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

μάρκελλος

Μάρκελλος Πιράρ, Γενικός συντονιστής
Andrawos Mu'aiqal (1890-1964) who studied Psaltic with Mitri Al-Murr Protopsalt of the Patriarchate of Antioch, and at the Patriarchal School of Jerusalem, is said to have written melodies in Arabic, which have never been published (as far as I know).

Anyway, Mitri Al-Murr (born in Tripoli, Lebanon in 1880, died in 1969) should be considered as the first systematic worker in this field, since he composed most of the hymns of the ""classical" repertorium. He published one book in Beirut in 1955 (Hymns of the Divine Liturgy) and 1965 (The Holy Week).
After he died, his son Fou'ad published his Anastasimatarion (1970), The Great Lent and Pentecostarion (Beirut 1972), Psaltic Theory + Paracletic Canons (1981) ...
 

Π. Δαβίδ

Γενικός συντονιστής
And let us not forget that the use of Arabic in the worship flourished under the current Patriarch as in the past Greek was mostly used though people failed to understand it! :eek:
 

Dimitri

Δημήτρης Κουμπαρούλης, Administrator
Staff member
Thanks for the info. Do we know anything about what music they used to chant before El Murr and Mouaikel?
 

μάρκελλος

Μάρκελλος Πιράρ, Γενικός συντονιστής
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.
 

Dimitri

Δημήτρης Κουμπαρούλης, Administrator
Staff member
Thank you for this very interesting information. If anyone knows more about the history of Byzantine chanting in the Arab countries please do contribute here.
 

Haleemusic

Νέο μέλος
mitri el Murr and Muaikel were NOT the first to chant in Arabic nor to write in byzantine notation. an article published in the Al-Nashra magazine of the Antioch Pariarchate by fr.Youhanna (Iouannis) el Lati and Dr. Joseph Zeitoun talks about the psaltai in Antioch (Arab church) in the 19th and 20th century.
there were Arabs and Greeks who were brought to chant here (they chanted mostly in Greek and sometimes in Arabic)

-Gabriel Mousa Meidani was the Protopsaltis of the Maryamiye church (the Patriarchate church) from 1818 till 1847 at least and he's probably was taught by the very same Xourmozios Xartofilax (there's a slight chance of mistake that he wasn't taught by Xourmozios but by another student of Georgios of Crete like Phwkaeos, though the more likely is that Xourmozios was his teacher).
-Joseph son of Abdo son of Michael Mukhalla' the Damascenos. he was the Protopsaltis of Antioch at least on the 1825
-Prokopios the deacon. he was the student of Phwkaeos. we was brought from Constantinopolis. he was the psaltis of the Patriasch Methodios at least starting from 1826.
-Joseph (Youseph) el Doumani the Damascinos (Damascene). he was the student of deacon Prokopios. he taught byzantine music in the Theology institute (is closed in our days) in the Orthodox School of the Patriarchate (Al Assia) and was appointed as the Protopsaltis of the church of Antioch. He's the teacher of Mitri el Murr.
-Elia Simonidis (known as Elia el Roomi). He's a Greek psaltis came to Aleppo in1922 then he went to Damascus. he was appointed in the 1924 as the Protopsaltis of the f Antioch. he left his mark and affected everyone who chants in Damascus till this day. he was distinguished with his strong voice and his control over his wide vocal range. he chanted in Greek and sometimes in Arabic. he had many students, one of them is Fauzi Bshara who chants almost exactly like his teacher. I will provide recordings of Elia and Fauzi Bshara soon. Fauzi was from Damascus born in 1933. he was the protopsaltis of the Holy Cross Chuch in Damascus from 1953 till1970 then he was the protopsaltis of Kuwait till1990 and he's now in Montreal (Canada) tilll this day.

