Lingas From Earth To Heaven - The Changing Musical Soundscape of Byzantine Liturgy-Small PDF

17.
From Earth to Heaven:

The Changing Musical Soundscape of
Byzantine Liturgy!
Alexander Lingas
Introduction
The sound of human voices raised in song - in other words, that of people
performing what most modern listeners grounded in Western culture would
recognise as forms of unaccompanied (a cappella) music2 - was integral to
The completion of this article was made possible thanks to the gracious support of the
Stavros Niarchos Foundation (for a year of research leave) and the Seeger Center for Hellenic
Studies of Princeton University (for a visiting research fellowship). The original lecture-
demonstration on which this study is based was delivered with the musical aid of Spyridon
Antonopoulos. All English translations of service texts, most of which have been published
previously in liner notes to CD recordings by Cappella Romana, are by Archimandrite
Ephrem Lash.
2
Since, as Bohlman has observed, approaches to the description of musical activity
may be rooted in distinctive ontologies of music, we should note that the Byzantines spoke
and wrote about singing in church in ways that differ subtly from those customary today.
Unlike Muslims, who traditionally have excluded the recitation of the Koran (qirii'ah) from
their definitions of music (musiqiilmiisiqi), Byzantine authors were not averse to describing
Christian liturgical singing as 'f.!OVCJLK~'. Indeed, mousike (literally, something pertaining to
the Muses) is but one of a host of terms and phrases derived from pagan Greek Antiquity
found in Byzantine literature, including treatises of music theory in which the theoretical
terminology of Ancient Greek music was resumed, as well as homilies and hymns, where such
terms were often deployed for rhetorical effect. Nevertheless, one finds in Byzantine service
rubrics and monastic literature a distinct technical vocabulary for ecclesiastical chanting that
serves both to distinguish it from other forms of music making and to indicate its continuity
with what might also be non-musical activities. Examples of such multivalent terms are the
nouns psalmody (\)JaAf.!cpbl.a), ecphonesis (fxcj:>wvT]at<:;) and reading (itV£xyvwaLc;), as well as
the verb to say (i\tynv). On the varieties of musical ontologies, see P.V. Bohlman, World Music:
A Very Short Introduction, Very Short Introductions 65 (Oxford and New York, 2002), pp. S-9;
From Experiencing Byzantirtm Copyright © 2013 by the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine
Studies. Published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Wey Court East, Union Road, Farnham,
Surrey, GU9 7PT, Great Britain.
311
312 FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN
public worship in Byzantium. Celebrations in cathedrals, parochial churches

and coenobitic monasteries of the eucharistic Divine Liturgy and the major
daily offices of morning and evening prayer - that is, Orthros and Vespers -
featured, at least in theory, nearly continuous singing. 3 This was performed in
alternation between groups of singers arranged into ecclesiastical and musical
hierarchies, whose precise configuration in a particular place and time was
governed by such variables as the liturgical occasion, the rite being served -
for example, monastic or cathedral, of Constantinople or Jerusalem - and the
financial and human resources that were locally available.
The full range of singers heard in Byzantine churches encompassed
ordained soloists (including the higher clergy of deacons, priests and bishops),
permanently resident choirs (in cathedrals generally consisting of ordained
choristers who were members of the lower clergy, but functionally comparable
to modern English lay clerks), various secondary ensembles (choirs of
children, deaconesses and monastics), and entire congregations. 4 At the top of
this hierarchy were bishops and priests, who intoned blessings, the concluding
doxologies of presidential prayers, and in some instances the prayers
and P.V. Bohlman, 'Ontologies of Music', in N. Cook and M. Everist (eds), Rethinking Mttsic
(Oxford and New York, 1999), pp. 17-34. An overview of Byzantine musi cal terminol ogy is
R. Schlotterer, 'Der kirchenmusikalische Terminologie der gJ.iechischen Kirchenvater' (Ph.D.
diss., Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat, MLinchen, 1953).
