Cappella Romana in a virtual Hagia Sophia. A performance directed by Dr. Alexander Lingas at Stanford University's Bing Concert Hall on February 1, 2

greek487

Tasos N.
Total Sacred Immersion: Cappella Romana and CCRMA (Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics) Time Travel to Hagia Sophia



Cherubic Hymn in Mode 1 (Χερουβικός Ύμνος) - Manuel Chrysaphes, MS Mt. Athos, Iviron 1120 (1458)
The modern premiere of the Cherubic Hymn in Mode 1 by Manuel Chrysaphes as edited by Dr. Ioannis Arvanitis from the composer's autograph manuscript Mt Athos Iviron 1120.



Sunday Prokeimenon in Mode 1. MS Patmos 221 (ca. 1162-1179)
Mode 1 Sunday Divine Liturgy, taken from manuscript Patmos 221 (a Psaltikon copied between 1162 and 1179) and edited for modern performance by Dr. Ioannis Arvanitis.



Reviews and Articles with further information:

http://www.sfcv.org/reviews/stanford-live/cappella-romana-time-travel-to-constantinople

http://cappellaromana.blogspot.com/2013/02/ross-ritterman-guest-blogs-on-preparing.html

http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=55993

Program note:

Dry versus Wet Sound and the Experiment with Live Auralization in Bing Hall

Cappella Romana, Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics and the Art & Art History Department

Tonight we will experiment with digital technology in the second half of Cappella Romana's concert in order to transform the Bing Hall into the reverberant soundscape of Hagia Sophia (532-537), which defined the medieval spiritual experience and man's embeddedness in the world.

We live in a culture that values dry, direct, and efficient sound. This aesthetic predisposition emerged during the Machine Age (1900-1933) and it transformed our relationship to sound. Before, speech or chanting reverberating in resonant ancient stone interiors made individual words unclear. The electroacoustic signal, stripped of ambient noise, and piped into dry and inert rooms, by contrast, allowed individual words to be heard with clarity and directness.

Modern acoustics started with the building of Boston's Symphony Hall (1900). In the process the physicist Wallace Sabine discovered a formula for predicting the reverberation of a space. This is the length of time a sound produced in an interior continues to reflect off surfaces until it gradually decays into inaudibility. Sabine's formula established a relation between materials and interior volume. This discovery ushered in the development of acoustics as science and the engineering of new synthetic building materials. Both advances allowed the reverberation of any interior to be manipulated and adjusted for the particular function of a space. As the aesthetics of the modern dry and efficient sound permeated the city, it shaped the expectation of concert hall acoustics from an average reverberation time of 4 seconds to a drop to ca. 2 seconds. In treating reverberation as noise, modern technology severed the relationship between sound and space.

By contrast, in the pre-modern world the acoustics of the space was the direct product of the natural materials. The marble interior of Hagia Sophia was 70 meters long, while in height it reached 56 meters at the apex of the great dome. The vast chamber and its reflective surfaces of marble and gold resulted in unprecedented acoustics of over ten seconds reverberation time. As a museum Hagia Sophia today has lost its voice, no performances could take place in it. Using new digital technology developed at CCRMA, the second portion of Cappella Romana's concert at Bing aims to recreate sound of what singing in Hagia Sophia must have been like. Each singer caries a microphone that records the sound transforming it into a digital signal, which is then imprinted with the reverberant response of Hagia Sophia. What you hear as a wet sound is the product of a digitally produced signal transmitted through loudspeakers placed strategically to create an enveloping soundfield. This digital signal may shock you with the way it relativizes speech, transforming its content into a chiaroscuro of indistinct but immersive sound. For the Byzantines, this sonic experience was associated with the water: the waves of the sea.

Jonathan Abel, consulting professor at CCRMA
Bissera Pentcheva, associate professor at the Art & Art History Department

For more information about the scientific and aesthetic/interpretive framework of this collaborative project, see our website: http://iconsofsound.stanford.edu

 

domesticus

Lupus non curat numerum ovium
Othodox chanting featured under muslim religious inscriptions under the cupola and on the dome of Agia Sophia ...:confused: Totally inappropriate.

