[Ερώτηση] History of Slavonic Byzantine Music

basil

Παλαιό Μέλος
I have been delighted to learn about Slavonic Byzantine music via the Slavonic Music Book Collection thread. I am curious about the circumstances of the composers mentioned in that thread as well as the adoption of their compositions. For example, what motivated those composers to adapt ecclesiastical hymns written in the New Method to Slavonic? What impact did the work of those composers have in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (and where did it have an impact)? Where are these pieces chanted today? What is the future outlook for Byzantine music in Slavonic? Please forgive my ignorance about this subject.

Another question I had was: Are recordings of these compositions available?
 

Π. Δαβίδ

Γενικός συντονιστής
I have been delighted to learn about Slavonic Byzantine music via the Slavonic Music Book Collection thread. I am curious about the circumstances of the composers mentioned in that thread as well as the adoption of their compositions. For example, what motivated those composers to adapt ecclesiastical hymns written in the New Method to Slavonic? What impact did the work of those composers have in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (and where did it have an impact)? Where are these pieces chanted today? What is the future outlook for Byzantine music in Slavonic? Please forgive my ignorance about this subject.

Another question I had was: Are recordings of these compositions available?

Μοst of these compositions were written in Bulgaria where byzantine chat was at that time the official church music (and it still is, although polyphony was used for the liturgy in many central churches). There are few recordings available in Bulgaria and in former Yugoslavia countries (where byzantine chant was used before its corrupted version of folk chant was officialized and is now being restored). The diocese of Plovdiv has a website and you can listen to the diocesan choir (all my "nephews" :D) who perform very well.

PS Most supporters of byzantine chant in Balkan countries are young people and as I am about two decades their senior many of them call me "uncle"; hence I call them "nephews".
 

zinoviev

Μέλος
I am curious about the circumstances of the composers mentioned in that thread as well as the adoption of their compositions. For example, what motivated those composers to adapt ecclesiastical hymns written in the New Method to Slavonic?
From what I have read, it seems in the medieval times there were two musical traditions in Bulgaria. First, there are many preserved Byzantine musical manuscripts in Greek language. Apparently the chanters had to learn the music using the original Byzantine Greek texts and notation and then to adapt it to the Slavonic text but without musical notation. Maybe in some monasteries only Greek was used (from the biographies of the saints one can conclude that many of the medieval monasteries were international, it wasn't unusual for Greek and Romanian monks to inhabit Bulgarian monasteries, or for Bulgarian monks to go in Byzantine monasteries, etc.).

The second musical tradition was purely Slavonic. Little is known about this music, there are few preserved musical texts in a very primitive notation. It seems this tradition was more popular in the western part of Bulgaria, where the monasteries (for example the Rila-monastery) were occupied only by Bulgarians and maybe other Slavs. My personal opinion (not an opinion of a professional musicologist) is that this music was not Bulgarian, but the music used by all Balkan Slavs (Bulgarians and Serbians). During the Ottoman rule this Slavonic chant disappeared from Bulgaria, it was however preserved in Serbia. This can explain why the melodies of some apolitikia for Bulgarian saints sound as melodies of the traditional Serbian chant.

During the Ottoman rule the Byzantine chant became the only known chant in Bulgaria (the proper terminology was Eastern ecclesiastical chant). The first Slavonic adaptations and original compositions using the old Byzantine notation are from the second half of 18th century (after Petros Lampadarios) and the main centres for these adaptations were Rila monastery and Mount Athos. At that time it was customary for the Rila monastery to send young prospective monks in Mount Athos to learn music, who would return after several years of education. By the way, metropolitan Seraphim of Bosnia, who is mentioned in this post ended his life in Rila monastery. At the beginning of 19th century there was already a lot of Slavonic musical repertoire in old notation. Most certainly, however, this notation was known only in the big monasteries (Rila monastery and the Slavonic monasteries on Mount Athos) so at that time the Slavonic adaptations and compositions had very little impact.