3
The amount of singing performed in minor daily offices or occasional services varied
considerably according to the context. The lesser daily and seasonal offices of the rite of the
Great Church of Hagia Sophia were musically similar to its major services in being sung
throu ghout - hence, perhaps, the origin of the popular name of the Consta ntinopolitan
cathedral rite in later Byzantium: the 'Sung Office' (' ci<uf-liXHK~ exKoi\ouEJiiX'). The lesser homs
of the Palestinian monastic rite of St Sabas, on the other hand, were constructed in such a way
as to permit their celebration w ith little or no singing and, if so desired, in private (a practice
actually mandated on some occasions by rubrics in monastic service books). The Office of
Prepara tion for Holy Communion and other services of devotion or supplication that were
not, strictly speaking, part of the daily cycle of offices co uld likewise be celebrated in private
or in common with or without singing. For an overview of the minor hours of the Byzantine
Divine Office, see C. Lutzka, Die Klei11e11 Horen des byzantinischen Stundengebetes tmd ihre
geschichtliche Entwicklung, 2nd edn, Forum orthodoxe Theologie 7 (Berlin, 2010). The relative
importance of music within the Constantinopolitan and Neo-Sabai'tic lih1rgical traditio ns is
examined in A. Lingas, 'How Musical was the "Sung Office"? Some Observations on the
Ethos of the Byzantine Cathed ral Rite', in I. Moody and M. Takala-Rozsczenko (eds), The
Traditions of Orthodox Music. Proceedings of the First Jntemationnl Conference on Orthodox Church
Music, University of Joensuu, Finland 13- 19 June 2005 (Joensuu, 2007), pp. 217- 34.
For a comprehensive inventory of the mt1sical forces employed in the churches
of Byzantium, see now E.C. Spyrakou, 01 xopoi lj!at\TriJv KetTci· Tl )v Bui;al'Hl' ll naprti)oal),
Institute of Byzantine Musicology Shtdies 14 (Athens, 2008). A compact but older survey is
'The Byzantine Choir', eh. 3 in N.K. Moran, Singers in Late Byzantine and Slavonic Painting,
Byzantina Neerlandica 9 (Leiden, 1986), pp. 14-50.
ALEXANDER LINGAS 313
themselves. 5 Deacons chanted litanies, the Gospel, and such commands as

'Let us attend' (TlQ6GXWfl€V', effectively 'Pay attention!') and 'Stand upright'
(''OQ8ol'). 6 Among the lower clergy, solo cantors (for whom the generic term
was ljJ6:ihm, that is 'psalmists') chanted melodically florid settings of hymns
and psalm verses, whilst readers (avayvwa'tcu) cantillated Old Testament
lessons. When not singing as soloists, these psaltai and anagnostai also served as
members of choirs that performed choral versions of hymns and psalms. The
doxologies, litanies and psalms of the higher clergy and professional singers
were punctuated regularly with responses and refrains that were mostly brief
and easily memorable. This facilitated their performance by larger and less
skilled bodies of singers that, in some times and places, included the entire
liturgical assembly (6 Aa6<;). Musical continuity in major public services was
interrupted only occasionally for the reading of catechetical material (saints'
lives, homilies and other patristic texts) and, in some versions of the Palestinian
Divine Office, the non-festal recitation of the Psalter?
Given the almost seamless musicality of public worship in Byzantium,
it is curious how rarely modern scholarly writing has taken account of its
'soundscape'. Taking this term in the broad sense given to it by its inventor,
Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer, the soundscape of Byzantine worship
'Presidential' refers here to prayers usually cast in the first person plural that were
recited on behalf of the entire assembly by a presiding priest or bishop. Originally these
were performed aloud, but by the sixth century many of them were recited either silently
or softly (f.!VOnKwc;) in a voice audible, if at all, only to nearby concelebrating clergy.
Celebrants, however, have continued until modern times to sing the concluding doxologies
of many presidential prayers. Labelled 'exclamations' (eK<)lwvi]aac;) already in the earliest
surviving Euchology (Prayerbook) for the Constantinopolitan rite of the Great Church of
Hagia Sophia (the late eighth-century MS Barberini gr. 336), these serve musically as cues
for other singers, signalling when they should chant their 'Amen' and begin the next item in
the liturgical sequence. From the perspective of an ordinary congregant, the reduction of the
audible portion of what were often lengthy prayers to brief sung ecplwneseis could have only
enhanced musical continuity in Byzantine services. The fading of most Byzantine prayers
into inaudibility is documented in R.F. Taft, S.J., 'Was the Eucharistic Anaphora Recited
Secretly or Aloud? The Ancient Tradition and What Became ofit', in R.R. Ervine (ed.), Worship
Traditions in Armenia and the Neighboring Christian East: An International Symposium in Honor
of the 40th Anniversary of St. Nersess Armenian Seminary (Crestwood, NY, and New Rochelle,
NY, 2006), pp. 15-57. The Barberini Euchology has been published with commentary and
Italian translation asS. Parenti and E. Velkovska (eds), L'Eucologio Barberini Gr. 336, 2nd edn,
Bibliotheca 'Ephemerides liturgicae' Subsidia 80 (Roma, 2000).
