How long has Byzantine Music notation been used in Arabic speaking communities?

[Shota]

The use of Byzantine Music notation in Arabic is not older than the XXe century. Before, the tradition was oral in the parishes of Syria and Lebanon where they had services in Arabic.
I have seen a manuscript (Menaion of September), from Syria, dated 1494, in the Library of St-Joseph University (Beirut), written in Syriac, with Byzantine neumes.
Another example, much more significant: Manuscript Sinai syr. 261, written in 1233/1234, also in Syriac, with paleobyzantine notation (Coislin Notation).
The history of Byzantine Music Notation in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine is still to be written. A full knowledge of the manuscripts is still lacking.

I attach a few pages from J. Nasrallah's "Histoire du mouvement littéraire dans l'Église melchite du Ve au XXe siècle" (Vol. III, T. 2), where he lists the Syriac (and Greek) mss with musical notation that come from Melkite Patriarchates. There is an article by Raasted on Syro-Melkite notated mss (Musical Notation and Quasi Notation in Syro-Melkite Liturgical Manuscripts, CIMAGL 31), which I will upload once I get it and find time to scan it.

 

[Shota]

Here is a description of one of the musical mss that Nasrallah mentions, Charfé Syr. 6/30 from the 14th c. (this is an excerpt from J. Parisot's article "La bibliothèque du séminaire syrien de Charfé" from Revue de l'Orient chrétien, Vol. IV, 1899, pp. 150-174. Entire volume can be downloaded from here). It is the Menaion from December to February with some additional pieces. The text is in Syriac, while the headings, rubrics and readings are in Arabic. There are up to six notated pieces.

 

[Shota]

There is an article by Raasted on Syro-Melkite notated mss (Musical Notation and Quasi Notation in Syro-Melkite Liturgical Manuscripts, CIMAGL 31), which I will upload once I get it and find time to scan it.

After surveying the existing evidence, Raasted concludes as follows (pp. 36-37):

"From the 17th century onwards the Melkites 'have sung like the Greek', since union with the Ecumenical Patriarchate was reinstored. Prior to that period they had a musical tradition of their own, having been separated from the Byzantines since the Arab conquest." This was the general picture drawn by Rachid Haddad at the Grottaferrata Congress in 1968 - the framework into which he sought to fit the two the two 14th cent. MSS which were subject of his communication. This position, however, cannot be upheld any longer. The material surveyed in the present article provides a physical demonstration that some Syrian Melkites, at least, 'sung like the Greek' already in the first half of the 13th century - the date of the oldest sources studied by Heinrich Husmann and myself. But perhaps it is even more important to find Archaic Coislin Notation used in Paris syr. 134; for this seems to imply that the Syro-Melkite musical tradition was Greek already in the 10th-11th century. We are thus very close to A.D. 969, when the Byzantine army recaptured Antioch and reestablished Constantinopolitan influence in the area, to last for more than a hundred years.

Haddad's paper seems to remain unpublished (Raasted refers only to its brief printed summary). My feeling is that (as it has happened in many other cases) it might be consciously or unconsciously influenced by the nationalistic agenda

 

[Shota]

Here is the first part of Raasted's article (it contains generalities and the discussion. The second part contains musical examples; I'll upload it in the due time). A short summary is as follows: Raasted says that out of 23 Syriac mss (of Melkite origin) he examined in Berlin, 21 had some type of musical notation; the same was true for nearly every Syriac (Melkite) liturgical ms in Paris. The notational types in these mss can be reduced to three basic ones: the 'theta' notation type, the Coislin type and the 'diple' type. The first two are directly comparable to the notation used in Greek mss. The third seems to be peculiar to the Melkite mss (based on what is known now). After considering many examples, Raasted concludes that melodies in the mss notated with Coislin notation depend on the Greek counterparts. Also the signs in the mss with theta notation occur on syllables which are rendered melismatically in Greek mss.