The studies in this volume were written over the course of a decade, and have been presented at various musicology symposiums and workshops in Romania and internationally; some are the fruit of research projects undertaken at institutes of advanced learning. As for article content, it should be said that in spite of an apparent lack of thematic unity, the common denominator is interculturality and the musical blend. The book examines the sacred and west-European secular influences, which formed in the Byzantine territories that from an early date came under Latin administration (for example Crete) or in what is today Romania. In other words, the mutual musical influences of East and West that were manifest in the Mediterranean during the Venetocracy and in the north-Danubian provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia, under Byzantine hegemony, the Church music practices of the Eastern Roman Empire, and the subtle insinuations of communist ideology found in Byzantine musicology and the military music of totalitarian Romania. These are just a few of the topics explored in this book, topics which I hope will awaken an interest in these little known areas of Byzantine and Romanian musical culture, whatever the reader's level of specialisation. Over the years I have accrued a number of debts of gratitude, which should be acknowledged. I must first mention my mentor, Archdeacon Professor Sebastian Barbu– Bucur († 2015), who helped launch my academic career. For more than twenty-five years, I had the honour, privilege and joy of being his student and apprentice (mathitis). It is to him this book is dedicated. I also thank those friends who supported and encouraged me during the writing of these studies. Their rigorous reading, critical comments and encouragement vastly contributed to the final version: Costin Moisil, for the competent grace and participative intelligence of his comments; Daniel Suceava for his all-seeing scholarly eye; Maria Takala–Roszczenko for her transcription of the Slavonic sticheron dedicated to St Paissy Velichkovsky; Professor Dan Buciu and Professor Speranţa Rădulescu for their profound, judicious and at the same time friendly reading of my studies of Western music in Venetian Crete; and Professor Valentina Sandu–Dediu for her excellent competence and subtle guidance of my research in the highly complex and obscure area of music in communist Romania.
(From Aknowledgments)
About the author
Nicolae Gheorghiță is Professor of Byzantine Musical Palaeography, Musical Stylistics and Theories of Byzantine Chant Performance at the National University of Music Bucharest (UNMB), as well as a conductor and performer with the Psalmodia Choir of Byzantine music. He is a graduate of the same institution, and has taken higher studies in Greece (Athens and Thessaloniki), and he has been the recipient of research grants from the universities of Cambridge, Saint Petersburg, and Venice. Gheorghiță has also completed two post-doctoral programmes, at the New Europe College and the Musical Institute for Advanced Doctoral Studies, Bucharest. His writings include over fifty articles and 11 books, and edited volumes. Gheorghiță has been a member of the Union of Romanian Composers and Musicologists since 2001, and has twice won the prestigious institution’s prize, in 2010 (Byzantine Music between Constantinople and the Danubian Principalities. Studies in Byzantine Musicology) and 2015 (Musical Crossroads. Church Chants and Brass Bands at the Gates of the Orient), and the Music Prize of the Romanian Academy of Sciences in the same year 2015, for the same book, Musical Crossroads. Nicolae Gheorghiță is also the editor of the Musica Sacra section within the Musicology Today international periodical of the UNMB
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