and Cubism
Christian ideas and values as a form of theology.
In this sense, artistic texts form an integral of systematic theology. Fi-
nally, as a text for theology, art is especially related to both fundamental and
practical theologies. Art reveals significant aspects of the particular human
situations to which God's word is addressed, and on which theology must
therefore reflect if it is to be relevant and intellectually responsible. Art is
also one of the means by which the message is presented in a way that is
persuasive and attractive, giving a vision that can lead to moral conversion
and action. 8
If this is truly the case, then the combination of cubism and liturgy - to
take a provocative example - is one way in which "human situations to which
God's word is addressed and on which theology must therefore reflect" may
give "a vision that can lead to moral conversion and action". In addition, the
creation of art specifically for this new space, taking into account, as it were,
both liturgy and cubism, avoids the contentiousness and the complications of
removing sacred art from its context, as addressed by Malraux, Hayum and
Irvine.
It is clear, too, that such art cannot be mere posturing. It must understand
and transmit the theological aspects involved in its creation. This would surely
be a very high calling; do we take it seriously enough?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Irvine, Christopher, The Cross and Creation in Christian Liturgtj and Art, London: SPCK
2013
Moody, I van, "Contemporary Art as Theophany", available at http:// www.orthodox-
artsjoumal.org/ contemporary-art-theophany-2/
[Papadopoulos] llan:a86n:ouA.o<;, L't., lla:rpoA_oyia, T6J.to<; A, Aefjva: rPllYOPll 2011
Viladesau, Richard, Theology and the Arts. Encountering God through Music, Art and Rhet-
oric, New York/Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press 2000
West, Rebecca, "The Duty of Harsh Criticism," in The New Republic, 7 November 1914,
18
8 Viladesau, ibid., 124.
16
PTURE
Interpretation by contemporary Eastern Christians of the theme of
conference of the International Society for Orthodox Church Music
the title of the present volume) "Creating Liturgically:
Music" is likely to depend on the prevailing musical practices
own churches. Those whose traditions of liturgical singing long ago en1b1:aced
polyphonic arrangements of chant and free composition for mixed
may envision composers working in staff notation to create new
tions or completely original music for what is essentially a fixed "'""""'"'"'t-"~'"" 7
hymns transmitted in the service books of the Byzantine rite. Meanwhile
ers whose hymnody remains heavily dependent on oral transmission
to perceive the music and text as fundamentally interrelated, bound t-~r.~H,.,...~
in ways that may be stretched through greater or lesser melodic elaboration
but not completely reconfigured.
The latter approach generally fits the experience of modern Balkan and
Middle Eastern Christians whose liturgical expectations have been shaped by
received traditions of Byzantine chanting, in which most hymns are either idi-
omela possessing essentially unique, through-composed melodies, or metrical
and melodic contrafacta (prosomoia) to specific prototypes contained within a
circumscribed repertory of model hymns (automela or, in the case of canons,
heirmoi). Relationships between text and music within any given hymn are
governed largely by the melodic formulas available within the System of the
Eight Modes (Octoechos) for its particular musical mode and stylistic genre. 1
Although the melodic content of these formulas may have changed over time,
one may see essentially the same structural principles operating over the last
millennium in Sticheraria, Heirmologia and other musically notated collec-
tions of Byzantine hymnody. 2 Greater understanding of how past generations
of Eastern Christians "created liturgically" may be gained by placing the con-
I Hieromonk Ephraim ofStAnthony's Monastery in Florence, Arizona, USA has com-
piled an extensive catalogue of formulas based on published sources in the New (Chry-
santhine) Method of Byzantine musical notation organised by mode, genre (Heirmologic,
Sticheraric and Papadic), and syllable-count. See http://www.stanthonysmonastery.org/mu-
sic/Formula.html
2 See, for example, the diachronic treatments of Byzantine hymnody in Spyridon St.
Antoniou, To E:ippoA,6ywv Kai ~ 1rapri6oart roiJ ptA,ovc; rov, Institute of Byzantine Musi-
cology Studies 8 (Athens: Institute of Byzantine Musicology, 2004); and I:n:upibwv Lr.
Avrwviou, MoprpoA,oyia ri'jc; Bv(avnvi'jc; MovmKi'jc; 'EKKA,17ma<mKi'jc; MovmKi'jc; [Morphology
of Byzantine Ecclesiastic Music] (Thessalonica: 'EKbOO"ctc; Bavtac;, 2008).
17
 Alexander
tents of books sources '"'H-.< ....
er historical contexts of worship and piety as preserved in Orthodox service
books, collections of rubrics, canonical legislation, and patristic writings.