I hope I may add a personal opinion and I hope it won't bother any Arab psaltis. Elia el Roomi is far more better pdaltis that Mitri el Murr was, it's true that Mitri is the only Arab that published byzantine notation books, but what bothers me about him is that most of his works are tranlated (almost literally) from the original Greek and he wrote that they are his own compoition and correction on the cover of his books, and most of those peices he didn't get from a Greek origin he got from his teacher Yousef el Doumani (who didn't leave any written legacy) and again Mitri didn't mention that those peices aren't his. and as we have on the analogion.com some of his recordings we see that he chants completely different that what he "composed". it's true that Mitri has a really great vioce, but that is the factor that made him so special. he published some books while others didn't. still, his compositions has so many cracky musical lines that troubles the psaltis more than it helps. when I post the recordings of Elia el Roomi many will agree with me that Elai is a better psaltis though Mitri has a better voice (well, Vasilikos has a great voice but still he's not the best psaltis). Our region witnessed lots of problems and countries were unstable due to wars, and that's a main reason for the severe lack of many kinds of publishing (including musical). don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for what Mitri has done, it was good for many Arab psaltai, but if he didn't do it, others would have done it.. there's a nice translating movement these days by several individuals here and there (mostly in Lebanon), they're translating and composing good traditional peices, hopefully one day these works will see the light in the form of published books available for all instead of personal use.



Haleem
 
Last edited:
Dear all,
I have been learning Arabic chant from Mitri El-Murr's books and have had some success. I'm an American by birth, so my Arabic is, how-you-say, la taib (not good) but the Arabs (mostly Palestinians) at my parish are grateful that I'm trying, even if my pronunciation leaves much to be desired. When I show my Mitri books to the Arabs that I know (they are not chanters) they seem generally baffled and ask why I would ever try to chant from them, because they are written "backwards". I understand, because Mitri writes his syllables right-to-left (correct in Arabic) but you read each syllable left-to-right (correct in Byzantine notation). So you end up, in a sense, reading right-to-left and left-to right at the same time. I know Papa Ephraim has posted a Byzantine font that goes from right to left, so that it flows better with the Arabic text.

My question is: do any Arab chanters use the right-to-left Byzantine notation, or do they all follow Mitri's model of using left-to-right notation with right-to-left text?

Thanks,
Reader Moses (or, Musa Al-Qara)

ps- I know I've thought about asking this before, but I can't remember if I ever did. If this has already been answered elsewhere, please forgive me...
 

μάρκελλος

Μάρκελλος Πιράρ, Γενικός συντονιστής
Papa Ephraim has posted a Byzantine font that goes from right to left, so that it flows better with the Arabic text.

My question is: do any Arab chanters use the right-to-left Byzantine notation, or do they all follow Mitri's model of using left-to-right notation with right-to-left text?

Thanks,
Reader Moses (or, Musa Al-Qara)

Dear Musa,

Your are right, a Psaltic notation that goes from right to left, flows better with the Arabic text. In that way, you chant words, not only syllabes (except if you know the text by heart).

The Arab Orthodox chanters use the left-to-right Psaltic notation (like in Mitri Al-Murr's books); the Melkites (Uniates) prefer the notation that goes from right to left.
 

μάρκελλος

Μάρκελλος Πιράρ, Γενικός συντονιστής
mitri el Murr and Muaikel were NOT the first to chant in Arabic nor to write in byzantine notation. an article published in the Al-Nashra magazine of the Antioch Pariarchate by fr.Youhanna (Iouannis) el Lati and Dr. Joseph Zeitoun talks about the psaltai in Antioch (...)
Elia el Roomi is far more better pdaltis that Mitri el Murr was.
Haleem

Dear Haleem,

I did NOT write that Mitri el Murr and Muaikel were the FIRST to chant in Arabic or to write in byzantine notation. I only underligned the fact that Mitri el Murr was the first systematic worker since he left many books. But I do agree with your critical position concerning his work. I also agree with you in that Elia el Roumi was a far more better psaltis that Mitri el Murr was.
I would be grateful if you could provide me with a copy of the article published in Al-Nashra in order to translate it into Greek. If you agree, I shall send you my address on your mail.
 
