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Signatures and Cadences of the Byzantine Modes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2013
Extract
The output of books and articles dealing with Byzantine music has in the last few years been small. Dr. Wellesz has written a valuable summary of information not only on Greek, but also on Armenian and other Eastern ecclesiastical music. Prof. Psachos of Athens has tried to revive the so-called Stenographic Theory of the Neumes, which was current in the time of Chrysanthus. But, although his reputation as a musical investigator stands deservedly high, it seems very unlikely that Western scholars will accept the theory on the evidence afforded. In Dom Jeannin's introductory volume on Syrian music there is a good deal of information on the Byzantine system. Most important is his account of certain phonographic experiments made by Père Thibaut on the Modern Greek modes, proving these, where untouched by recent Western influence, to be identical with some of the Turkish scales. We must therefore recognise in England (as continental writers have long done) that the modern or Chrysanthine system is mainly Oriental and that its connection with the mediaeval modes is quite remote. In other words, Byzantine music is not a thing that any Greek cantor could teach us or a gramophone-record make intelligible.
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- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1925
References
page 78 note 1 Wellesz, E., Aufgaben u. Probleme auf d. Gebiet d. Byz. u. orient. Kirchenmus. (My review in Byz. Zeitschr. xxv. 376.)Google Scholar
page 78 note 2 ῾Η Παρασημαντικὴ τὴς Βυζαντινῆς Μουσικῆς (Athens, 1917.) (See my discussion of the theory in Laudate, Dec. 1924, p. 214.)
page 78 note 3 This I have already tried to prove on general grounds in B.S.A. xxii. 147.
page 78 note 4 I have attempted an appreciation of Jeannin's, Dom book, Mélodies Liturgiques Syriennes et Chaldéennes (Paris, 1925)Google Scholar in Laudate, Sept. 1925, p. 143. The notion current in England that the Modem Greek system is the true and only Byzantine music was fostered by S. G. Hatherly's Treatise on Byz. Music, which deals almost entirely with the modern system. There seems to be no doubt that in the Middle Ages the Byzantine and Gregorian modes used the same intervals. The best authorities hold that the earliest Jewish and Syrian melodies were also diatonic.
page 79 note 1 Revue des Études grecques, tome xxv. No. 162, p. 321.
page 79 note 2 A reader unfamiliar with the subject is advised to look at my article in B.S.A. xxii. 133 (The Modes of Byz. Music); and I may also refer to my little book, Byz. Music and Hymnography, for a general account. The best introduction to the subject is O. Fleischer, Neumenstudien, T. III. The table of signatures given by Gastoué (Am.), Introduction à la Paléographie Mus. Byz., p. 25, is hardly adequate. Nor is Riemann's view of them (Die byz. Notenschrift, p. 5) altogether correct. For the palaeographical development of the notation much valuable material will be found in J. Thibaut, Monuments de la Notation Ekphonétique et Hagiopolite, etc., and in Exempla Codicum Graecorum, vol. alterum, edd. Georgius Cereteli et Sergius Sobolevski. But few of the facsimiles in these books are clear enough to help us much in our present study.
page 80 note 1 Die byz. Notenschrift, Pl. VIII. See also B.S.A. xxi. 138 ff. I have given a reproduction of another page, with the interpretation, in Byz. Zeitschr. xxiii. 326.
page 80 note 2 Cod. Cryptoferr. E. Γ. II. f. 8 b, Ode VI.
page 80 note 3 O. Fleischer, Neumenstudien, T. III. Fleischer is the master and leader of us all in musical palaeography.
page 81 note 1 A late and still more stylised form of this signature will be found in Fleischer, op. cit. Transcriptions, pp. 40, 41.
page 81 note 2 For this MS. cf. B.S.A. xxiii. 201. Correction, ibidem, p. 200. The MS. Gonv. et Cai. 772 plus 815, belongs to the eighteenth (not seventeenth) century.
page 83 note 1 I have done this in B.S.A. xxi. 143. The result seems satisfactory to the ear.
page 83 note 2 See f.67b. The cadence there is b a g a. There is a doubtful signature in Cod. Ambros. 733. f. 320b (Milan), giving the formula c B d e, where the text is otherwise uncertain.
page 83 note 3 A good example, also clear, in Cereteli, op. cit. xxix, (date 1292).
page 84 note 1 A clear example in Cod. Ambros. 733, f. 310b. Another in the Trinity Sticherarium, 256, f. 16. For the latter MS. see B.S.A. xxiii. 201.
page 84 note 2 Hirmological music is the least florid. Next comes Sticherarical and finally Papadical, which is highly ornate and admits all kinds of meaningless vocalisations. In this last species Mode III, Pl. seems to use B-flat as a starting-note. The Chrysanthine system has preserved the form from ƒ and the low form, the intervals, however, being much confused.
page 85 note 1 Cod. Ambros. 733, f. 310b gives a formula ggef, which works out right, the text, however, not being absolutely clear.
page 85 note 2 See Fleischer, op. cit. pp. 37, 42, 47, and Transcr. pp. 1–7; Chrysanthus, Θεωρητικὸν μεγα τῆς Μουσικῆς 307; Rebours, Traité de Psaltique, p. 280 ff.; Gastoué, Introd. à la Paléogr. Mus. Byz. 29; B.S.A. xxii. 137. The names ἤχημα ἐνήχημα ἀπήχημα seem to be interchangeable.
page 85 note 3 Thibaut, Monuments, p. 57. The first mention of the system of Eight Modes in the East is in 513 (Ibid. p. 19). The West adopted it in the ninth century (Bede, †. 735, and Roswitha, c. 950, write on music, but do not mention the Eight Modes). Alcuin, †. 804, seems to be the first Western writer who knows them. (See Fleischer, op. cit. p. 41.)
page 86 note 1 I hope to give a fuller account of this MS. in J.H.S. 1926, Pt. II. For other Invocations see B.S.A. xxii. 137. Rebours, l.c., has transcribed the formulae given as mediaeval by Chrysanthus, who with perfect candour admits that they did not agree with the practice of his own time.
page 87 note 1 The older Neumes, sometimes called Linear or Constantinopolitan (also Palaeobyzantine), only gave a general indication of the course of the melody. (This view, which I put forward in J.H.S. xli. 29, is in agreement with the opinions of Wellesz and apparently of Thibaut.) The early notation belongs to the years A.D. 1000–1250.
page 87 note 2 E.g. in the MS. Sinaiticus 1214. The name of this notation is taken from the MS. at Paris, Coislin 220, which is the most famous example of it. (Facs. in Riemann, op. cit. Pl. IV.)