The aim of my prior study "Hesychasm and Psalmody" was to achieve such
an understanding for later thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Byzantium, a
period prior to the modern invention of the terms 'Byzantine chant' and 'Byz-
antine music' when the term psalmodia embraced the rendering of both biblical
psalms and extra-scriptural hymnody. 3 Within that historical context "psalmo-
dy" proved to be not only a textually but also a musically ambiguous term. As
had been the case in Eastern Christianity since Late Antiquity, psalmodia of the
late Byzantine period encompassed a spectrum of practices ranging from the
grand and carefully choreographed sung worship of cathedrals to the medita-
tive use of the Psalter by ascetics, amongst whom the use of the verb 'to chant'
(psallein) might indicate forms of recitation or reading with a negligible or non-
existent musical component.
Today one finds in Eastern Orthodoxy a similarly broad range of approach-
es to the performance of Byzantine hymnody, with variations observable both
within and across jurisdictions. The remainder of this study will briefly con-
sider only one of form of variation in hymnodic practice, namely that of ren-
dering in intoned recitations (cantillation) or a plain-speaking voice (a practice
generally avoided by northern Slavs) hymns that, whether according to the cir-
cumstances of their composition or prevailing use, were historically intended
for melodic performance. Contrasting examples of this phenomenon may be
seen in modern Greek and Russian approaches to the celebration of Saturday
vespers and Sunday matins. In Russian usage the ancient evening hymn "Joy-
ful Light'' (Phos hilaron) and the canticle of Symeon (Luke 2:29-32) are usually
sung chorally, but contemporary Greek rubrics place both among the geron-
tika traditionally recited by the monastic superior (geron) or some other se-
nior figure. 4 The troparia of the Royal Office found at the beginning of matins
are heard today in both traditions without their well-known melodies. Other
morning hymns read simply in modern Greek practice are hypakoai, konta-
kia, oikoi, and the Resurrection Ode 'Having Seen the Resurrection of Christ'. 5
Depending on the time available, Greek cantors may render the heirmoi and
troparia of kanons with or without their melodies, while the prevailing Rus-
sian practice is to sing only the Paschal Canon is in full.
This brief and far from exhaustive list of variations in the application of
melody to the weekend offices of the Resurrection is only meant to be indica-
3 Alexander Lingas, "Hesychasm and Psalmody," in: Mount Athos and Byzantine Mo-
nasticism: Papers from the Twenty-eighth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Bir-
mingham, March 1994, ed. Anthony Bryer and Mary Cunningham, Society for the Promo-
tion o.fByzantine, Studies 4 (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), 155-68.
4 Archimandrite Ephrem Lash, The Office of Vespers for Sundays and Feasts Trans-
lated from the Greek Original (Manchester: StAndrew's Press, 2000), 22,27 and 58.
5 Hypakoai and kontakia are, however, sung melodically in the sequence of hymns fol-
lowing the Introit (Eisodikon) of the Divine Liturgy).
18
Alexander
Orthodox worship may also arise in connection
psalmody as the prokeimena and alleluiaria of Liturgy,
Greek churches underwent a demusicalization that is only now J.'.L~'"""'"u
ing reversed as a result of liturgical renewal. 6
Accounting for specific divergences in the application of Hl<:Lv'"''"'-
versus cantillation in the contemporary Byzantine rite
chronic study of the musical enrichment or impoverishment of SDt~Cillc
tories of hymnody and psalmody, as well as of the forms of worship to
they are attached. Bearing in mind that this publication is directed .-"""~'"" 0
broad audience of church musicians, however, I will devote the
this short essay to an overview of the demusicalization of hymnody as a
torical phenomenon in both the public worship and the private
Byzantine Christianity. This becomes evident in documents from the cen-
tury onwards in which troparia, canons and other chants originally composed
for communal worship were assimilated for private prayer and devotion in
ways that made their musical components optional or superfluous. I will be-
gin by noting distinctions made in Late Antiquity between biblical psalmody
and Christian hymnody that render the selective melodic impoverishment of
the latter in Byzantine monasticism somewhat surprising.
