MUSIC OF THE EASTERN CHURCHES
| Autor: | Alfred J. Swan |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1936 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | The Musical Quarterly. :430-434 |
| ISSN: | 1741-8399 0027-4631 |
| DOI: | 10.1093/mq/xxii.4.430 |
| Popis: | T HE RECENT PUBLICATION by the Danish Academy, in its series of Monumenta Musicce Byzantince, of the Viennese Codex (Theol. Grac. 181) in facsimile opens a new chapter for our acquaintance with the music of the Eastern Churches. The Codex is a Sticherarium of the year 1221, containing Stichera Idiomela with Greek text and notation of the Middle-Byzantine period (twelfth to fifteenth century). A transcription into modern notation of a part of this Sticherarium-the Menaion2 for September has just appeared. This transcription is unlike previous ones (by Gastou6 and Riemann) in one essential point: the melody is here endowed with rhythmic life and flows along quite spontaneously, whereas previous transcriptions have failed to catch its rhythm and have made it into a lifeless succession of notes. This dynamic and rhythmic interpretation of the Byzantine melodies we owe to Prof. E. Wellesz of Vienna, one of the editors of the Monumenta Musicce Byzantince. The music of Byzantium is a vast field of religious art ranging from the earliest extant documents of the sixth century, with socalled ecphonetic signs (signs indicating the rise and fall of the voice during the solemn reading of the Gospel), up to the Neo-Greek music beginning a little over a century ago. This whole sphere remained closed to the ear of the musician for want of any certain way of reading the notation. Even the text of the hymns was not made into a subject of study until about 1870, when the Anthologia Grceca Carminum Christianorum of Christ and Paranikas, and the Hymnographie de l'Aglise Grecque of Cardinal Pitra made their appearance. The nineties saw the epoch-making contributions of Uspensky and Krumbacher, and the foundation of the Byzantinische Zeitschrift. The notation of the Byzantine manuscripts was first explained in Thibaut's Monuments de la Notation Ecphondtique et Hagiopolite de l'J glise |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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