6
In the absence of a deacon, a priest would sing most of these items himself.
7
Differences in the musical performance of the Psalter in the traditions of Constantinople
and Palestine are discussed in 0. Strunk, 'The Byzantine Office at Hagia Sophia', Essays on
Music in the Byzantine World (New York, 1977), pp. 112-50, at pp. 130-31; and A. Lingas,
'Festal Cathedral Vespers in Late Byzantium', Orientalia Christiana Periodica 63 (1997), pp.
421-59, at pp. 445-7.
.....
would have been its 'acoustic ecology', encompassing every intentional and
circumstantial aspect of its sonic environment. 8 As a matter of course it would
have included all the variable and invariable elements of vocal performance in
particular times and places: the acoustics of individual churches, the texts and
musical forms contained in the psalmodic and hymnodic repertories of a given
rite, and the number of available singers together with their levels of musical
knowledge and skill. Furthermore, it would have embraced sonic elements that
were incidental or otherwise not under the direct control of those responsible
for planning and celebrating services: the ambient noise generated by crowds
and nature as heard both inside churches and, during stational processions, in
courtyards, monastic compounds and on city streets. 9
In recent years it has also become common to employ the term' sounds cape'
in a narrower way to denote primarily those aspects of an acoustic ecology that
are the result of conscious human efforts at what Schafer calls 'acoustic design':
From the arts, particularly music, we will learn how man creates ideal
soundscapes for that other life, the life of the imagination and psychic
reflection. From these studies we will begin to lay the foundations of a new
discipline- acoustic design. 10
Studies of these sorts of soundscapes in ethnomusicology, for example,

typically proceed from the identification of the components of acoustic design
-the performers, their instruments (if any), their music, and the context for its
performance- to investigate how musical performance simultaneously shapes
and reflects the belief systems of those who produce and consume it within a
particular cultural setting.U
R. Murray Schafer, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environ111ent and th e Tuning of the World
(Rochester, VT, 1994); originally published as The Tuning of the World (Toronto, 1977).
9
Bissera Pentcheva, without actually using the word 'soundscape', engages with
its importance for Byzantine worship in her discus ion of th Hagia Sophla as an 'icon of
sound: a space filled with human breath and the perfume of burning incense experienced
as reverberating divine pmmmn in the gHLter of lh golden cupola and emidom ·s': see B. V.
Pentcheva, The Sensunl Icon: Spncc, Ritunl, nnd tlw Senses in Byznutium (University Park, PA,
2010), pp. 45-56. Th importance of the sense of smell for the study of Byzantine religious
practice was anticipated by S.A. Harvey, Scenting Snlval.ion: Ancient Orris/ in11ify oll(f/lleOlfnclory
Imaginntion, The Joan Palevsky lmprint in Classical Literature 42 (Berkeley, CA, 2006). Recent
tudies by Robert Taft approad1ing the study of Byzantine liturgy 'From the Bottom Up'
are replet with details about the sounds generated by (often unruly) congregations. For an
overview, seeR. Taft, Thr·ouglr their Own Eyes: Liturgy n tile Byzmztirres Smu 11 (Berkeley, CA,
2006), pp. 4-16 and 29-120.
10
Schafer, The Soundscnpe, p. 4.
11
For example, K.K. Shelemay, Soundscnpes: Exploring Music inn Changing World (New
York and London, 2006).
Despite major gaps in the documentary record and the complete absence
of sound recordings from the middle ages, it i still possible for u to draw
meaningful conclusions about the soundscape of Byzantine worship from
those elements of its acoustic design that may b at least partially recovered.
Where medieval churches survive, their acoustics may be measured and even
duplicated electronically, as is currently b ing done, for example, by the Icon
of Sound project at Stanford University. 12 The sonic outlines of individual
services may be traced from the sh.~dy o£ lihtrgical manuscripts by det rmining
the order in which individual or voca l gr ups chanted their appointed texts
from particular locations in the sacred topography of an ecd siastical complex
or city. In some ea es it i possible to enrich th texture f these data with
visual depictions of lih.1rgica l singers. 13 Further testimony regarding the onic
landscape of Byzantine Jih~rgy may be gleaned from scattered refer nces to
chanting in hymns, homilies and hagiography. 14
Yet perhaps the most neglected resoLLrce for understanding the soundscape
of worship in Byzantium are the very ones that were con ciously created
as literary tools of acoustic design: the hundreds f lih.1rgical manuscripts
containjng forms of Byzantine musical notation that urviv &om the ninth
century onwards.15 E entiaUy two types of notation were used in middle and
12
B.V. Pentcheva, Icons of Sound: Aesthetics and Acoustics of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, at
http://iconsofsound.stanford.edu (accessed 07/12/12).