LATE ANTIQUITY
Scholars now recognise that the 'psalms, hymns and spiritual songs' of Ephe-
sians 5:18-20 and Colossians 3:16-17 were not technical terms denoting partic-
ular types of chants, but synonyms indicative of the fluid boundaries between
psalmody and hymnody in early Christianity. 7 Only a few of the many extra-
scriptural hymns employed by Christians prior to the canonization of scripture
in the fourth century AD. were conveyed into the traditions of Byzantine lit-
urgy, the two most notable examples being the evening hymn of thanksgiving
6 I survey these changes in Alexander Lingas, "Tradition and Renewal in Greek Ortho-
dox Psalmody," in: The Psalms in Community: Jewish and Christian Textual, Liturgical and
Artistic Traditions, ed. Harold W. Attridge and Margot Elsbeth Fassler (Atlanta: Society of
Biblical Literature, 2003).
7 James W. McKinnon, ed. Music in Early Christian Literature, Cambridge Readings
in the Literature ofMusic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 15-16. Recent
overviews of musical practice in early Christianity are John Arthur Smith, Music in Ancient
Judaism and Early Christianity (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 20 ll) 182-87, and Christopher
Page, The Christian West and Its Singers: The First Thousand Years (New Haven and Lon-
don: Yale University Press, 2010) 55-87.
19
 Alexander
"Joyful Light" (Phos section of Doxology,
which bears 'Morning Hymn' (Hymnos heothinon) included among
canticles of the Codex Alexandrinus. 8 If the prohibition of so-called "private
psalms" by Canon 59 of the Council of Laodicea during the later fourth cen-
tury is at all indicative, most existing extra-scriptural hymnody appears to
have been rendered obsolete by the processes of doctrinal consolidation that
engaged the Christian Church as it emerged fully into the public life of the Ro-
man Empire. With a few notable exceptions, the impetus for the composition
of new Christian hymns in much of the Mediterranean basin was temporarily
overtaken by the progress of what James McKinnon labelled "the Psalmodic
Movement": the adoption of the biblical Psalter together with a selection of
biblical canticles as the primary textual resources for private devotion and mu-
sical expression in public worship. 9 By beginning of the fifth century one may
discern in Christian psalmody a diversity of musical practices comparable to
that found later during the twilight centuries of Byzantium, ranging in com-
plexity from the melodically attractive renditions of responsorial and antipho-
nal psalmody of major cathedrals to the devotional murmuring of solitaries in
the Egyptian desert.
Although some Late Antique authors wrote hymns as literary exercises for
private devotion (St Gregory the Theologian being the most notable among
them), Byzantine hymnography essentially followed cathedral psalmody in
its development. 10 St Romanos the Melodist belonged to a group of poet-com-
posers who adapted the call-and-response structures of antiphonal psalmody
to the creation of paraliturgical works akin to homilies in their structure and
original use as interludes between the official services of all-night vigils in
sixth-centurr_S::onstantinople.U Whereas the kontakia of Romanos were never
8 A general treatment of this material is Celine Grassien, "Greek hymns, archaeology,"
(Canterbury Press, accessed June 5, 20 15), http://www.hymnology.co.uk/g/greek-hymns,-
archaeology. On the evening and morning hymns, see Peter Plank, C/Jmr; i2ap6v: Chris-
tushymnus und Lichtdanksagung der .friihen Christenheit, vol. 20, Hereditas 20 (Bonn:
Borengasser, 2001), and James A. Miller, "'Let Us Sing to the Lord': The Biblical Odes in
the Codex Alexandrinus" (Ph.D. diss., Marquette University, 2006).
9 James McKinnon, "Desert Monasticism and the Later Fourth-Century Psalmodic
Movement," Music & Letters 75 (1994). The conclusions of McKinnon are refined in Jo-
seph Dyer, "The Desert, the City and Psalmody in the Late Fourth Century," in: Western
Plainchant in the First Millennium: Studies in the Medieval Liturgy and Its Music, ed. Sean
Gallagher, et al. (Aldershot, Hants, England and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003); Page,
The Christian West and Its Singers, 131-54, the latter of whom traces the pre-history of the
'psalmodic movement' to the earlier 'psalmody of house-ascetics'.
10 A general treatment of the origins of Byzantine psalmody is Robert F. Taft, S.J.,
"Christian Liturgical Psalmody: Origins, Development, Decomposition, Collapse," in:
Psalms in Community: Jewish and Christian Textual, Liturgical, and Artistic Traditions, ed.
Harold W. Attridge and Margot Elsbeth Fassler, Society of Biblical Literature symposium
series (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003).
