The Music Sessions at the 17th International

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The Music Sessions at the 17th International Congress of Byzantine Studies GeorgetownUniversity 3-8 August 1986Author(s): Peter JefferySource: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Winter, 1988), pp. 130-134Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/763672.

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2/6

Conference

Report

The Music

Sessions at the

17th

International

Congress

of

Byzantine

Studies

Georgetown University

3-8

August

1986

Peter

Jeffery

130

hree sessions were devoted to music at the 17th

International

Congress

of

Byzantine

Studies,

which

met

August

3-8,

1986,

on the

campus

of

Georgetown

University

in

Washington

D.C.

Co-sponsored by

the

University

and the Dumbarton Oaks Center

for

Byzantine

Studies,

the

quinquennial Congress

was

holding

its

first

meeting

ever

in

North America.

The

more

than

500

scholars who

participated

came from as far

away

as

Australia, India,

and

Japan,

but

the

majority

were

from the

Americas,

Western

Europe,

and

the

countries that

are the main

cultural

heirs to

Byzantine

civilization:

Greece,

Italy,

Eastern

Europe,

and the Soviet Union. For

many

American

Byzantinists,

the

Congress provided

the first

opportunity

to

become

personally acquainted

with

colleagues

from

very

distant

places-colleagues

we had

previously

known

only

through

their

publications.

Strictly

speaking,

Byzantine

studies focuses

on the

Eastern,

Greek-speaking

half

of the Roman

Empire,

which had its

capital

at

Byzantium

from

330

(when

the

Emperor

Constantine renamed

it

Constantinople),

to

1453,

when the

city

fell to the Turks. But in

practice Byzantine studies extends much further, to

every

time and

place

in which

the influence

of

Byzantium

was ever

felt.

Chronologically, Byzantine

studies can extend

back

as far as

the

period

Volume 6

*

Number

i

*

Winter

1988

The

Journal

of

Musicology

?

1988 by

the

Regents

of the

University

of

California

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3/6

CONFERENCE

REPORT

of

Classical

Antiquity,

the

heritage

of

which

Byzantium

did

more

than

any

other culture to

preserve.

At the other

end of the

chronological

spectrum, Byzantine culture still survives today wherever the Greek

language

is

spoken

or

studied,

and

wherever

the

religious

traditions

of

the Eastern Orthodox Churches

are

still

practiced. Geographically,

the

Byzantine

orbit

extended to the borders

of the Eastern

empire,

which

(though they

changed greatly

in the course of

history)

stretched

at

times

from

the Danube to the

Nile,

from the Straits

of

Gibraltar almost

to the

Caspian

Sea. But

Byzantine

influence made itself felt even

farther

afield,

filtering

into the

non-Greek-speaking

border areas of

Ethiopia,

Persia,

Armenia,

and the Balkan countries.

It

is

really

no

exaggeration to say that Byzantium forms part of the heritage of

everyone

whose

native

culture is

rooted

in Greco-Roman

Antiquity,

Judeo-Christian

religion,

and

Indo-European

languages.

Anyone

who

has

such a

background

can still

sympathize

with the

words set

to

music

by

Guillaume

Dufay

when the

city

was

conquered

500

years

ago:

Dont suis de

bien et

dejoye

separee

Sans

que

vivantveulle entendre mes

plains.1

131

Byzantine

music

is

pre-eminently

the medieval

liturgical

chant

of

the Eastern

churches that

followed the

Byzantine

rite.

Today

Byzantine

churches are found

throughout

the

world,

but in the Middle

Ages

most

of

them

were located in the

Greek-speaking

areas

of Asia

Minor,

Pales-

tine,

Italy,

and

Greece;

in the

Slavic-speaking

countries

including

Bul-

garia,

Serbia,

the

Ukraine,

and

Russia;

in

the

neighboring

countries

of

Albania,

Rumania,

and

Georgia;

and

in

Syriac-speaking

Melkite or

Royalist

communities

in

the Middle

East.

But

despite

its focus on

the

Middle

Ages,

Byzantine

musicology

does

not

exclude

from

its

purview

the more recent

music of

these

churches, or the secular folk music of

peoples

inhabiting

the

former

Byzantine

realm.

It

is

easy enough tojus-

tify

the

study

of

medieval

Byzantine

chant

by

the

light

it can

throw on

the chant

and

music

theory

of the medieval

West,

but

specialists

in

Byz-

antine

music find

their

subject extremely

intriguing

in

its own

right.

Some of the

most

interesting

and

important

issues

were

explored

in

the

three music

sessions of the

Washington congress, effectively

organized

by

Prof.

Milos

Velimirovic

(USA)

and attended

by

about

thirty

of

the

Congress delegates.

As

might

be

expected,

most

of

the

delegates

in

at-

tendance were

from

countries where the

field

of

Byzantine musicology

'

Because of it I am

separated

from

well-being

and

joy,

for

no

one

living

will

hear

my

complaints.