Last edited:

Haleemusic

Νέο μέλος
Dear μάρκελλος,
I apologize if my reply seemed like attacking, it wasn't actually written to reply to your statement but to all those out there who assume that Mitri el Murr is a legend. As a psaltis I get a lot of harsh criticism when chanting anything that isn't for Mitri, that's why I wrote what I wrote.
and you are rioght, he is the first systematic worker in this field. although he translated most of his works and composed a very very few of them.
 

Haleemusic

Νέο μέλος
Dear Reader Moses,
all orthodox psaltai chant according to Mitri's model, even those who compose or translate they do it according to Mitri's model because he preserved the original form of the musical text.

the Catholics who attempt chant byzantine music the do it from right to left, but it's troubling because the inverted the direction of the musical line, so for us who learned to chant, it'll be like looikng to the score in a mirror, the only thing that stays the same is the oligon :D

it's not troubling for us to read the Arabic line in Mitri's model.

yours
Haleem
 
Dear Haleem,
One more question: where would I find Liturgical texts in Arabic online? Not just music, but texts like the Horologion, Menaion, and especially the Oktoechos/Paraklitiki? I've had people show me sites before, but I usually end up getting lost (on account of my poor Arabic skills) or just finding a service here and there (like Compline or Divine Liturgy). What I'm really after is something like what you'd find here or here but in Arabic instead of Greek or English. Any ideas?

Thanks!
Rdr Moses
 

basil

Παλαιό Μέλος
it's true that Mitri is the only Arab that published byzantine notation books, but what bothers me about him is that most of his works are translated (almost literally) from the original Greek and he wrote that they are his own composition and correction on the cover of his books

Really? Fr Ephraim recently concluded that "master composers who adapted Byzantine chant into foreign languages laid much more emphasis on adhering to the formulaic rules, even if it meant that the contour of the original melody was discarded" using samples in Slavonic and Romanian. Upon a cursory examination of Mitri el-Murr's Anastasimatarion, I found many similar instances where the formulaic rules were preserved at the expense of preserving the contour of the original melody. See, for example, the Kekragaria and Dogmatic Theotokion in tone 5. I am intrigued by your claim that Mitri el-Murr's music is lifted directly from the Greek. In my experience, I have found that Mitri el-Murr's music often differs significantly from the Greek. Could you share any examples to make your point more clear?

most of those pieces he didn't get from a Greek origin he got from his teacher Yousef el Doumani (who didn't leave any written legacy) and again Mitri didn't mention that those pieces aren't his.

I have wondered about this for a while, now, since Mitri el-Murr does mention the influence of Yousef el Doumani in one of the introductions but does not go into detail about it. Can you again clarify your point? Are you saying that famous compositions by Mitri el-Murr, such as the Doxastikon of the Holy Fathers, the Megalynarion of Pascha, etc. are really the creative work of his teacher? Or are you saying that Mitri el-Murr borrowed his distinctive "style" from his teacher? By "style" I mean his way of composing in four-beat groupings, the unique melodic formulae he sometimes uses, and his own unique modifications to classical formulae.

and as we have on the analogion.com some of his recordings we see that he chants completely different that what he "composed".

Why do you suppose this is the case?
 
Last edited:

tsb216

Μέλος
Another example, much more significant: Manuscript Sinai syr. 261, written in 1233/1234, also in Syriac, with paleobyzantine notation (Coislin Notation).
Those interested in checking out this Melkite manuscript with musical notation, you can consult H. Husmann, Ein syro-melkitisches Tropologion mit altbyzantinischer Notation, Sinai syr. 261 (Göttingen, 1975).
 

tsb216

Μέλος
Haleem's comments are helpful. In general I agree with regards to Murr, and his family has played a very negative role as well. One name that is left out however is that of Georgos Karakasis. Karakasis chanted in Beirut at St. George cathedral for a number of years and taught several students. What would be very useful is to find out if the Archdiocese of Beirut or if the students of Andraos Moaykel, Elie Khoury, et al., know of any recordings or manuscripts or traditions that he left from his tenure in Beirut.