13
For numerous examples of this approach, see Moran, Singers.
14
The hymns of St Romanos the Melodist, for example, have been to shown to
contain valuable information about the original contexts for their performance at popular
vigils in Late Antique Constantinople: J. Grosdidier de Matons, 'Liturgie et Hymnographie:
Kontakion et Canon', Dumbarton Oaks Papers 34/35 (1980), pp. 31--43, at pp. 37--42. Numerous
intentional and incidental aspects of Byzantine liturgical soundscapes are addressed in Taft,
Through their Own Eyes.
15
The earliest manuscripts containing forms of notation recognised by modern scholars
as ' Byza ntine' were copied within a few decades of the earliest musically notated documents
of Latin plainchant. Ln both cases, the appearance of musical notation i separat·cd by over
i hundred year from our . ingle example of a Christian hymn with Anci nt Greek musical
notation, the papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1786, the alphabetic notation of which is unrelated to
either By1..antine or Latin neumes. l11e significance of a few, mostly fragmentary, sources
from the seventh to ninth centuries con taining what appear to be non- o r ' proto'-Byzantine
musical notations is unclear and, at all events, most singers learning to chant presumably
relied excl usively on oral means of transmis ion. On the possible use of musical notation
in Byzantium prior to the nin'th century, see l. Papatha11asiou and N. Boukas, ' Byzantine
Notation in the Eighth-Tenth Centuries: On Oral and Written Transmission of Early
'Byzantine 01ant', Cnlliers de l'luslitut drr Moyen-A~e grec et lnliu 73 (2002), pp. 3-12; and E.
Gert man, npolln61Lllle ClllO,\I!IILWl/11/JIIIllllllllCK()li .Aty.Jl>IKII/ 'nre Lost Ceuluries oflJyz.nutine Mu ic,
tr. S. Buko (St Petersbmg, 2001). 111 xyrhynchu hymn is given an exhaustive treatment in
C..J-1. Cosgrove, Au Ancient Christinu T-Jymu willr M11sicnl Notntiou: Pnpyrus OX)J''Irynchus 1786.
Taxtnnd Comme11tnry, Studien und le te zu Antike ltnd d1i'istentum 65 (Tiibingen, 2011).
late Byz<~ntium: a ystem of -called 'ekphonetic' sign (n umes) employed by

readers for the cantillation of scriptural pericopes that is found in Lectionaries,
and families of 'melodic' n umes recording the hymns and psalms chanted
by oloists and choirs. Originally both typ s f notations were adiast matic:
incapable of encoding with pr cision a sequence of melodic intervals, they
relayed information about the performance of musical figures that still had to
be learned by ear.
Whereas Byzantine lectionary notation remained me! dically am biguous
until it fell out of use in the fourteenth c ntury, the intervallically imprecise
'01artres' and 'Coislin' systems of melodi notati.on gave way during the later
twelfth century to a fully diastematic 'Middle Byzantine' or 'Round' notation. 16
AI though i.t left s me aspects of p rformance practice- in particular, rhythmic
subdivi ion of the basic beat, chromaticism, ornamentation, vocal timbre
and the r alisahon of ornaments - largely within the realm of oral tradition,
Middle Byzantine notation proved to be a powerful tool and remained in use
until the ear ly nineteenth century, wb nit was transformed into the so-called
'New Method' of n umatic notation employed in modern churches. During
the middle ages, Byzantine melodic neumes facilitated the consolidation
and dissemination of m.or or less standa.rdi ed r p rtories of hymns and
melodically florid psalms. From th thirteenth century onwards, cantors
cultivating distinctly personal tyle of comp siti.on also employed it to create
n w d1ants of unprecedented length and complexity. 17
Knowledge of Byzantine n umatic notations thus potentially enables a
s holar to recover information about mu ical design in Byzantine liturgy, the
amount and quality of which will depend on both the availability of notated
sources and the extent to which the form of notation used depended on oral
tiadition foi its realisation. In this regard, the onic implications of e phonetic
notation have proven particularly resistant t analysis, a!though in recent tud ie
Sandra Martani has shown thatit is still possible to draw meaningful conclusions
16
On lectiona(y notation, see S.G. Engberg, 'Greek Ekphonetic Notation. "llle Oassical
and thePre-Cia. sicaiSystems', in C. Troelsgllrdand G. Wolfram(ed ), PalaeobyznutiueNotalions
11: Acl11 of the Cottgress 1-leld nl 1-/emeu. Cnstle, The Netlzarlmufs, in October 1996 (Hernen, 1999),
pp. 33-55. A compact survey of early Byu mtine melodic notations is C. J11oros, lnt-roductionlo
Early Medieval Nolatiou (with an llluslmled Clwpter on Cheironomy by Nei/ K. Mornn), enlarged
2nd edn, tr. N.K. Moran, Detroit Monographs in Musicology 45 (Warren, M!, 2005). The
Middle Byzantine system of notation and the major issues surrounding its transcription are
treated compreheJlsively in . Troelsga:rd, Byzantine Neumes: A New Introdu ction to the Middle
8yznntine M11s icnl Notation, Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae Subsidia 9 (Copenhagen, 2010).