11 See Miguel Arranz, "Romanos le Me lode," in: Dictionnaire de Spiritualite Ascetique
et Mystique, Doctrine et Histoire ( 1988); Alexander Lingas, "The liturgical place of the
kontakion in Constantinople," in: Liturgy, Architecture and Art of the Byzantine World:
20
m
replaced fixed
services celebrated at
dependencies. 12 Iadgari,
Georgian of anonymous hymns created for Jerusalem
represents an early attempt to codify
variously by liturgical genre, musical mode, occasionally Ha-
giopolite calendar. The next historical stage in the development of hymnody
for the rite of the Jerusalem is represented by the (New) Tropologion, which
contains texts attributed to such poet-composers as Sophronios, Da-
mascus and Andrew of Crete.
Between the sixth and the eighth centuries, as Stig Simeon
has shown, some ascetics resisted the absorption of Hagiopolite
hymnography into monastic worship.B The Narration of the Abbots and
Sophronios, for example, describes an encounter with Sinaite monks whose
leader Neilos rejected the possibility of following urban Christians em-
bellishment of the Palestinian Divine Office with either melodically
singing - described in the Narration as "chanting and singing with and
14
mode" (' 'JHiAAstv Kai libstv J.!ZTU J.lelvouc; Kai ilxou') - or hymns (troparia) that
supposedly obscured psalmody with unnecessary patter ('f3anolvoyia'). 15 In Je-
rusalem, communities of urban ascetics had been participating in cathedral
worship since at least time of the visit of the Spanish pilgrim Egeria at the end
of the fourth century. Their successors, who were known as the spoudaioi, were
fully invested in the new hymnodic repertories of the Hagiopolite Divine Of-
!ict: and, ~o~!he efforts ~f sl1chE_~et-<::om~ser,s~s John of Damascus, did
Papers of the XVIllinternational Byzantine Congress (Moscow, 8-15 August 1991) and
Other Essays Dedicated to the Memory ofFr. John Meyendorff, ed. Constantin C. Akentiev,
Byzantinorossica I (St. Petersburg, 1995).
12 On the development of the Palestinian Divine Office, see Stig Simeon Freyshov, "Rite
of Jerusalem," (Canterbury Press, accessed June 5, 2015), http://www.hymnology.co.uk/r/
rite-of-jerusalem.; and Stig Simeon R. Freyshov, "The Georgian Witness to the Jerusalem
Liturgy: New Sources and Studies," in: Inquiries into Eastern Christian Worship: Selected
papers ofthe Second International Congress ofthe Society ofOriental Liturgies, Rome, I7-
21 September 2008, ed. Bert Groen, Steven Hawkes-Teeples, and Stefanos Alexopoulos,
Eastern Christian Studies I2 (Leuven: Peeters, 2012).
13 Stig Freyshov, "La reticence a I'hymnographie chez des anachoretes de I'Egypte et
du Sinai' du 5e au 8e siecles," in: L 'hymnographie: Coriferences Saint-Serge, XL VIe Se-
maine d'etudes liturgiques, Paris, 29 juin-2 juillet 1999, ed. Jean Claire, Achille M. Triacca,
and Alessandro Pistoia, Bibliotheca Ephemerides Liturgicae Subsidia 105 (Rome: C.L.V.-
Edizioni Liturgiche, 2000).
14 Augusta Longo, "Il testo integrale della "Narrazione degli abati Giovanni e Sofronio"
attraverso le 'EpJ.!TJVdat di Nicone," Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici N.S. 2-3 (1965-
66), 254.
15 Panagiotis. A. Skaltsis, 'H Jlapal5orYf! rfjr; Kmvfjr; Kai rfjc; Kar' ibiav Jlpom:vxfjr; 11e
eibzKft avarpopa mo 'Dpo16yzo roiJ f>rtKapa (Thessalonica: 'EKooaw; IT. floupvapu, 2008)
179; Longo, "Il testo integrale," 262.
21
 and
to expand Fmyshov suggested
St Theodosios may have been another major centre in
during this period, contributing to the process of the dissemination of the Pal-
estinian monastic office in a musically developed form to Southern Italy and
Constantinople, where it was taken up and further developed by the monks of
the St John Stoudios under its Abbot Theodore early in the ninth century. 16
MIDDLE 8Y2ANTIUM
During the Middle Byzantine period, that is from the end of Iconoclasm in the
middle of the ninth century until the conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth
Crusade in 1204, composers and poets working in locations from Southern It-
aly to the Middle East greatly enriched the repertories of hymns in Palestinian
genres such as the sticheron and canon, while also creating a small number of
new forms of hymnography. 17 Every day of the fixed and movable cycles of the
Byzantine liturgical year thereby came to possess one or more sets of proper
hymnody to adorn the fixed psalms and canticles of the Horologion, much of
it in the form of contrafacta to an increasingly circumscribed group of model
melodies. With more hymns now in circulation than could be accommodated
within the major daily offices of evening and morning prayer (vespers and
matins), hymns began to migrate to other services, both public and private.
