Summary / Περίληψη
Concluding the investigation and presentation of the order and psaltic tradition of the Byzantine Chanted Rite, we summarize the contents of this entire study with the following conclusions:
Up to the first quarter of the 15th century the teleturgical rubrics for the daily common prayers of the fullness of our Orthodox Church were recorded in two typica: the enoriako (cathedral) or asmatiko (asmatic) and the monastic. The chanted Typicon was used in all the cathedral and parish churches while the monastic Typicon, as its named suggests, was used in the monasteries.
The services of the chanted type contain more ancient liturgical and psaltic elements in comparison to the monastic. The services of the latter, enriched through the introduction of the new Christian poetic elements, lost their ancient simple shape.
The main characters affecting the chanted practice were the priests and chanters. The asmatic services began with the "Master, bless" chanted by the domestikos and closed with the deacon's declaration, "Let us depart in peace': The dramatization of its teleturgical action contributed to the general brilliancy and ceremony of the asmatic service. The Ambon and surrounding area served as the "stage" upon which –before all the faithful– the chanted services were brought to life through the presence of the clergy and chanters.
The role of the monks in the triumph of Orthodoxy over the iconoclasts and the military conflicts with their catastrophic consequences had as their result the ultimate predominance of the monastic Typicon and the eventual yielding of the Byzantine chanted worship type. In the process of each type's ministry to the Church's worship the two types most certainly converged, each one loaning to the other elements necessary for their refinement. A primary role· in this convergence of types was the general character of our worship, which never remained static, but which adapted to the spiritual needs and expectations of the faithful through the centuries. The harmonious uniting of the known forms and new emerging liturgical trends facilitated the evolution and continuous renewal of the order of Orthodox worship.
The predominance of the monastic Typicon in the cathedral churches did not deter Symeon, who came to Thessaloniki in the years 1416-1417, from keeping the ancient chanted rite in the cathedral of Hagia Sophia and the surrounding parish churches which were under his pastoral authority. He accomplished this through his admonitions and the writing of his asmatic Typikon –the codex EBE 2047– which was revised with select additions certain monastic elements. His subsequent death in 1429 and the Turkish capture of Thessaloniki in 1430 made permanent the abandonment of the Byzantine chanted Typicon.
Even though Symeon is regarded by all as the reviser and compiler of the reworked Asmatic Typicon, the closer investigation of the manuscript music sources changes this widely held view and presents us with the picture of the chanters as the introducers this resurgence, who before Symeon inserted into the chanted services monastic poetic creations that were popular with the faithful. The oldest musical source for the chanted rite, manuscript EBE 2062 (circa 1376-1385), leads us to this conclusion.
The chanters were pioneers in yet another, equally important area, that of the copying of codices. Many of them, with the exception of master composers and interpreters of the ecclesiastical hymns, were excellent codex copiers. Among them are a number who took care to record the music for the chanted services in manuscripts well after the abandonment of the chanted uses. They, thus, gave us the power to know the chant forms while the complementary rubrics that accompany them, constitute a kind of small Typicon, necessary for the chanters of the parish churches, but also useful for contemporary research.
The anthologies for the Panychis and Trithekte services are absent from such known manuscripts. This deficiency can be explained by their usage only during the period of the Great Fast and their ultimate replacement by the monastic counterparts.
Except for very few instances, the chanted melodies of the asmatic services are preserved as anonymous compositions. This anonymity in the cathedral psaltic transmission is explained both by the meager anthologizing of the asmatic services in the music codices not permitting our acquaintance with a larger number of composers but also by the chronologically late –by the year 1336– appearance of eponymous works in the Psaltic Art, a period when the asmatic psaltic tradition had already crystallized.
For the first time we learn of three composers unknown to musicological research to this day who composed chanted melodies: the Patriarchs Theo phylaktos and Nikolaos, and another by the name of Kontovrakes.
Particular music and hymnographic terms are frequently encountered dispersed throughout the anthologies of the chanted melodies in the music manuscripts. These music terms (allagma, diegermos, and others) identify the type of composition while at the same time direct the chanters to chant the melody with embellishment. The hymnographic terms (eisodikon, eulogetaria, and others), based on the content of the hymn and the style of chant that they point to, reveal a different, and by extension, interpretive dimension from that of contemporary practice.
Interspersed between the outlines of the services, primarily, however, for the many examples that appear in the prologues, those of the hymns from the manuscripts containing the chanted rites (pentekostaria, kekragaria, and others), at times completely and at others only their initia.
From the morphological analysis of the chanted melodies, we can observe a chaste and simple compositional style. Each psalmic verse is without embellishment, with uniform and cyclical lines, while more attention is given to the ending refrain (ephymnion).
Of particular interest is the compositional technique and morphologic form of the eponymous compo'sitions introduced into the asmatic services from monastic psaltic tradition. These compositions betray a more embellished form which undoubtedly to a kalophonic melismatic practice.
With the achievement of this dissertation, on the one hand, a task is completed, but so too is the desire and directive of the great liturgist, Symeon of Thessaloniki, "Regarding that the asmatic service never be deserted" 1 •
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