From

Lamentatio

sancte matris ecclesie

Constantinopolitanae,

in

Guil-

laume

Dufay,

Opera

Omnia,

ed.

Heinrich

Besseler,

Corpus

Mensurabilis

Musicae

1,

Vol.

6

(Rome:

American

Institute of

Musicology,

1964)

19ff.



4/6

THE

JOURNAL

OF MUSICOLOGY

has an

especially

strong

following:

the United

States,

Greece,

Eastern

Europe,

and

Denmark,

where

the

most

important

resource

in

the

field,

MonumentaMusicae

Byzantinae,

s

published

in

Copenhagen.

As

agreed

at the

previous

Congress

(Vienna

1981),

the

first session

was devoted

to what is

probably

the central issue

of

Byzantine

musical

research,

the

problem

of

how to

decipher

and transcribe

the medieval

neumatic

notation. While scholars

agree

on

the

basic

meaning

of most of

the

important

neumes,

they

disagree

as to

how these written

signs

were

treated

in

performance.

Did

medieval

singers perform

the melodies as

they

were

written,

in

syllabic

style

and

in

a diatonic

gamut

of

pitches?

Or

did

they

make use

of

unwritten

ornaments and

chromatic

alterations,

as

Greek Orthodox

singers

do

today?

The issue was

addressed

by

three

of

the

leading

Byzantine

musicologists.

In

the first

paper,

The Classical

Melos

of

Byzantine Hymns,

Kenneth

Levy

(USA)

defended

a conserv-

ative view of

the sort that Western

scholars have

traditionally

found

ap-

pealing.

The

hymns

of the archaic

Hirmologion

and Sticherarion were

sung

'as

written'

. . .

the tonal

system

underlying

this

style

was

itself

diatonic.

But

Levy

also

counseled a new

openness

to

the

probability

that the

performance

practice

underwent

much historical

evolution,

en-

132

couraging

Byzantinists

in

musicology

to

take

pride

in

the

continuing

capacity for change shown by this repertory. Levy

also

called

for

ethno-

musicological

study

of

the

chants as

they

are

sung

today,

an

investiga-

tion

that

would

do much

to

bring

the

modern

performance

practice

into

historical

perspective.

Some

of

the

history

of the

modern

performance practice

was illumi-

nated

by

Grigorios

Stathis

(Greece),

a scholar

who has had the

benefit of

both traditional

ecclesiastical

training

in

the

chant

and a Western

degree

in

musicology.

His

paper,

The

Exegesis

of Psaltiki

Tehni,

explored

the

writings

of some late medieval

music

theorists

on

the

practice

of

exege-

sis or interpretation, by which ornaments and chromaticism are

su-

perimposed

on the written

melody.

A remarkable

intermediate

position

was

taken

byJ0rgen

Raasted

(Denmark),

who

(appropriately)

read his

paper

in

between

those

of

Levy

and Stathis.

In

Thoughts

on a Revision

of the

Transcription

Rules

of

the Monumenta

Musicae

Byzantinae,

Prof.

Raasted

outlined

the

weaknesses

of the conventional

rules for

transcrip-

tion,

worked

out

in

the

193os

by

the

founders of

Byzantine musicology.

He was able

to

suggest

many improvements

to be utilized

in

future

publications

of the

Monumenta,

particularly

with

regard

to the modern

notational

symbols designating specific

medieval

neumes,

and the

use of

an

improved

page

layout

to

represent

the

poetic

structure

of the

hymn

texts.

Most

Byzantine

musicologists

would

acknowledge

with

Raasted

that the

rhythmic

meaning

of the neumes

often seems

more

ambiguous

than the conventional

transcription

rules

imply.

But Raasted showed

himself

much more

open

to the use

of accidentals

than

many

Western



5/6

CONFERENCE REPORT

scholars have

traditionally

been. The

question

of

exegesis,

however,

Raasted

found it

necessary

to leave

open.

Is it at all

possible

to

make

transcriptions which at the same time can satisfy opponents and advo-

cates

of a

theory

which

claims

that

the neumatic texts ... are

only

out-

lines

( skeletons )

of what

was

actually

being sung

. ..? n

conclusion,

having abundantly

demonstrated

that the

situation calls

for a

thorough

revision of our

transcriptional practice,

Raasted

admirably

called for a

continuing

discussion in

preference

to

imposing

any

new set

of

rules.

The

two later sessions were

devoted to

short,

fifteen-minute

presen-

tations

by

many younger

scholars,

in no

particular

order. Some

of

these

papers

considered

other

aspects

of the

transcription

issue:

Gregory

Myers (USA), in The Koukouzelian Didactic Song as an Aid in the

Transcription

of

Russian

Kondakarian

Notation,

explored

the

possi-

bility

of

using

late medieval Greek

material

to

decipher

the earliest

Slavonic notation.