17
Tile consequence of the shift to dia tematic notation in Byzantium are discussed
inK. Levy, 'Le "Tou rnant D~cisif" darlS l'hisloire de la musique Byzantine 1071- 1261', XV'
Congre lutemalional d'et11des l;yzmtlhws, \lot. 1 (Athens, 1979), pp. 473-80. Regarding the
continuing importance of oral tradition and the degree to whlch notated sources served as
repositories of 'paradigmatic' renderings of melodies, see C. Troelsgard, 'Musical Notation
and Oral Transmission of Byzantine Chant', Classica et MedinevalinSO (1999), pp. 249-57.
about the musical rendering of text from Byzantine lectionaries. 18 Manuscripts

with Middle Byzantine notation, on the other hand, offer comparatively full
melodic profiles of theit· chants that may serve as a basis for study or, more
controversially, transcription and modern performa:nce. 19 Congruities between
Midd le Byzantine notation and its forbears have also enabl d m.o dern cholars
to use it as a tool for deciphering, at lea t in part, melodies recorded in some
earlier non-diastematic 'Palaeo-Byzantine' notation .20
Hitherto most scholarly discussions of medieval Byzantine melodies, in
harmony with the disciplinary norms of musicology during the latter half
of the twentieth century, have been examinations of their musical form and
style analysing such elements as their vocal range, modality, quantities of
notes per syllable, and use of stereotypical melodic formulasY Yet much of
this same information may serve reflection on sonic or performative aspects
of chants, revealing ways in which their musical design may have contributed
to the contours of worship as experienced in Byzantium. Jmgen Raasted
showed how this might be done on a small scale in a series of pioneering
18
S. Martani, 'Words and Music in the Greek Gospel Lectionaries', in N.-M. Wanek
(ed.), Psa/tike: Neue Studien zur Byzantinischen Musik. Festschrift for Gerda Wolfram, Praesens
Byzantinistik (Vienna, 2011), pp. 219-31; S.G. Engberg, 'Ekphonetic Chant: The Oral Tradition
and the Manuscripts', Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen Byzantinistik 32.7 (1982), pp. 41-7. Two
studies that also take into account the wih1ess of received oral traditions of cantillation in
the Byzantine rite are A.T. Vourles, D Tporwc; avayvwaewc;-hcf>wvljcJEwc; 'CWV aywypacf>L1<0V
avayvWOf.llXTWV (Athens, 2004); and A.E. Alygizakes, ''H EK<j:>WVTJ'UKTJ ljJou\nKij 7tQU~'J· 'l:Ct
"Xii}la" Kai 'l:Gt "£x<j:>wvwc;" avayvwovam', in G.T. Stathis (ed.), eewpia Kal Dpal;l) Tljc;
li'aAnKTj<; Ti:xvl)c; . npaxnxa A' navEAAI)Viov L.vveopiov li'altn1<1)c; TEXVI]c; (A81)va, 3-5
NOEflf3piov 2000) (Athens, 2001), pp. 89-140.