All the above set up is just virtual reality from every point of view even the chanting.

Fortunately, the above chanting only via virtual reality can reach Megali Ekklisia (Agia Sophia). Inside the computer there's no tradition no other constrictions no opposite opinion. Everything are tabula rasa anybody can rewrite and form new realities ...:rolleyes:

And since we are listening 12th century ''byzantine'' music, I 'm waiting for the 10th, 9th, 8th, 7th,6th century etc.etc.etc.
As it seems, Sky is the limit:eek::rolleyes:
 

greek487

Tasos N.
Total Sacred Immersion: Cappella Romana and CCRMA (Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics) Time Travel to Hagia Sophia



(Important information explaining the rationale behind this short film and its relationship to the overall project. From http://iconsofsound.stanford.edu/aesthetics.html)

This film was made with the kind permission of the AyaSofya Muzesi
© Bissera V. Pentcheva

Natural light moving across the surfaces of marble and gold causes glitter that in turn simulates the perceptual memory of the quivering sea. The iterative marmar offers the linguistic basis of this experience: in Greek marmaron is marble; Marmara is the name of the sea washing at the southern harbors of Constantinople and surrounding the marble quarries on the island of Proconnesus; marmairo and marmarysso is “to flash,” “to sparkle;” and marmarygma is shimmer.

Marmarygma arises in Hagia Sophia at sunrise and sunset at the time when originally the morning and evening liturgies unfolded. Most visitors to the museum today are denied this experience because they see the interior in the harsh light of the midday sun or electricity. Similarly, the relatively short duration of their stay in the space prevents them from observing most of the subtle changes of light playing across the marble and gold.

For this reason, we made a short video that explores Hagia Sophia’s aesthetic of transience. We tied this optical dimension to the acoustic, recording the sounds of doves and wind in the early morning and crowds at noon, and we enriched the aural experience with a Byzantine chant recorded at Stanford’s CCRMA but digitally imprinted with the reverberant acoustics of Hagia Sophia.

The film traces in the course of a day how natural light animates inert matter endowing it with movement. It also integrates passages from the ekphrasis of Paul the Silentiary, which was originally performed for an elite audience in the imperial and patriarchal palaces for the re-inauguration of Hagia Sophia in 562. This poetry shows how the medieval audience was trained to perceive the fleeting appearances on the surfaces of marble and gold as manifestations of the descent of the Holy Spirit in matter, transforming the inert into an animate empsychos eikon (in-spirited icon):

The peak of Proconnesus soothingly spreading over the entire pavement,
has gladly given its back to the life-giving ruler [Christ/the emperor],
the radiance of the Bosporos softly ruffling
transmutes from the deepest darkness of swollen waters to the soft whiteness of radiant metal.
The ceiling encompasses gold-inlaid tesserae,
whose pouring down in glittering (marmairousa)
gold-streaming ray
irresistibly bounces off the faces of the faithful (tr. Bissera V. Pentcheva)

πᾶν δὲ πέδον στορέσασα Προκοννήσοιο κολώνη
ἀσπασίως ὑπέθηκε βιαρκέϊ νῶτον ἀνάσσηι·
ἠρέμα δὲ φρίσσουσα διέπρεπε Βοσπορὶς αἴγλη
ἀκροκελαινιόωντος ἐπ’ ἀργεννοῖο μετάλλου.
Χρυσεοκολλήτους δὲ τέγος ψηφῖδας ἐέργει,
ὧν ἄπο μαρμαίρουσα χύδην χρυσόρρυτος ἀκτὶς
ἀνδρομέοις ἄτλητος ἐπεσκίρτησε προσώποις,

Paul the Silentiary, Descriptio Sanctae Sophiae, vv. 664–70.​

 

evangelos

Ευάγγελος Σολδάτος
If the Greek-Roman chanters don't wake up early the music will be the same mess as in Dacian–Romania
 

Nikolaos Giannoukakis

Παλαιό Μέλος
The computer modelling and surface-acoustics simulation should one day be compared to the actual acoustics of St. Sophia. That will be the real test of the hypothesis.

