Εναρμόνια φθορά στον Τέταρτο στιχηραρικό / Enharmonic Fthora in Fourth Mode Sticheraric
Πότε και γιατί τίθεται; / When and why is it placed?
A while ago, Alexandros Andreou raised the issue of placement of the Enharmonic fthora on GA of Fourth mode Sticheraric. The fthora is placed in Ioannis Anastasimatarion, but not in Petros Efesios' one. What does it mean? Here is the relevant passage (see e.g. the middle of the first line) :





Here is a recording of the Fourth Eothinon by Th. Stanitsas' student, Christos Dimou [mp3,1 Mb] (broadcasted by S. Kissas, offered by S. Gugushvili)


Comments

D. Koubaroulis: Does anyone know? Is the fthora placed just to show that GA should be low as in descending First Mode (not raised, as it often is in phrases of Legetos, attracted by DI). For what it is worth, the first edition of the Anastasimatarion (1820) by Petros Ephesios does not have any enharmonic fthoras.


Shota has just sent me the score from the Musike Bibliotheke (1867) and it has permanent crossed diesis (sharp) on GA instead of the enharmonic. Here it is :



So I guess it is clearer now that the fthora is placed for BOY and not for GA as I speculated before. According to some people, the BOY of Legetos is slightly lower than the diatonic BOY. So by placing the permanent diesis there we could be reminded that BOY is diatonic, not the BOY of Legetos. Still not sure though. In my opinion the use of the crossed diesis is somehow extreme as it usually means a significant (~half tone) sharp effect, however, it is clearer that it refers to BOY in this case. Any better answer?

G. K. Michalakis: In Mi apostrepsis, a flat (in some books, a chontinuous hyphesis) is placed. Its effect not only brings Ga slightly downwars, but Bou and PA as well, giving an ALL new sound to the repetion of the word THLIIIIIBOMAI... Listen to Iakovos doing it..

In Fourth mode stichiraric, its effect is NOT so much to bring down Ga, but to PUSH UP BOU, as is VERY correctly indicated by the syneches (continuous) diesis on Ga.... try doing this by Grinning of the Bou's, which should be pushed UP towards the GA....

All this goes to show the importance of ORAL tradition.. the SAME fthora on the SAME note on the SAME gender on two DIFFERENT modes has TWO COMPLETELY different effects..