19
The fullness of these melodic profiles has been debated extensively over the last
century. Some scholars and practitioners of received traditions of Byzantine singing
have argued on the basis of post-Byzantine sources that Middle Byzantine notation was
fundamentally stenographic in its use, with written groups of signs ervi·ng as a form of
shorthand for often lengthy melodic formulas learned by ear. Most other scholars, however,
have concluded that medieval neumations of chants were essentially self-sufficient with
regard to their melodic shape and length, an interpretation that will be followed in this
present study. About these controversies over the interpretation and transcription of medieval
Byzantine chant, see Troelsgard, Byzantine Neumes, pp. 35--40; and A. Lingas, 'Performance
Practice and the Politics of Transcribing Byzantine Chant', Acta Musicne Byzantinae 6 (2003),
pp. 56-76.
20
Floras, Introduction to Early Medieval Notation, pp. 17-71.
21
Recent examples of such approaches are LL Av1:wv[ov, Mopcf>otl.oyia Tryc;
Bv(avnvryc; Movatxryc; 'E1<KA1)ataCJTL1<1)c; MovQL1<1)c; (Thessalonica, 2008); and most of the
contributions to G. Stathis (ed.), 8Ewpia xat npa~17 Tryc; li'at\.'l:t1<7)c; TExvl)c;: Ta yE:vT] Kat Ta
ELOI) Tryc; Bv(avnvryc; Meltorwiac;. npaKTLKa B' Llte8vovc; r:vveopiov MouaLKOt\oyLKOV Kal
li'atl. TL1<oii: A81)va, 15-19 01<Twf3piov 2003 (Athens, 2006). On the tendency towards formalism
in musicology during the twentieth century, see J. Kerman, Contemplating Music: Challenges to
Musicology (Cambridge, MA, 1985).
examinations of text-music relationships. 22 Somewhat more broadly based are

investigations by Moran and Schi0dt of the musical roles played by eunuchs
in Byzantine liturgy, 23 or the historical treatment of the eucharistic anaphora
by GiannopoulosY Only a few studies, however, have begun to exploit the
significant advances made over the last few decades in our knowledge of
medieval Byzantine chant in order to address in detail questions of musical
design at the levels of whole services or even entire r.ites. 25
Building on the work of Raasted and his successors, in the remainder of
this study I shall consider some ways in which acoustic design contributed
to the soundscapes of worship in the liturgical rites of Constantinople and
Palestine. In particular, I shall look at how particular musical forms and styles
were applied in these regional traditions to their respective versions of the
Christian cycle of daily prayer, what is known in Greek as the 'AKo;\ou8[a
wu vux8TJf1EQOU' and to Western scholars as the 'Divine Office' or 'Liturgy
of the Hours'. Although differing in detail, the Divine Offices of the imperial
capital and the Holy City shared with other urban rites of the Late Antique
22
J. Raasted, 'Some Reflections on Byzantine Musical Style', in M.M. Velimirovic (ed.),
Studies in Eastern Clwnt, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1966), pp. 57-66, at pp. 57-6; J. Raasted, 'Byzantine
Liturgical Music and its Meaning for the Byzantine Worshipper', in R.C. Morris (ed.),
Church and People in Byzantium, Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies: Twentieth Spring
Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Manchester, 1986 (Birmingham, 1986), pp. 49-57; J. Raasted,
'Compositional Devices in Byzantine Chant', Cnhiers de l'Institut du Moyen-Age grec et Iatin 59
(1989), pp. 247-70; and J. Raasted, 'Length and Festivity: On Some Prolongation Techniques
in Byzantine Chant', in E.L. Lillie and N.H. Petersen (eds), Liturgy and the Arts in the Middle
Ages: Studies in Honour of C. Clifford Flanigan (Copenhagen, 1996), pp. 75-84. A brief but
systematic discussion of musical style in the major genres of medieval Byzantine chant is
Troelsgard, Byzantine Neumes, pp. 76-90.
23
Especially N. Moran, 'Byzantine Castrati', Plainsong and Medieval Music 11 (2002), pp.
99-112; and N. Schiodt, 'From Byzantium to Italy: Castrato Singers from the 4th to the 20th
Centuries', in Wanek (ed.), Psaltike, pp. 301-11. T11ese studies and other studies of Byzantine
eunuch cantors should now be read in the light of the cautionary remarks of C. Troelsgard,
'When Did the Practice of Eunuch Singers in Byzantine Chant Begin? Some Notes on the
Interpretations of the Early Sources', in Wanek (ed.), Psaltike, pp. 345-50.
