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Some new Specimens of Byzantine Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

H. J. W. Tillyard
Affiliation:
University College, Cardiff

Extract

As an illustration from a good manuscript in the Round Notation I have chosen a Canon of which I can present a reproduction from my own photographs. It is in the First Authentic Mode, and belongs to the Sunday before Christmas (fourth in Advent). This Canon does not find a place in the service-books now in use, but the words are in the printed Hirmologus. As poetry they are neither better nor worse than the ordinary run of Byzantine Canons.

Our text is from the Hirmologus, Cryptoferratensis E. γ. II, date about 1280. Our facsimiles contain another Hirmus coming before the Advent Canon, namely, the last ode of the Canon, ω̨̕δὴν ἐπινίκιον ἄ̣σωμεν πάντεσ,2 likewise in the First Authentic Mode.

Translations. Canon ᾠδὴν ἐπινίϰιον last ode: ‘Let us all magnify the light-bringing Cloud, by whom the Lord of all, like rain from heaven upon a fleece of wool, came down; and for our sake was made flesh and became man, though He was from everlasting—let us magnify her, the Holy Mother of our God.’

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1926

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References

page 151 note 1 The structure of the Canon has been fully explained by Neale and by W. Christ and M. Paranikas. Here only a summary of the information will be needed. A Canon theoretically consists of nine odes, based upon the nine chief canticles (eight from the Old Testament,and the Magnificat), which were, as we should say, regarded as canonical. Each ode has two or more verses in the same metre, the first verse being called the Hirmus, and setting the type for the others. As each ode corresponded to one of the canticles, it was expected to contain some allusion to the same subject, or, at any rate, a reminiscence of its style. Further, a special verse in honour of the Virgin Mary might form the conclusion of every ode. The nine canonical canticles were the following:—(1) Miriam's Song (Ex. xv.); (2) Moses' Exhortation (Deut. xxxii.); (3) Hannah (Sam. ii.); (4) Habakkuk (Hab. iii.); (5) Isaiah (Is. xxvi.); (6) Jonah (J. iii.); (7) Daniel; (8) Song of the Three Children (Dan. iii.); (9) Magnificat. Both the passages from Daniel are in the Apocryphal portion. The second ode was only used in Lent; and therefore a good many Canons, like the present, have no second ode. The references to the Canticles are often rather perfunctory.

page 151 note 2 In Greek usually called εἱρμολόγιον Sometimes the name used instead of εἱρμός is καταβασία (i.e. an ode sung by both choirs together in the middle of the church), but the contents are the same.

page 152 note 1 I have pleasure in again thanking the Rev. Fr. Abbot, and also the Librarian and the Precentor of the Monastery of Grottaferrata, for much kind help and for facilities, most generously afforded, for study of their MSS.; and, fourthly, the Governors of the Hort Fund, for a grant in aid of my research.

page 152 note 2 Riemann, , Byz. Not., p. 81Google Scholar, has two versions of this Canon in different types of the ‘Linear.’ Neumes, from facsimiles. All readings of these systems are conjectural at present. Riemann also gives a facsimile of two pages of our codex. I have discussed his transcriptions in B.S.A., xxi. 138. (The words in the printed Hirmologus differ slightly.)

page 152 note 3 In the Greek text and in the numbering of the lines I have usually followed the printed Hirmologus, published by I. Nicolaides, Athens, 1906. Our MS. differs in a few trifling instances.

page 153 note 1 Cf. Jonah, chapter ii. ver. 3 and ver. 9.

page 153 note 2 In order to preserve the division of notes I have omitted έν, which appears in the printed version. For the same reason omit Τούς in Ode VIII, l. 5.

page 158 note 1 Bareia, Klasma, Oligon, Apostrophus—clear in MS.

page 160 note 1 The printed neumes begin here.

page 162 note 1 Text confused. We add the Duo Kentemata from the second hand.

page 164 note 1 Wellesz, E., Byz. Musik (Breslau, 1927).Google Scholar

page 164 note 2 This book contains the hymns for Lent and Holy Week.