This was most particularly true of canons, which came to be performed not
only at matins but also at compline, the midnight office, or indeed any time
found suitable for the celebration of a supplicatory service (paraklesis).
This period also witnessed diversification in the methods of performing
hymns with or without biblical psalmody. Some Middle Byzantine Stoudite
and South Italian sources for the Great Hours of Holy Friday, Christmas and
Theophany bear the marks of strong influence from the Constantinopolitan
cathedral tradition: proceeding from the opening exclamation 'Blessed is the
Kingdom' to diaconal litanies and antiphonal psalms in which the stichera
from the rite of Jerusalem have been incorporated as final refrains (perissai). 18
On the other hand, there are many instances where hymns originally com-
posed for public musical performance are absorbed into private devotions
where their melodic delivery was, at best, optional. The single largest category
of such instances would be occasions when portions of the Divine Office were
performed privately in the cell as part of a monk's personal devotions. Out-
side of Lent in the Constantinopolitan monastery of the Theotokos Evergetis,
for example, the minor offices of the day were customarily performed in the
cells.l 9 Some monasteries opted for the celebration of the midnight office in
16 Freyshov, "The Georgian Witness," 254.
17 A recent overview of these developments is Stig Simeon Froyshov, "Byzantine rite,"
(Canterbury Press, accessed 5 June 20 15), http://www.hymnology.co.uk/b/byzantine-rite
18 Julia Schlichtina, "The Troparia ofthe Great Hours during 1100 Years," in: Psaltike:
Neue Studien zur Byzantinischen Musik. Festschrift fur Gerda Wolfram, ed. Nina-Maria
Wanek, Praesens Byzantinistik (Vienna: Praesens, 2011 ), 313-34.
19 John Eugene Klentos, "Byzantine Liturgy in Twelfth-Century Constantinople: An
22
Alexander Music as and
U.UVU.\.-U it- also
vate before attending matins,
rubrics mandating
formed 'in cells' on.,.,.,.·~hr·u
in the wider context of in a study
Hypotyposis for Stoudios by Niketas Stethatos,
Symeon the New Theologian, has noted as a general'liturgisation'
monastic life in eleventh-century Constantinople, another
was that monks in some houses assumed obligation of
days with private recitation of the mid-hours (mesoria). 20
Hymns made their way into all sorts of devotions LVJL1U'UL•.cu.
daily cycle of major and minor offices. Appearing in mamutscJ~IP'tS
dices to the Horologion, interspersed throughout the Psalter/1 or att;:tc.tted
various types of prayers, their expected form of performance -
private? Silent or sung?- is often far from dear. The ninth-century
ian Horologion Sinai gr. 864, for example, features an appendix canons and
kata stichon hymns,22 while Stefanos Alexopoulos and Annewies van
have noted the regular appearance of the Holy Week hymns ToiJ &invov (JOV and
'Ev r:a'lr; Jcap1Cp6r:17m among sets of pre-communion prayers.23
LATE BYZANTIUM
The trend toward accepting hymns originally composed for public worship
alongside biblical psalmody prayers in musically ambiguous devotions per-
formed outside of the Divine Liturgy or the communal offices of vespers and
---~···-··-~----~~-·~----·~·-··--·--~--------·---~-·--~···--
Analysis of the Synaxarion of the Monastery of the Theotokos Evergetis (Codex Athens
Ethnike Bibliotheke 788)" (Ph.D. diss., University ofNotre Dame, 1995), 164.
20 Dirk Krausmi.iller, "Private vs Communal: Niketas Stethatos' Hypotyposis for Stou-
dios, and Patterns of Worship in Eleventh-century Byzantine Monasteries," in: Work and
Worship at the Theotokos Evergetis, 1050-1200, ed. Margaret Mullett and Anthony Kirby,
Be(fast Byzantine Texts and Translations 6.2 (Belfast: Belfast Byzantine Enterprises, School
of Greek, Roman and Semetic Studies, The Queen's University of Belfast, 1997), 309--28.
21 Georgi R. Parpulov, "Psalters and Personal Piety in Byzantium," in: The Old Testa-
ment in Byzantium, ed. Paul Magdalino and Robert S. Nelson, Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine
Symposia and Colloquia (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Col-
lection, 2010), 77-105.
