Summary
The main difference with respect to the Balkans is that Italo-Greek as well as Arbëresh communities had been rural throughout the centuries. Hence, the community itself did the job of the choir during Orthodox celebrations, which became only possible in certain communities belonging to two Archdioceses of the Byzantine rite: Lungro in Calabria and Piana degli Albanesi on Sicily.
Within the catholic church they were allowed to celebrate the Greek rite, but this became possible due to a new law in church administration which existed since the 18th century.
The question if there did really exist a continuous oral transmission since the arrival of Albanian emigrants during the last decades of the 15th century, and in as far they adapted to local customs of the Italo-Byzantine tradition which had survived around the Archimandritates in Italy, has not been an issue of historical research yet. Concerning ethnomusicological fieldwork, ethnomusicologists succeeded only in rare cases to trace a living tradition back to the 18th or even 17th centuries (concerning Orthodox chant usually by traditionalist protopsaltes who do not follow the Chrysanthine reform of 1814).
During my fieldwork about liturgical ceremonies in various Arbëresh communities of Northern Calabria and at the Seminary Shën Sotir of Cosenza, I could document monodic oktoechos chant and various forms of multipart singing sometimes within the oktoechos system, sometimes closer to other forms of canto popolare which do neither use equally tempered intervals.
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