Peter Weincke

(Denmark),

in

Some Observations

on

the

Interpretation

of

Signatures

and

Accidentals

in East and

West,

fo-

cused

on

some

extremely

rare

examples

of

Byzantine

polyphony.

Elena

Toncheva

(Bulgaria),

in

The

Problem

of

the

Postbyzantine

Musical

Exegesis-Seventeenth-Century

Musical

Exegesis

in

the

Ukraine,

car-

ried the

issue

of

exegesis

into

the Slavic world.

133

Two other papers dealt with one of the most controversial issues in

all

medieval chant

study,

the

problem

of the

interrelated roles of oral

and written

means of

transmission

in

the

creation

and

preservation

of

chant melodies. One

aspect

of this

issue,

the centonate

or

formulaic

character

that

many

texts and

melodies

exhibit,

was

examined

by

Nina

Konstantinova

Ulff-M0ller

(Denmark)

in The

Connection

Between

Melodic

Formulas and

Stereotype

Text Phrases

in

Slavonic

Stichera ;

her

paper

received an

especially

enthusiastic

reception

as a

job

well

done.

Joan

Roccasalvo

(USA),

in

The Nature and

Structure

of

Rusin

Plainchant, explored the interaction of oral and written transmission in

the chant of the

Eastern

Slavs

in

Subcarpathian

Rus'

during

the

eight-

eenth

through

twentieth centuries.

Marian

Robertson's

(USA)

The

Good

Friday

Trisagion

of

the

Coptic

Church: A

Musical

Transcription

and

Analysis,

explored

the

melody

attached

to

an

important

Greek

chant

text,

as

it

is

sung today

in the

oral tradition of the

modern

Coptic

Orthodox

Church in

Egypt.

Two of

the

papers

dealt with

specific

trends

in

the

history

of

the

Byzantine

Greek

liturgy.

In

The

Creation and the

Disappearance

of

the

Greek Old

Testament

Lectionary, Sysse

Gudrun

Engberg (Den-

mark)

outlined

the

history

of this

early

liturgical

book

(also

known as

the

Prophetologion),

an

important

monument of

Greek

ekphonetic

nota-

tion.

Peter

Jeffery

(USA),

in

Lost

Melodies

of the

Rite

of

Jerusalem,

and their

Partial

Survivals in the

Byzantine

and

Latin Chant

Reper-

toires,

speculated

that

the

melodies

sung

in

the local

liturgy

of

Jerusa-



6/6

THE

JOURNAL

OF

MUSICOLOGY

lem between

the fourth and eleventh centuries

may

have

played

a role

in

the formation of the

Byzantine

and Western

chant traditions.

Pointing

out that

many

texts

ofJerusalem origin

survive

in

the

chant traditions

of

Byzantium

and the

West,

and that

the Eastern and

Western melodies

associated

with

many

of these

texts often show

unexpected

similarities,

Jeffery argued

that these

melodic similarities

are best

explained

as ves-

tiges

or survivals

of the

original

Jerusalem

melodies,

which are

not

ex-

tant

in

any

notated

source from

Jerusalem

itself.

Two

other

papers

dealt

with

Greek

melodies

of the later

medieval

and

early

modern

periods,

when written sources

are

relatively

abundant

and

transcription

issues

relatively

few.

Stephanie

Janakakis-Merakos

(USA),

in

Simple

and

Kalophonic Settings

of

Pasa

pnoe,

dealt

with the

new

Kalophonic

style

of the fourteenth and

fifteenth

centuries,

as ex-

emplified

in

the

melodies for Psalm

150

in the

Ordinary

of

the

Morning

Office.

Svetlana

Kujumdzieva (Bulgaria),

in 'Kurie ekekraxa'

(140.1)

der ersten

Stimme

in

der

post-byzantinischen

Periode,

dealt

with first-

mode melodies

of the

sixteenth

through

eighteenth

centuries

for Psalm

140 (141)

in

the

Ordinary

of the

Evening

Office.

Unfortunately,

a

number of

delegates

from

Rumania,

Italy,

Aus-

134

tria,

and even the United

States were unable to attend,

but most of

them

mailed

in

copies

of their

papers

to be shared

with the rest of

the

group.

Even

so,

the

precious

opportunity

to be

part

of

such

an

international

group

of

experts

was

so

rare

it will not be

forgotten

by anyone

who

was

there.

The one

regret expressed

by

many

of

those who attended

was

that

there was

so little time

to

pursue

further the animated

and

provoca-

tive discussions

that each of the

papers

had stimulated.

Of course

noth-

ing

could

be done

to extend the

conference,

and

no doubt

some

of

these

discussions

will

be

continued

by

mail.

But

it is to be

hoped

that

addi-

tional discussion

time will somehow

be made

available

at

the

1991

Con-

gress

in

Moscow.

University

of

Delaware

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