22 Edited in Maxime Ajjoub and Joseph Paramelle, Livre d'heures du Sinal: (Sinaiticus
Graecus 864), Sources chretiennes 486 (Paris: Cerf, 2004). This manuscript is further anal-
ysed in Stig Simeon Froyshov, "l.facocJloB 6e3 nocJle~oBaHHii EOJlhlliHX lJacoB (seY:epHH H
yTpeHH): I1ccJ1e~osam1e He~aBHO H3~aHHoro lJacocJloBa Sin. gr. 864 (IX s.)," [The Book
of Hours without the Rites of the Great Hours (Vespers and Matins): The Study of the Re-
cently Published Horologion Sin. gr. 864 (9 c.) (Transl. from French by M. M. Bematsky).]
EozocJioecKue TpyObl43-44; 45 (2012 I 2013). For a thorough discussion of another Middle
Byzantine Horologion, see Jeffrey C. Anderson and Stefano Parenti, A Byzantine monastic
office, A.D. 1105 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 20 16).
23 Stefanos Alexopoulos and Annewies van den Hoek, "The Endicott Scroll and Its
Place in the History of Private Communion Prayers," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 60(2006):
145-88.
23
 Alexander
accelerated of ser-
vices of the Byzantine rite, period between the recovery Constantinople
from the Crusaders in 1261 and the Ottoman conquest of 1453 was marked by
the consolidation and dissemination of a "Neo-Saba'itic synthesis" between
Constantinopolitan and Palestinian that was promoted by Athonite monks. 24
Spiritually, it was the time of the triumph of hesychast spirituality as expressed
most notably through the synodal vindication of St Gregory Palamas. Musi-
cally, it was the period of the so-called" Ars Nova" of St John Koukouzeles and
his colleagues, marked on the one hand by the re-editing of received reperto-
ries of hymnody and psalmody, and on the other by the musical innovations
associated with the flowering of kalophonic chant.25 These innovations includ-
ed the intense musicalization of psalmody from the festal All-Night Vigil, the
composition of some new hymns (notably including hymns in the so-called
"Political" 15-syllable verse employed also in contemporary secular poetry
and song), and the systematic recomposition of older hymns in the kalophonic
style (this includes their rearrangement of stichera anagrammatismoi).
In "Hesychasm and Psalmody" I observed that these musical and liturgical
developments were accompanied by the rekindling of Late Antique debates
over the spiritual efficacy of various public and private forms of psalmody, a
category to which hymnody had long been assimilated. Metropolitan Theo-
leptos of Philadelphia (1250-1322) was a hesychast who actively promoted
communal and private psalmody while maintaining that the latter was best
rendered with a quiet voice. Gregory of Sinai (c. 1265-1346), on the other hand,
was suspicious of melodic singing, designating psalmody a tool for beginners
that was inappropriate for advanced hesychasts who had achieved prayer in
the heart. Having thus set the stage, I went on to argue that the kalophonic mu-
sic chanted on weekends and other festal occasions in coenobitic communities
was, pace Gregory, a manifestation of spiritual boldness (parrhesia) that flowed
logically from hesychast reassertions of God's immanence and accessibility to
human beings in this present life, a theme also developed in contemporary ico-
nography through the interpenetration of the heavenly and earthly liturgies.
In more recent writings I have traced the roots of this notion of interpenetra-
tion between human and angelic worship to a longstanding Patristic tradition
of identifying human singers with angels whilst seeing earthly worship more
generally as a living icon of the perpetual heavenly liturgy. 26
24 Robert F. Taft, S.J., "Mount Athos: A Late Chapter in the History of the Byzantine
Rite," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 42 (1988): 179-94
25 Introductions are Edward V. Williams, "A Byzantine Ars Nova: The 14th-Century
Reforms of John Koukouzeles in the Chanting of Great Vespers," in Aspects ofthe Balkans:
Continuity and Change: Contributions to the International Balkan Conference held at
UCLA, October 23-28, 1969, ed. Henrik Bimbaum and Speros Vryonis, Jr., Slavistic Print-
ings and Reprintings (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1972), 211-29; and Gregorios Th.
Stathis and Konstantinos Terzopoulos, Introduction to Kalophony, the Byzantine Ars Nova:
The Anagrammatismoi and Mathemata of Byzantine Chant, Studies in Eastern Orthodoxy
(Oxford: Peter Lang, 2014).