The other issue which has been quite controversial in the Antiochian tradition due to politico-ideological reasons, is the influence of oriental music on the composition and expression of Byzantine music in Arabophone countries, including with Murr, as noted in this thread.

I remember one of the first impressions I had when I first heard Murr's recordings was that it struck me as very orientalized, and more like singing than proper traditional Church chanting that you hear, say, with Nafpliotis' recordings. To use an imperfect analogy, think of it as a comparison between a highly ornamental, Turkish influenced Stanitsas versus, say, a rendition by Anastasios Sompatzis. E.g., ridiculously elaborate voice vibrato and sliding.

It was rather disappointing.

But this problem could be found also, perhaps in a more extreme form, with Dimitri Koutya, one of Symonidis' students. In fact, one can even detect some signs of it in Symonidis' own chanting, though the traditional foundation and elements can clearly be heard.

I suppose this hearkens back to the concern that Nafpliotis had with Pringos being left at the Patriarchate swimming by himself, surrounded by people who have no real grasp of the tradition, which was bound to influence him negatively, and jeopardize the transmission of the tradition.

In other words, detached from the traditional setting and surrounded by Muslim religious and folk music in Arabophone lands, the students were bound to lose it. Add politico-ideological identity issues into the mix of ignorance, and you have a serious problem.

Compounding the problem today is the inability to identify a proper source of tradition in order to rectify the situation. So you have "revival" movements of various stripes with different sources of inspiration.

Some like the School of Ecclesiastic Music in Lebanon are extremely ambitious, and successful, but sadly all over the place. Heavily reliant on Karas and Angelopoulos, with no real knowledge of people like, say, Nafpliotis, Karakasis, Gemelos, and others that predate the Stanitsas era (though they are familiar with Pringos' compositions of course, but not really his recordings). Others in Syria are even worse, completely incoherent and ham fisted with an unidentifiable or coherent influence from Mt. Athos (due to the influence of the monastic background of younger priests and bishops, especially the Yazigi brothers -- Youhanna and Boulos -- both now bishops who had studied in Greece and spent time in Agio Pavlo monastery on Mt. Athos).

Similarly, in Tripoli, there is mixed influence of Koutiya on the one hand and Fr. Nicholas Malek on the other, both of which are deeply influenced by oriental music and often diverge from traditional musical phraseology.

This is why the potential of finding what the legacy of Karakasis was in Beirut as well as the important documentation of Symonidis' chanting, not to mention pinpointing the provenance of the earliest teachers (Doumani et al.) are needed to try and piece together some link to tradition.
 

Shota

Παλαιό Μέλος
Judging by the recordings of Mitri el-Murr that we have on analogion (see here), he reminds me of Kostas Thomaidis. Just my perception.
 

Shota

Παλαιό Μέλος
Since the flock of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem to a significant degree consists of Arabs, does there exist a distinct tradition of chanting in Arabic associated with Jerusalem Patriarchate? Some time ago I uploaded a recording by the former protopsaltis of the Holy Sepulchre church Ioannis Mistakidis, where you can also hear an old priest from Jerusalem, Fr. Hanna Sakkab. Is there anything more known?
 

tsb216

Μέλος
Shota, I can't speak with any authority on this matter, not being from that diocese. That is, I cannot say what the situation is (historically and currently) on the local parish level. However, I can speak of a directly related matter that I do know closely.

The training of young Arabophone priests and cantors in the Jerusalem diocese, including Jordan, happens for the most part in the same place as their Lebanese and Syrian counterparts: St. John of Damascus Seminary at Balamand, Lebanon.

In the past, the music teachers there were basically two people: Then Archimandrite (now Metropolitan in Paris) John (Youhanna) Yazigi, and Fr. Nicholas Malek.

Malek is a native of northern Lebanon, and so knew Koutiya well. Yazigi was for a while dean of the Theology school. A graduate of Balamand himself, he had gone to Thessaloniki for his graduate studies and obtained a doctorate in Liturgics from the theology faculty at the Aristotelian University. As I mentioned before, he also spent lots of time at Agio Pavlo monastery.