24
E.S. Giam1opoulos, 'Ol0f1VOL'n1c; Ay[ac; AvacpoQO:c;. Avai:lQOflTJ cno ITCXQEA8ov Kat
cndlj!nc; yLO: ·n1v lj!a;\flwi:l(a flE acpoQ~LTJ TCx ;\cy6f1CVa "AELTOUQYLKct'", H ~l(l!lTLIO) Tt";(VIl.
!l6yoc; KCYi fti"!loc; cJTI} ;\cnpcia Tljc; 6pl366oC,t}c; i"tcK;tl]rriLYc; (Thessalonica, 2004), pp. 49-63.
25
On the Divine Liturgy, for example, see G. Stathis, ''H lj!cx;\nKll i:KcjJQacrq TOU
MucrTqQLOU ·n1c; 8dac; EuxaQLCJTLac;', T6 Ml!CJTt)pw Tt)c; BEictc; EvxapLinim:;· npaKTUCCY r
navu\At)viou ilEITDvpyucov I:vpnoaiov (Athens, 2004), pp. 253-75. Extended comparative
discussions of musical form and liturgical function in Byzantine cathedral and monastic
rites are to be found in D.K. Balageorgos, H !f!ailTLKI) napci:i5oo1) TOD Bu~avnvoD Koof/LKOV
Tvm tcov, Institute of Byzantine Musicology, Studies 6 (Athens, 2001); and Spyrakou, Oi xopoi
!f!a!lTCiJV. See also my 'Sunday Matins in the Byzantine Cathedral Rite: Music and Liturgy'
(Ph.D. diss., University of British Columbia, 1996), an updated and expanded version of
which is forthcoming from Ashgate.
examination of text- music relationship .22 Somewhat more broadly based are
investigations by Moran and Sch.i0dt of the musical roles played by eunud1s
in Byzantin liturgy, 23 or the historical treatment of the uchru-istic anaphora
by Giannopou1os. 24 Only a f w studies, how ver, hav begun to ex ploit the
significant advances made over the last f w decad s in our knowled e of
mectieval Byzantine chant in order to address in detail questions of musical
design at the 1 vels of whole services or ven entire rites. 25
Building on the work of Raasted and his successors, in the remainder of
this study 1 shall consider some ways in which acoustic de ign contribut d
to the soundscapes of worship in the liturgical rite of Constantinople and
Palestine. In particular, 1 shall look at how particular mu ical forms and tyle
were applied in these regional traditions to th ir resp ctive versions of the
Christian cycle of daily prayer, what is known in Greek a. the 'AKoAou8ia
'tOU vux.Sllfl QOU' and to Western scholars as the 'Divine Office' or ' Liturgy
of the Hours'. Although differing in detail, the Divine Offices of the imperial
capital and th Holy City shared with other urban rites of the Late Antique
22
J. Raasted, 'Some Refl ection s on Byzantine Musical Style', in M.M. Velimirovic (ed.),
Studies in Eastem Chant, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1966), pp. 57-66, at pp. 57- 6; J. Raasted, 'Byzantine
Liturgical Music and its Meaning for the Byzantine Worshipper', in R.C. Morris (ed .),
Church and People in Byzan tiu m, Society for the Promotion of Byzan tine Studies: Twentieth Spring
Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Manchester, 1986 (Birmingham, 1986), pp. 49-57; J. Raasted,
'Compositional Devices in Byzantine Chan t', Cnhiers de l'lnstitu t du Moyen -Age grec et Iatin 59
(1989), pp. 247-70; and J. Raasted, 'Length and Festivity: On Some Prol ongation Techniqu es
in Byzantine Chant', in E.L. Lillie and N.H. Petersen (eds), Liturgy and the Arts iu the Middle
Ages: Studies in Honour of C. Clifford Flanigan (Copenhagen, 1996), pp. 75-84. A brief but
system atic discussion of musical style in the major genres of medieval Byzantine chant is
Troe lsgard, Byzantine Neumes, pp. 76- 90.
23
Especially N . Moran, 'Byzantine Cast1·ati', Pla insong and Medieval Music 11 (2002), pp.
99-112; and N . Schiedt, 'From Byzantium to ltaly: Castrato Singers from the 4th to the 20th
Centuries', in Wanek (ed.), Psaltike, pp. 301-11. These st-udies and other studies of Byzantine
eunuch cantors should now be read in the light of the cautionary rem arks of C. Troelsgard,
'When Did the Practice of Eunuch Singers in Byzantine Chant Begin? Some Notes on the
Interpretations of the Early Sources', in Wanek (ed.), Psaltike, pp. 345- 50.