26 Alexander Lingas, "From Earth to Heaven: The Changing Soundscape of Byzantine
24
Alexander Music as and
connection nn•·uu"'"'"'
mantic vocables such as ~<.-o.~o'""' teretismata was, to
only after of Byzantium the Gersasimos
27
Vlachos. Yet two recent Panagiotes Skaltsis of
was highly
late Byzantine hesychasts: a general study of relationship between
and public prayer in the Byzantine tradition, 28 a
of a manual of private prayer composed by an anonymous
tan monk of the late 13th or early 14th century who employed
"Thekaras" .29 The latter contains an alternative Horologion ~-~~·~r•rl
hymnody, an 'Ascetic Office' for use during Lent, a private Divine
which the biblical Psalter plays a central rok explanatory texts
legia written by the anonymous monk and his disciples. Some of the
this volume are assigned to particular musical modes, having been
or which are modelled after, items in standard service books of
rite. At the heart of the "Thekaras" collection, however, are long hymns to
Holy Trinity that belong to a literary tradition that reaches back to
of St Gregory Nazianzen and St Symeon the New Theologian. Many
devotional poems are attributed to "Thekaras" himself, but there are
by other authors including Nicephorus Blemmydes (1197 j 98-1272).
Solo or communal musical performance was always an option for in
standard genres, but the most remarkable hymns of "Thekaras" do not, as the
monastic authors contained in the collection themselves observe, follow any
of the usual prototypes. Indeed, Skaltsis has noted that the volume is far from
clear regarding questions of musical performance. "Thekaras" and his co-au-
thors sometimes refer to 'readers' ('wJ:s avayv&c:n') and reading ('i5ta~a~£Tro'),
while elsewhere they use ambiguous generic words for 'saying' (for example,
'dndv' and 'A£y8-cro') that contrast strongly with explicitly musical terms (in-
cluding' 6 aorov' and 'wJ:s aooum'). At all events, "Thekaras" and his pupil The-
odoulos are firmly of the opinion that a hesychast using a Divine Office con-
structed almost entirely of hymns is able to attain the heights of contemplation
achieved by those devoted to the monologic Jesus Prayer 'Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of God, have mercy on me (a sinner)'. They maintained that a "singer"
who internalized these hymns would "feel in his heart the Holy Spirit once
Liturgy," in Experiencing Byzantium: Papers from the 44th Spring Symposium ofByzantine
Studies, Newcastle and Durham, April 20II, ed. Claire Nesbitt and Mark Jackson, Soci-
ety for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies Publications 18 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013),
311-58.
27 On the musical development and theological interpretation of kratemata, see Grego-
rios Anastasiou, Ta Kpar~Jlma rn:l}v lflaAilKI} rtxvf{, ed. Gregorios Th. Stathis, Institute of
Byzantine Musicology Studies 12 (Athens: Institute of Byzantine Musicology, 2005).
28 Skaltsis, 'H llapabo011 rfjc; Kmvi'jc; Kai ri'jc; Km' ibiav llpoaevxi'jc;:
29 - - - , ed. 81JKapfJ.c;- Lrfxot elc; rove; Oeiovc; "Yf1VOvc;: Llzovvaiov Kai Ml]rporpavovc;.
nE:pi rwv "YflVWV- Bf{KapfJ. Movaxov, A Oy011CE:pi 1Cl!TCE:Wc;, 'Epf11]Veia rwv Tf1VWV- 'Qpo26yzov
rwv Odwv "Yf1VWV, )I(J1(1]7:1K1} JIKOAovOia, Xaponoza ntver,- BwbOVAOV Movaxov, Lltf/)'I](Jlc;
Kai Jlv0o26yzov 1CE:pi rwv "Yf1VWV (Mt Athos: EK&omc; l£pac; MOVT]c; navLOKpawpoc;, 2008)
25

in
-~-,~~"~--' as a 30
vealed to the physical eyes of the spiritually secure singer. 31
that, although it might begin with the bodily singing, Ult:umueJty
kind of "virtual singing" of the heart.
CONCLUSION
The preceding historical survey of musicality in Byzantine hymnody has re-
vealed changing notions of its textual and musical elements. The hymn rep-
ertories of Constantinople and Jerusalem were founded on liturgical (and
paraliturgical) creation, with texts and music composed simultaneously for
particular services or commemorations. With the massive expansion of hym-
nody in the Middle Byzantine period, hymns in Palestinian genres began to
separate from the biblical psalms and canticles of the communal offices that
had fostered their creation. Absorbed into quiet or silent personal devotions
alongside prayers and biblical psalmody, hymnody could shed its musical
components as incidental to the contemplative value of its texts. Yet it is un-
likely that someone who had already memorized these chants in church could
ever escape their sounds. Perhaps it was persistent memory of actual chant-
ing that motivated Thekaras and his disciple to call 'singers' those who used
hymns in their private devotions.
