Correct interpretation and transcription of Byzantine musical mss

Shota

Παλαιό Μέλος
I scanned and uploaded Simon Karas' paper "Correct interpretation and transcription of Byzantine musical mss", which he read at the international congress of Byzantine studies in Thessaloniki. Karas deals with interpretation of the old notation at the same time criticising the Western researchers. The points on which he disagrees with them are 1) "dry" interpretations, 2) scales, 3) rhythm and more generally 4) the role of cheironomic signs.

In order to combat 1), he presents a theory according to which individual signs of the old notation, such as oxeia, petaste and so on, implied particular movements of the voice. What I found most remarkable when I first read the article was basically no attention paid to theseis in such cases. A study of the old and new notation mss in conjunction with the oral tradition seems to indicate that while certain analyseis are occuring in some theseis, they are not in other theseis and the fact that there is somewhere e.g. oxeia written is no guarantee that it had also some qualitative energy. Furthermore, in a number of cases there are no special signs used in the old notation, while the oral tradition preserves specific analyseis in such cases. Thus at this point I have reservations what concerns this theory.

Karas' dissatisfaction with 2) concerns rejection of the chromatic character of the Second and Plagal Second modes by Western researchers. His main arguments here are different martyrias, fthoras and parallage for the Second and Plagal Second on the one hand and other modes on the other hand.

Karas dismisses Western transcriptions as arrhythmic and further says that one of the functions of the cheironomic signs was clarification of the rhythm-related issues. He also disagrees with the theory that the cheironomic signs were implying extensive prolongation of melos, something that Psachos was supporting.

In the end of the article Karas concludes that in its essence the Byzantine chanting tradition was preserved through centuries without corruption and foreign influences (obviously he does not imply that the tradition stayed exactly the same over time, but changes taking place were due to internal evolution of the chanting tradition).
 

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B. Diener

Active member
I scanned and uploaded Simon Karas' paper "Correct interpretation and transcription of Byzantine musical mss", which he read at the international congress of Byzantine studies in Thessaloniki. Karas deals with interpretation of the old notation at the same time criticising the Western researchers. The points on which he disagrees with them are 1) "dry" interpretations, 2) scales, 3) rhythm and more generally 4) the role of cheironomic signs.

In order to combat 1), he presents a theory according to which individual signs of the old notation, such as oxeia, petaste and so on, implied particular movements of the voice. What I found most remarkable when I first read the article was basically no attention paid to theseis in such cases. A study of the old and new notation mss in conjunction with the oral tradition seems to indicate that while certain analyseis are occuring in some theseis, they are not in other theseis and the fact that there is somewhere e.g. oxeia written is no guarantee that it had also some qualitative energy. Furthermore, in a number of cases there are no special signs used in the old notation, while the oral tradition preserves specific analyseis in such cases. Thus at this point I have reservations what concerns this theory.

Karas' dissatisfaction with 2) concerns rejection of the chromatic character of the Second and Plagal Second modes by Western researchers. His main arguments here are different martyrias, fthoras and parallage for the Second and Plagal Second on the one hand and other modes on the other hand.

Karas dismisses Western transcriptions as arrhythmic and further says that one of the functions of the cheironomic signs was clarification of the rhythm-related issues. He also disagrees with the theory that the cheironomic signs were implying extensive prolongation of melos, something that Psachos was supporting.

In the end of the article Karas concludes that in its essence the Byzantine chanting tradition was preserved through centuries without corruption and foreign influences (obviously he does not imply that the tradition stayed exactly the same over time, but changes taking place were due to internal evolution of the chanting tradition).
Is it possible to get an English Translation?
 
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