Mr. Cremeens,
If someone hasn't already done this let me know.
Ross
Hi Ross,
I did finally get in touch with a friend, who was able to do it for me. I have the HTM Menaion, and I gathered the Koinonika for the year that way, got the daily ones from the Great Horologion, and the post-Paschal ones from the Pentecostarion. Until HTM publishes their Triodion, it looks like I will just hold off, unless I can somehow confirm from them what exactly the translations will be ahead of time. I have noticed, comparing their Psalter and the texts found in the liturgical books, that the koinonikon given in the latter occasionally differs from the exact text of the Psalm itself. I can't think of an example off of the top of my head, but I did notice this a couple of times.
I have several related questions, all of which have come up as I began gathering these texts, and which I pose to anyone who has knowledge in this area:
1) What are some of the koinonika that have fallen out of use today, but were used in the past? Is there a list anywhere?
Example: Dr. Arvanitis transcribed a koinonikon of Petros Lambadarios with the text "With patience I waited patiently for the Lord, and He was attentive unto me, and He hearkened unto my supplication." (Psalm 39:1) Apparently this was an old koinonikon for Women Martyrs (e.g. St. Paraskeve). The topic with Dr. Arvanitis' exegesis is located
here.
2) How "fixed" is the text for the different koinonika of the year, both within the Greek Psaltic tradition and outside of it? For instance, I have heard at some Antiochian and "Slavic" (OCA) churches, at least in America, some slightly variable texts for the common koinonika. As an example, the Tuesday Communion Hymn they often chant as:
"In everlasting remembrance shall the righteous be; he shall not fear evil tidings." (Psalm 111)
This is just one example, from other jurisdictions/national churches. However, I have been noticing that even within the Greek Psaltic tradition, the text of the koinonikon is not perhaps as "fixed" as I thought it was. I recently bought the book "Κοινωνικά Παλαιών Διδασκάλων", which I
highly recommend to all cantors in America, and especially to those interested in classical composition.
Here is an example of a score from the book.
Here is a recording of one of the scores from the book.
Here is both a recording and a musical score.
But I digress.
In perusing the musical texts in this book, and practicing some of them in preparation to chant them in church, I made a few observations:
Page 346 (Communion Hymn of Pentecost). Text (translated):
"Take not Thy Holy Spirit from us." (Psalm 50)
Composer: Ioannis Kladas, 14th century.
Page 352 (Communion Hymn of Pentecost). Text (translated):
"Take not Thy Holy Spirit from us, we entreat, O Friend of Man." (Psalm 50 plus addendum.)
Composer: Balasios the Priest, 17th century.
Obviously, the second text is longer. What is also very interesting to me is the fact that neither of these koinonika are the ones given in (for example) the HTM Pentecostarion, where the text for both Pentecost and Holy Spirit Monday is "Thy good Spirit shall lead me in the land of uprightness." (Psalm 142)
Another observation:
Page 358 (Communion Hymn of All Saints). Text (translated):
"Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous."
Composer: Manuel Chrysaphes the Elder (15th century). Balasios the Priest uses the same text in his setting of the same Psalm... again with half of the verse "missing." The full text is:
"Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous;
praise is meet for the upright."
This is the text we find in some later settings of this Psalm, such as the koinonikon by Petros Lambadarios in pl. 1st mode for the same day.
Why the discrepancy?
3) What is the Slavonic text used for the Sunday Koinonikon?
Basically the reason behind my going off and researching this whole question was because of a dialogue with a friend about ways to approach the "problem" of composing the Sunday Koinonikon in English. I'm trying to see if perhaps there would be precedent for using the longer verse to address the fact (already discussed at length in
this topic that the text of the English Communion Hymn of Sunday is woefully shorter than its Greek counterpart. The longer verse (given in the HTM Pentecostarion for many of the post-Paschal Sundays) is the verse already used by many Antiochian and OCA churches: "Praise the Lord from the Heavens, praise Him in the highest."
Given the fact that some of the medieval composers used Psalm verses shorter than the ones in common use today (see the examples in #2 above), does anyone think that this might be an appropriate approach to the problem? The benefit is definitely that we have more text to work with when we try to set this koinonikon to music. I guess the question is if this approach is "justified."
(Or we could just chant "Agni Parthene" at this point in the service and the whole problem goes away. :-D)
I would welcome any insight into this question.
In Christ,
Gabriel
P.S. A different approach to the problem, as my friend pointed out, is to use one of two different techniques which we again encounter in the book Κοινωνικά Παλαιών Διδασκάλων. The first can be found in the 4th Mode Sunday Communion Hymn by John Lascaris (15th century), which is located on page 78. He sets the Psalm to music by simply repeating the text in its entirety twice!
Αινείτε τον Κύριον εκ των ουρανών... Αινείτε τον Κύριον εκ των ουρανών... etc.
Another approach, perhaps a little less drastic, is that used by Germanos Neon Patron, in his 1st Mode Sunday Communion hymn (p. 32). He simply repeats the word "Αινείτε" twice in its entirety, before moving on to "εκ των ουρανών."
