveal the peculiarities of certain local (urban or monastic) traditions.
Withinthe scope of Conomos's work, which representsthe firstsynthesisof its type,
the study of variants would only be distracting.
The analyticalchapters of Conomos's volume deal withthe intercalatedlettersand
meaninglesssyllables(ch. 5), modal signatures(ch. 6), and the "cheironomiai"(ch. 7).
Conomos's examination of the patterns of melodic embellishmentand especially of
the insertionof meaninglesssyllables(teretismata)into flowingmelodic lines contrib-
utes in an importantway to our understandingof this phenomenon, and for the first
time it is presented in English with extensive documentation. This chapter and the
next one (on modal signatures) are non-controversialeven when correctingsome
earlier misinterpretations.
The last chapter, however, as I read it, may emerge as a potential source of
controversies. In it Conomos skirts the interpretationof "cheironomy" which is

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 Reviews 643
probably the firstone in most readers' minds, namely,"gesticulation."Although he
discusses in detail the significanceof the so-called added signs that mighthave had
"stenographic"implicationsfor performers,he never stateswhetherthese signs were
"re-created" by "gestures" of the choir-leaders. He suggests that signs "guided" the
singers toward a rendition which was, presumably, more closely tied to the oral
traditionand the trainingprocess than a renditionbased on an explicitperformance
of the intervallicnotationalone. This is, admittedly,a most difficultpoint to resolve
after the passage of centuries. Conomos's interpretationis at times very close to
certain contemporary Greek teachings that have been viewed with a degree of
suspicion by a number of Western scholars. Yet if Conomos's thesis proves to be
correctand supported by additional evidence yet to be investigated,it may be one of
the mostimportantbridges toward betterunderstandingof a process which,it seems,
has bee,npreservedin modern Greek singingpracticeand, even more importantly,in
modern Greek writingsabout the medieval tradition and its relationship to the
present-dayinterpretation.Conomos suggeststhat,in the absence of a "spelling-out"
of certain melodic figures by individual intervallic neumes, the presence of a
"cheironomia" sign implies that a "stenographic"reminderis writtendown and that
regardless of the neumes a certain melodic turn is to performed. This sounds
extremelyclose to the interpretationsof Psachos and a number of other contempo-
raryGreek interpretersof the chant. Conomos's documentation,however,is forceful
and quite plausible when dealing withsigns for musical dynamicsratherthan melodic
shorthand.
Some minor correctionsshould be noted: p. 288, the expression "Transit of the
Relics" does not seem to conveyas clearlythe idea of the removal of relicsfrom one
place to another as does the Latin "translatiocorporis."The only serious misprintin
the bibliographyis "Chaninov," which should read "Brianchaninov"(p. 370). Apart
fromwhat is noted in a listof errata,thereare a few other misprints,but theydo not
detractfrom fluentreading.
In summary,Conomos's study of the Byzantine Trisagia and Cheroubika of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries represents probably the most significant
musicologicalpublicationin a decade in the fieldof studies on the Byzantinechant. It
is an extremelyimportantcontributionto a betterunderstandingof the two "musical
pillars" of the Byzantineliturgy.Finally,it is the most comprehensivestudyavailable
of the musical styleof the Byzantine chant and of some of the liturgicalpractices
during the last two centuriesof the existence of the Byzantine Empire. The musical
examples are both clear and fullylegible and theycontain no controversialpoints in
theirtranscriptions.The volume is handsomelybound. It is a mustfor any studentof
the historyof liturgicalchants, whether Easter or Western.

MILOS VELIMIROVIdC
University of Virginia

E. RANDOLPH DANIEL, The Franciscan Conceptof Mission in the High Middle Ages.
Lexington: UniversityPress of Kentucky, 1975. Pp. xvi, 168. $11.25.
THIS is not a substantialor closely worked study of an area of Franciscan history.It
is, however,a useful and carefullythoughtout enquiry into one central and impor-
tant theme in the tradition of the Order, and it is studied over a wide range of
sources.

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