The real boom of the use of the Byzantine musical notation for chant in Slavonic came only with the invention of the new notation. I don't know why the Rila monastery didn't print its Slavonic compositions but the enthusiasm among the people was so great that these compositions became very popular in the form of handwritten manuscripts. Angel Sevlievetz was the first who printed these compositions but he printed his books without permission from the monastery. A friend of mine asked a monk of Rila monastery to loan the books of Angel Sevlievetz (in order to copy them) and he was answered that they don't have these books because of this.
 

zinoviev

Μέλος
I am sorry but I don't remember what I had in mind...

I don't know how relevant is this, but now, I am noticing that the apolitikia of the recent martyrs often are notated in 3rd mode, i.e. they use western scale. Also the first two sections of the apolitikion of st. Nicholas of Sofia stop on Ga, which is untypical for 3rd mode. Even more untypical is the fact that the neume on Ga is elaphron with klasma notwithstanding that the previous note is stressed but unlengthened (I can be incorrect, but somehow this reminds me a Serbian folk melody). A more traditional Byzantine 3rd mode would require the stressed note before the lengthened elaphron to be lengthened too.

For the apolitikion of st. Nicholas, see page 204 in http://analogion.com/site/pdf/slavonic/Teodorov - Mineinik (Sofia, 1922).pdf
 

popmihajlov

Νέο μέλος
I've checked the apolytikion. Its melody is podoben Bozhestvennyq very. The apolytikion of St. Demetrios has the same structure.
Serbian tone 3 would always begin at ke, and it would never have a medial cadence at ga.
I was hoping that you could have more examples at hand. What I've had in mind are some strange podobny by Amvrosy that bare a title "Bulgarian" and don't have a recognizable theses.
The most obvious connection between Serbian and Bulgarian folk chant would be Deva dnes in his book, no. 18 on page 249 I think.
I would like to learn more about this phenomenon.
 

B. Diener

Active member
Μοst of these compositions were written in Bulgaria where byzantine chat was at that time the official church music (and it still is, although polyphony was used for the liturgy in many central churches). There are few recordings available in Bulgaria and in former Yugoslavia countries (where byzantine chant was used before its corrupted version of folk chant was officialized and is now being restored). The diocese of Plovdiv has a website and you can listen to the diocesan choir (all my "nephews" :D) who perform very well.

PS Most supporters of byzantine chant in Balkan countries are young people and as I am about two decades their senior many of them call me "uncle"; hence I call them "nephews".
Hello Panagiotis,
I would like to share with the people interested in Slavic Byzantine Chant, that there is another choir in Bulgaria, that is different from the Plovdiv one (which hapens to be my "home diocese"), which is with Choir director, Andrei Kasabov (I think you can try to search the web with this name, and you will find many recordings in YouTube).
Thank you, and forgive me!
 

zinoviev

Μέλος
Serbian tone 3 would always begin at ke, and it would never have a medial cadence at ga.
Serbian tone 3 is irrelevant because whenever Bulgarian musicians wanted to notate a non-Byzantine melody they notated it as the closest Byzantine tone disregarding its original tone. For example on page 8 in http://analogion.com/site/pdf/slavonic/Teodorov - Psaltikien Voskresnik (Sofia, 1914).pdf a Kievan melody of "O Gladsome Ligh" (Phos Hilaron) also is notated as tone 3 despite that the Kievan 3rd mode has B (≈Zo) as finalis and D (≈Pa) as dominant which means the original melody was not in tone 3.

I suppose that that the melodies of the apolitikia of the new saints of Sofia were composed by musically illiterate singers. At that time in Westerm Bulgaria notated Slavonic Byzantine music was used only in Rila monastery while Sofia tried to continue the medieval musical traditions of Western Bulgaria (and Serbia?) and didn't use notated music. The melody reminds Bozhestvennyq very or the apolytikion of St. Demetrios not because the composer wanted to follow exactly these melodies but rather because he was accustomed to the motives in these melodies.
 
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