Alexandrou Maria, Observations on the analysis, texture and the reception of Byzantine Music. The hymn Σιγησάτω πᾶσα σὰρξ βροτεία
Abstract. Remarks on the analysis, musical texture and meta-ˇ‐aesthetics of Byzantine Chant. The Hymn Let all mortal flesh keep silence. One of most intensively developing fields of Byzantine Music Studies during the last decade is the Morphology and Analysis of Byzantine Chant. 1. In the first part of the presentation a typology of analyses of Byzantine Chant is shown, highlighting the new trends in this field according to the international bibliography. 2. The second step is to redraw the connection line between analysis and musical texture of Byzantine Chant, i.e. that component of the art of melourgia (= liturgical composition, cf. Alygizakis) which refers to the process and the way of compositional fusion between word and melody in the different genres, categories and styles of composition, according to the system of the eight modes, the characteristic formulas and the different manners (‘dromoi’) of the Byzantine melos. Εssential aspects of Byzantine musical texture and, more generally, of the compositional art are reflected through the mirror of services in honor of saint melodists, hymnographers and composers (e.g. St. John of Damascus, St. John Koukouzelis) as well as through other sources, thus leading to the outline of basic aspects of the meta-.‐aesthetics (cf. Paschos) of the Psaltic Art. 3. Finally, the Hymn of the Cherubim for Holy Saturday, Let all mortal flesh keep silence (cf. translation by Mother Mary and Archim. Kallistos Ware), which already attracted the attention of many scholars (Conomos, Karas, Chatzigiakoumis, Karagounis), is submitted to different morphologic and analytic approaches (historical, comparative, metrical, formal, modal, syntactical, structural on different levels, interarts), with emphasis on the famous composition by Iakovos Protopsaltis from the end of the 18th century.
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