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28
SOME INITIAL PERSPECTIVES ON AN
TRADITION OF LITURGICAL MUSIC
The sacred marriage between words music in Christian
tainly had its fair share of contentious years. One unusually
occurred in the early twentieth century and concerned the proper execution
of rhythmic flow in the text in Gregorian chant. There were the
suralists" who argued passionately for a strict metrical rendering of
while others called "accentualists" advocated for a freer, more "speech
approach to the rhythmic placement of words. A proponent of the
tion was the eminent musicologist Fr Francis Haberl who is largely remem-
bered today for his adamant stance that to chant correctly, one must the
words as one would speak them."
We Orthodox composers and chanters might find this to be a rather unnec-
essary admonition. After all, should not the natural inflections and accentual
patterns of speech be an obvious starting point for any composer of chant? We
might even find some satisfaction in the knowledge that our chant traditions
supposedly blend this very principle into the compositional process itself. The
job of Orthodox composer- so we are told- is to translate creatively the syn-
tactical and stress-related elements embodied in the text into corresponding
musical figurations. To put it simply, when composing chant, the text should
11
drive" the music.
But is this really case when it comes to the musical repertoire of we who are
English-speaking Orthodox? A great deal of the music we sing in our klirosy
or choir lofts was not conceived entirely in in this manner. When the early
diaspora churches welcomed a new generation of native English speakers,
some well-meaning musicians began to adapt pre-existing Slavonic or Greek
chant into Anglicized versions. Unfortunately, this translational effort was, at
its core, unilateral. In other words, the text of a particular hymn may have
been converted, but the notes still maintained a structural fidelity to the pa-
rameters of the original language. While the process of adaptation preserved
the musical aspects of the work, it often did so at the expense of textual clarity
or naturalness. In hearing some of the less successful of these efforts, we must
11
admit that our own house is not completely in order when it comes to singing
as one would speak."
29
PUBLICATIONS OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ORTHODOX
CHURCH MUSIC
N2?

CREATING LITURGICALLY.' HYMNOGRAPHY AND MUSIC

PROCEEDINGS
OF THE SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
ORTHODOX CHURCH MUSIC
UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
JOENSUU, FINLAND
8-14JUNE 2015

THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR

ORTHODOX CHURCH MUSIC
2017
Publisher The International Society for Orthodox Church Music
(ISOCM)

Editors Ivan Moody and Maria Takala-Roszczenko

Translation from Russian into English language - Maria Takala-

Roszczenko

Sale The International Society for Orthodox Church Music

http:// www.isocm.com/ conference-proceedings

Cover design © Ikonifoto / Vesa Takala

The 2015 ISOCM Conference was a wonderful celebration of the work

Society achieved over the course ten years. When we began in 2005,
I suspect, would have quite imagined the huge success it has subsequently
enjoyed. The idea of celebrating the sixth edition of the International Confer-
ence on Orthodox Church Music would have seemed impossibly remote and
idealistic. But success is born from idealism, and particularly if that idealism is
born of humility in the service of God.
The desire of the members of ISOCM to return to Joensuu to share their
knowledge, meet like-minded people and, importantly, to learn, arises from
the desire, like that of the Psalmist, to "sing unto the Lord as long as I live".
We sing in different ways, to be sure, but one thing that had become very dear
over those ten years is that the minds and hearts of the members of ISOCM are
open, giving us the possibility of discovering, hearing and understanding dif-
ferent ways of singing unto the Lord.
We have become used to, and look forward to, the experience of hearing
about, participating in, and learning how to chant in, different musical tradi-
tions. Over the years we have discussed and experienced Byzantine chant,
in Greek, Slavonic, Romanian, Finnish and English; Georgian chant; Serbian
The International Society for Orthodox Church Music
chant; Znamenny chant, and composed polyphony from Bulgaria, Finland,
ISSN 1796-9581
ISBN 978-952-99883-6-5 Romania, Russia, Serbia, the United Kingdom and the United States written
between the 18th century and yesterday. This happens, to my knowledge, no-
where else, and the fact that so many participants return, and make enormous
efforts to travel to Joensuu and attend this Conference, underlines the real-
ity that we have achieved not only what we set out to do, but far more than
Printed by Grano, Jyvaskyla that; and this is entirely due to the membership of the Society and its good-
2017 humoured energy.