Harmonization of the Byzantine chant in Greece

[zinoviev]

A couple of days ago I found an interesting Russian book about the Byzantine chant (author: Fr. Voznesenskij Chanting in the Orthodox Churches of the Greek East from Antient to Modern Times, 1895). He writes that the Greeks at his time had the habit to sing the simplest chants in unison, the more complex with ison and the most complex (the Cherubic song and the Communion song) with harmonization. For the Greek harmonization he writes that the best chanter sings the main melody and the other singers (elder and children) accompany the main melody in distance of perfect fourth, fifth or octave.

Voznesenskij wrote also that the harmonizing voices were singing quietly, in a simple manner, often without words; they did not cover the main melody but only embellished it.

I think some similar methods for harmonizations were used also during the Byzantine times. Most of the authors of the preserved Byzantine harmonized manuscripts are uniats but some of them were orthodox. So I'd like to ask: what do you know abut the harmonization of the Byzantine chant? Was it always a western influence? Has it disappeared or is it still used in some places?

 

[zinoviev]

A friend of mine gave me the attached old recording (1930) of Anatolian Greeks featuring in some moments sort-of harmonization.

 

[neoklis]

This is Simon Karas and his choir chanting, from the Melpo Merlie recordings made in 1930. It is the same as track #II-5 from here.
Whether this was common practice (or furthermore a tradition) at the time, is debatable and a whole other discussion.

PS. Didn't the author (Fr. Voznesenskij) provide any inforamtion as to where did he hear such harmonized "byzantine" chanting, at that time?

 

[Shota]

This is Simon Karas and his choir chanting, from the Melpo Merlie recordings made in 1930. It is the same as track #II-5 from here.
Whether this was common practice (or furthermore a tradition) at the time, is debatable and a whole other discussion.[/SIZE]

Lykourgos Angelopoulos in his liner notes says that it was a reaction to four-part compositions and harmonisation attempts a la Sakellaridis: some chanters (most notably Psachos and Karas) tried to enhance splendour of Byzantine chant by creating large choirs and employing some type of harmonisation, thereby making concessions to public taste of those times, but at the same time staying closer to the received tradition than Sakellaridis or composers of four-part music.

I don't know to what degree this is true. Maybe it's just an attempt to justify Karas' decisions by all means. In his more recent recordings Karas was still using a mixed choir and at times some harmony (I'll try to find one specific recording I have in mind). I wonder if the practice of double isokratema promoted by Karas has something to do with it.

PS. Didn't the author (Fr. Voznesenskij) provide any inforamtion as to where did he hear such harmonized "byzantine" chanting, at that time?

I guess in Odessa, which had a big Greek community. But I don't have the book.

 

[Nikolaos Giannoukakis]

Harmonisation started with Ioannis Sakellarides who influenced a number of individuals in Constantinople and then Greece. However, even as Sakellarides began the process in Constantinople, Greece was already undergoing a transformation in the music used in the church independently of Sakellarides. Much had to do with with the image that the Greek gentillity wanted to project to the West as a reaction to the many essays from British, French and German anthropologists that "modern day Greeks have nothing in common with their ancestors". Some was politically motivated to ensure that Greeks are forced into a Western psychology based on the tenets of enlightenment and post-Renaissance thinking and manner of life.

Harmonisation was also influenced by the growing Communist movement in Greece. A trained ear can pick out the Kievan, Odessan, Muscovite influence among the villager "ensembles". The communist movement in Greece grew from the northernmost villages and spread southward. As a tool, music along with poetry was at the mercy of political forces of the time to shape (or to revise) the cultural thinking of otherwise poorly educated peoples who had just come out of 400 years of ravage from Ottoman occupation, the Balkan wars and then WWI.

George Papadopoulos writes extensively about the harmonisation phenomenon in his book (which I don't have on hand at the moment, although someone may have access to the footnotes that extensively describe the movement).

Other than those influences, the islands of the Ionian, former Italian colonies, also carried a harmonised Venetian tradition which to this day remains in some key churches (on Zante, Kefallonia, Corfu).

NG

 

[zinoviev]

PS. Didn't the author (Fr. Voznesenskij) provide any inforamtion as to where did he hear such harmonized "byzantine" chanting, at that time?

He writes mostly about the usual singing with ison. He writes about two kinds of harmonization - a Greek one (in fourt, fifth, octave) and refers to the following book: De-Castro: Methodus cantus ecclesiastici Graeco-Slavici. Romae, 1881, page 51. The second kind of harmonization is imitating the western harmonization.

By the way Voznesenskij gives the following interesting information about the ison: Oxeia is the high, moving voice, that goes up and down performing the melody with its various figures. But this voice can easily deviate from the main musical mode without the support of another voice (the ison), especially when the psaltis following the ancient Greek custom, sings freely, i.e. he is not restricted by the notes in the book that is before his eyes but diverts from the notes being not only a performer, but also partially a composer. [...] Since the melody often modulates from one mode into another, the ison must also change. When this modulation is sudden this can be very inconvenient to the more inexperienced holders of the ison.

And another funny remark (citing Volokonskij, 1862): During the Cherubic song and the Communion there is a boy in the choir who holds one and the same note. He holds this note for so long and with such tension that his eyes become full with blood and the jugulars of the neck become thicker that the thumb. When he exhaust his strength he takes fresh air for a second and continues his infinite note. [...] The boys with strong lungs are highly respected.