Of course, this endeavour will depend on the Turkish state....

It should be a relatively simple matter to export the algorithms to software that can plug into digital audio workstations (software or hardware).

Now, the statement "the second portion of Cappella Romana's concert at Bing aims to recreate sound of what singing in Hagia Sophia must have been like" will find many skeptics, especially those who have not travelled through time to witness what choral chant FACTUALLY SOUNDED LIKE in St. Sophia at the turn of the millenium. Keep it factual folks.

NG
 

romanos4

Παλαιό Μέλος
For the purposes of identification, I am the author of the blogpost linked to above and did attend this concert live. It was a very interesting experience and despite the at-times the somewhat "electronic sound" it really came out well especially relative to the first time I heard chanting rendered through the processing.

I would add that I think certain modifications were done to cut down the reverb to allow the chanting to sound better in a concert setting and make the words more audible.

Similarly, while the ison sounds great, I believe the academic consensus is that isokratema came much later than the 12th century.
 
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domesticus

Lupus non curat numerum ovium
...
Similarly, while the ison sounds great, I believe the academic consensus is that isokratema came much later than the 12th century.

I 'd like some enlightenment about it, if you have any.

Second, I have to point out that academic consensus on byzantine chanting is a very theoretical schema. Theory is good, but the distance to reliable application is very very long and thorny and Capella Romana is full of theoretical chanting and bragging about performing byzantine chanting. It would be more honest if they said ''hypothetical byzantine chant'' but, I understand, everyone has to make a living and this is the only honest thing I understand of their performance.
 

Nikolaos Giannoukakis

Παλαιό Μέλος
Over the years, the promoters of CR have been very careful about how they describe the origins and the intent of their programs and their productions. This is, I believe, largely the result of Dr. Alexander Lingas' careful considerations.

CR is a professional choir, possibly the best in its class.

I believe Dr. Lingas is responsible and meticulous in describing CR's products as factually as possible.

The PR people behind the projects, however, from time to time have pushed the factual envelope slightly beyond the comfort zones of people who are very cognisant of the history, the theory and the practice of BM.

CR is Byzantine music-inspired, interprets post-Byzantine scores in the style they are comfortable with and this to a very high quality and professionalism.

To go beyond this, and put CR and Dr. Lingas into a position that would not be helpful to their excellent reputation and academic sincerity, is doing a big disservice to them.

PR often messes things up, in my opinion.

NG
 

domesticus

Lupus non curat numerum ovium
Over the years, the promoters of CR have been very careful about how they describe the origins and the intent of their programs and their productions. This is, I believe, largely the result of Dr. Alexander Lingas' careful considerations.

CR is a professional choir, possibly the best in its class.

I believe Dr. Lingas is responsible and meticulous in describing CR's products as factually as possible.

The PR people behind the projects, however, from time to time have pushed the factual envelope slightly beyond the comfort zones of people who are very cognisant of the history, the theory and the practice of BM.

CR is Byzantine music-inspired, interprets post-Byzantine scores in the style they are comfortable with and this to a very high quality and professionalism.

To go beyond this, and put CR and Dr. Lingas into a position that would not be helpful to their excellent reputation and academic sincerity, is doing a big disservice to them.

PR often messes things up, in my opinion.

NG

Acceptable, OK.

BUT. In Capella Romana site they always underline the term ''byzantine chant'' for their performances and this is a little provocative, because they show something hypothetical without of course empasize the hypothesis side of their productions. Naturally it can be explained by PR terms, hypothesis is not very good for the trade.

Scientific research and trade are not very good partners ...:rolleyes:
 

phokaeus

Παλαιό Μέλος
Would anyone perhaps be willing to post the scores of the pieces performed (in particular, the cherubic hymn)?

I found it interesting that the this cherubic hymn in the exegesis of Dr. Arvanitis bears notable compositional similarity to another piece of Manuel Chrysaphes as transcribed by Markos Vasilios ("O God, the nations have entered," mode pl. 4th).
 
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