Summary
Stathis Gregorios, The developement of the byzantine music in the post-byzantine period
By way prefacing this synopsis of my report to the four day symposium, ''Orthodox Ecclesiastical Music - Past, Present, Future", organized and hosted by Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston on the 5-8 June 1985, 1 would like to clarify a few points. First a note that the report's topic was not my own, but assigned. The next objective was to use the restricted scope defined as "the historical verification of the ecclesiastical music's evolution in the post-Byzantine period" as the backdrop for the formulation of a few thoughts on the music and its application to some contemporary realities. Lastly, the report's structure is rooted in and flows out of the Orthodox tradition of ecclesiastical music; hence, 1 also believe it follows that tradition's natural results and evolution.
In the interest of ensuring a broad understanding of the developments within the psaltic events during the post-Byzantine period, we should consider the following three points: (1) the examination of the post-Byzantine codices, (2) the notation's evolutional development, and (3) the crystallization of the various forms of composition. This investigation occurs in two stages. In the first we examine the post-Byzantine peήod until 1814-1821, when the New Method of analytical notation was put into practice and the music press was established. In the next stage we consider the years from 1821 to the present, where an interesting evolution in the music of Orthodox worship is observed.
It is with good reason that I return to the point of notation and its evolution. The notation of the psaltic art, with which the bώk of the post-Byzantine manuscripts were written, is of primary importance and constitutes the entire problem for musicological research. Personally, 1 see no other problem; all the consequences concerning the psaltic art are to be found in this very point - semiographia. The notation's primary importance referred to is especially prominent when one follows its evolution till its systematic reformation. This evolution is a bridge by which we pass into the Byzantine period itself and begin to shed light on what is found there. Furthermore, one can observe a direct influence upon and a genuine remaking of the music by the notation in the final formation of its various forms of composition - as both notation and composition are inseparable.
The fermentation of the psaltic events eventually settles in the second half of the eighteenth century. There the papadίka melodies of the Byzantine and post-Byzantine composers are maintained alongside one another - the old sticheraric melody alongside the new, both argon and syntomon, and the old hirmologic melody alongside the new, also both argon and syntomon. The codices which house this psaltic variety are the Anthologies, the Anastasimataria, Doxastaria and Hirmologia. These compositions, by preference mostly those of the eighteenth century composers, are the same compositions chanted to this day. After the invention of the music press in 1820, the psaltic tradition of the eighteenth century was transmitted along with some older papadika compositions from the fourteenth through fifteenth centuries, the Anastasimatarion of the fifteenth century in its entirety and a selection of choice compositions from the mathematarion of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, even as for back as the fifteenth century. Thus, the psaltic art is handed down as uniquely both Byzantine and post-Byzantine.
Having offered this survey Ι would now like to state some general opinions with regard to the monoplιonic chant. Inasmuch as it comes down to us with the strength of tradition, Ι believe it should be maintained even today in our rational (logiki) worship. The psaltic art of the Orthodox Church possesses various stable elements because the hymnographic expression with which it is dressed has remained essentially the same for centuries now; it is praise, doxology, petition and supplication; it is the prayer of the faithful, we sinners, which always was and always will remain the same.
My final word is the following: If there does exist, or even if there does not exist, the problem of translating the services of the Church into the local tongues of the Orthodoxy in the diaspora - English, French, or whatever other language - the Orthodox Greek, hymnology must be translated with particular care toward its adaptation to the music; it is even possible for the music to play an instrumental role in the hymnology's correct translation. All prior examples of translation into Slavonic, Romanian, Bulgarian and Arabic are useful lessons and witness to Orthodoxy's ecumenicity. In this manner the theology and hagiology of the Orthodox Church is preserved and spread as the Byzantine and post-Byzantine psaltic art attains to its true ecumenical dimensions as the audio expression of the Orthodox faithful's dialogue with their God at the public gatherings in the churches or privately, "at eventide, in the morning, at noontide and every hour".
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