Yazigi and Malek authored a concise manual of Byzantine music in Arabic, published by Balamand, as a textbook for teaching music to all the seminarians (Jordanians, Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians, as well as south American Antiochians who have chosen to study there). The practical task of teaching was for the most part left to Fr. Malek, who for the longest time was the main instructor associated with Balamand.

However, when Yazigi's brother, Paul (Boulos), now Metropolitan of Aleppo, became dean of the Theology school at Balamand, he and Malek did not get along, and Yazigi essentially removed him from his position. He so despised Malek's style that he banned it from being played on tapes during public gatherings at the seminary (lunch and dinner, when often Church music would be played in the background). You can hear pedagogical recordings of Malek on this website: http://kelfar.net/orthodoxiaradio/ArabicChant/arabicchant.html

Yazigi's background is similar to his brother's, having studied in the same place (doctorate in Patristics) and spent time at the same monastery. But Yazigi was deeply Grecophile, and more specifically, an Athos enthusiast. Having spent time in Thessaloniki, he had known and I believe studied with (though how long and how much, I don't know) Georgiadis.

He brought one of his own students from Syria to teach at Balamand, but the fellow simply didn't have the vocal capacities or the personality to do the job. Then in recent years a number of teachers took up the job, including Michael Hourani -- a founding member of the Mt. Lebanon choir who went on to Greece to study with Stathis and Angelopoulos -- and currently, from what I see on the seminary's website, it's held by Fr. Romanos Jibran. Jibran is a graduate of the seminary who also studied music a bit in Greece and leads a choir for the Beirut Archdiocese. I don't know what curriculum he uses now, or which one Hourani used (although, judging from this video with Hourani at Balamand's church, there's a lot of Greek that's been introduced in the Karas style. Hourani is the bald fellow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euFQ0tVaZxk). Earlier, the vast majority of material was Murr's books and pieces as well as Nicholas Malek's own compositions.

So why mention all this? The point is, much of the up and coming generation of active young people in the Church, be they priests or cantors, in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinian territories, people, that is, who are versed in music and who go on to teach it, are by and large either directly or indirectly drinking from that well. And that well is overwhelmingly full of Murr's material (by virtue of his books being the main and often only resources), and it was taught for the longest time mainly following the style of Nicholas Malek (in northern Lebanon, Malek's influence is stronger).

However, that whole curriculum, which teaches these "elites" as it were, has been changing with the introduction of teachers who have been taught by or influenced by modern Greek cantors and musicologists, or with more (like I said, very diverse and incoherent) Athonite influence. Or in the case of the School of Ecclesiastic Music, an eclectic mix of various Greek sources, but with a clear influence by the Karas school. SEM is also influential because they publish CDs, books, and have concerts in Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere, and have their graduates then teach local parish choirs, introducing into local parishes their own interpretations and editing of Murr, or sometimes entirely new musical documents replacing Murr's repertoire. (You can get a sense of their style and how much closer it is to modern Greek choirs in this video and others they did with Idimelon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVGhwTXMJZ8 What this means is that new musical texts had to be composed in order to fit the style, which is one of their mission statements: to show that Arabic texts can be rendered in an non-Orientalized style, closer to the Greek style. This is all part of the "quest for tradition" -- however misguided -- that I mentioned earlier, which does have both upsides and downsides.).

So the question is what remains of the "village psalti" traditions in the Jerusalem Archdiocese? How good were these traditions anyway (from what I was told by Jordanian students, it wasn't pretty at all, often being very bad linguistically and musically)? What was the percentage in there of any positive influence by students of the traditional Greek psaltai like Bamboudakis -- with whom, by the way, Andraos Moaykel studied for a while? And how much of that survived not in the Palestinian territories but perhaps went with the migrants to south America?

I don't know the answer to these questions.
 
Last edited:
Top