But I don't have the book.

See attached.

 

[frephraim]

There is a book in Greek by Γιάννης Φιλόπουλος entitled Ρώσικες ἐπιδράσεις στὴν ἑλληνικὴ πολυφωνικὴ ἐκκλησιαστικὴ μουσική that analyzes historically and musicologically Russian influences on Greek polyphonic ecclesiastical music and presents this influence in a positive light. He writes that this movement began in 1870 with the arrival of Al. Katakouzenou from Odessa to Athena.

 

[basil]

Even Mitri el-Murr (1880-1969) composed two harmonized settings of the Anaphora in Arabic (in Plagal First and Plagal Fourth Mode). For each line of the text, there are two lines of neumes. The harmony line is very much parallel to the melody line, as described above (in contrast to Western counterpoint). Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the history of these compositions or their usage.

 

[Κων/νος Βαγενάς]

Harmonization didn't actually start with Sakellarides. There were other attempts long before Sakellarides, with other composers (like Kantakouzinos in 1870, as F. Ephraim says) who tried to establish a four-part harmonization and were also supported by the Royal Family of that time, especially the Queen. But all this was a failure because the melodies of these composers weren't based on traditional byzantine chant and people didn't like listening to unknown chants. I' ve read that they didn't even kept the Plagal Second mode in their music and they also changed many melodies which are widely known, such as "Christos anesti" and others.

I think the first harmonized Liturgy took place in Athens during the reign of king Otto.

Anyway, it's really impressive what Karas and many others did, in their anxious efforts to encounter polyphony, which at that time was rapidly being developed and many people had already started to accept it.

 

[Nikolaos Giannoukakis]

The following historical information derives from:

1) "Ιστορική επισκόπησις της βυζαντινής εκκλησιαστικής μουσικής από των αποστολικών χρόνων μέχρι των καθ΄ ημάς (1-1900 μ.Χ)" (1890) by Georgios I. Papadopoulos,

2) "Βυζαντινή Εκκλησιαστική Μουσική και Ψαλμωδία, Ιστορικομουσικολογική Μελέτη", volume 1 (1992) by Phillipas Economou

Ioannis Chaviaras was the first recorded musician to harmonize Byzantine chant as early as 1844 when he was the Protopsaltis of Holy Trinity Church of the Hellenic Community of Vienna. Deacon Anthimos Nikolaidis, a contemporary of Chaviaras, published a three volume works with harmonized Byzantine Music (Musical Anthology) around that time. He also taught this music in the Athens Rizareion Seminary prior to his passing in 1865. At the same time period, in London, Nikolaos Kyvos was also active in harmonizing Byzantine music.

These individuals and their works predated the influences of Katakouzenos, Sakellarides and their contemporaries.

The Church of Greece, the Ecumenical Patriarchate and many learned societies mounted vigorous responses starting with the pre-emptive move by the Greek State followed by damning edicts by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church of Greece.

The first documented pre-emptive move, in 1837, was made by the Greek state. Receiving reports about the Viennese harmonised influences on the churches in that part of the world and receiving reports about the slow but steady influx of these influences on churches in Greece, the first school of chant was founded by imperial decree (King Otto). Zafeirios Zafeiropoulos and Deacon Theoklitos, starting in 1837, taught Byzantine music to many students who subsequently filled numerous empty churches.

The first strongly worded edict was in 1846 by Patriarch Anthimos in direct response to the activities of Chaviaras (p. 209 footnote in Papadopoulos).

Katakouzinos did not come to the scene until 1870. His activities and his teaching elicited draconian and quite violent responses by Greece's Holy Synod, men of letters, learned societies and newspapers.

The most prolific individuals at that time who were instrumental in attenuating the entry of harmonized Byzantine music into church life were Dimitrios Vernardakis, Archimandrite Eystathios Thereianos, the Metropolitan of Syros and Tinos Alexandros. Indeed, they were key in the prevention of Katakouzinos and harmonized Byzantine music into the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens.

Nevertheless, harmonized Byzantine chant did enter churches in Patra, Kalamata, Peiraias and other churches in Athens.

This forced the Holy Synod to issue edicts in the late 1870-early 1890s. Spearheading these efforts were the bishop of Patras and Ileias Cyril as well as the music teacher Panagiotis Agathokles.

Konstantinos Psachos was dispatched by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to Athens to found a school that would counter the dissolving of Byzantine music and its evolution into something out of line with the established practices and traditions of the psaltae of Constantinople, mainly the traditions of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Psachos established the School in 1904.

A number of other Schools along the same lines were founded soon thereafter (Hatzitheodorou in 1933, Margaziotis in 1933, the Society of Friends of Byzantine Music in 1948 and a school in Thessaloniki in 1948, and many others subsequently)

Karas was born in 1903 and could not have participated in the critical years of the battle against harmonized Byzantine music.

Indeed, his interest in Byzantine music did not begin until 1921 and then formally in 1929 when he founded the Society For the Preservation of National Music and then with a primary interest in transcribing and recording Greek folk songs. Byzantine Music was of secondary importance to Karas at the time.

Psachos, Margaziotis and Hatzitheodorou as well as multiple Holy Synods of the church of Greece were already active against harmonized music much earlier (see above).

NG