24
E.S. Giannopoulos, 'Oi 0pvoL 'n]:; Al•[ac; AvacpoQiXc:. Ava DQOflll cYctl rrnQ cA86v lWL
aKit\Juc; y La ·n1v t\JaApwo[n p c acpoQ p ~ <a Acy6p£vn "AnTOl!QYLKa'", 'H J/ICr;\HJo) Tl:·xv'l·
Jl6yos- wi !tEAos- CJ TI) ;\cnpcio: TJjc; 6pG66o/;Jjc; t' KK!\J]cJim;; (Thessalonica, 2004), pp. 49-63.
2o
On the Div ine Liturgy, for example, see G. Sta thi s, "H t\Jn AnKil EKcj:>Qn aq TOU
Muanwlou T ~ c; E>clac; EuxaQlG'l:LC<c;', To MvaTI)(lW TJ/c; EltiLtc; Evxo:(lWTiac;· n(lCIKTl!CiY f'
naV[ /L!LI]Viov il cLTOV(l)ILKOV L:vpnoaiov (Athens, 2004), pp. 253-75. Extended comparative
discussions of musical form and liturgical function in Byzantine cathedral an d monastic
rites are to be found in D .K. Balagcorgos, 'H tflaAnK il n:aeaooar1 Tov Bvl;avnvov Koap11cov
Tvn rKou, lnstihtte of Byzantine Musicology, Studies 6 (Athens, 2001 ); an d Spyrakou, Oi xopoi
tfla.\Tr,il'. See also my 'Sunday Matins in the Byzantine Cathedral Rite: Music and Li turgy'
(Ph.D. diss., University of British Columbia, 1996), an updated a nd expanded version of
which is fo rthcoming from Ashgate.
Mediterranean a common basis in the antiphonal and responsorial chanting

of biblical psalms and canticles. 26 From the times of their emergence the
psalmodic cores of each rite began to be elaborated in ways that were in part
adaptations to local circumstances, as well as markers of shifts in liturgical or
artistic sensibilities. Since a comprehensive historical treatment of music in
these services could easily fill several volumes, I shall limit my discussion of
each rite to a survey of their most conspicuous features and a brief examination
of the evening office of vespers as it was celebrated on feast days.
The Sung Office of the Great Church
Distinctive features of the liturgical soundscape of Late Antique Constantinople

stemmed from its topography, the ecclesiastical architecture of its major
churches, and the lavish musical establishments that were attached to them.
The urban landscape became especially important during the archiepiscopacy
of St John Chrysostom, when Orthodox and Arians processed through the
streets of the city in competing processions, their participants singing psalms
with refrains advancing their theological positions. 27 These processions, as
Baldovin has shown, left indelible marks on Constantinopolitan worship by
forming the basis for an elaborate stational liturgy uniting the city's major
churches and public sites into a single sacred topography. 28 In addition,
stational elements came to be incorporated into all the services of the rite of
the Great Church of Hagia Sophia even on days when worshippers did not
venture beyond the confines of their own church complex. These elements are
best known from the ceremonial entrances of the three Constantinopolitan
eucharistic liturgies celebrated in the modern Byzantine rite, namely the Divine
Liturgies attributed to St Basil and St John Chrysostom, and the Lenten Divine
Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. Processions were also integral to the major
morning and evening services of the Divine Office of Hagia Sophia, a cycle of
26
An overview of the basic types of Late Antique psalmody and their fate in Byzantine
Christianity is R.r. Taft, S.J ., 'Chri lian Liturgical Psalmody: Origins, Development,
Decompo ilion, Collapse', in H.W. Attridge and M.E. Fa sler (eds), Psalms in Commrmily:
jewi lr nrrd Cilrislinn Textual, Lilurgicn/, and Artistic Tmdilio11S, Society of 'Biblical Literature
sympo ium eries (Atlanta, GA, 2003), pp. 7-32. On lhe spread of psalmody from desert
a cetics to urban congregations, see). Mcl.<innon, 'De ert Mona ticism and the Later Fourth-
century Psalmodic Movement', Music & Letters 75 (1994), pp. 505-21.
27
The descriptions of these event by the church historians Socrates and Sozomen are
provided in English tra.nslation with commentary in J.W. McK!nnon (ed.), Music in Early
Orristimr Literature, Cambridge Readings in the Literature of Music (Cambridge, 1989), pp.
101-02 (#218) and 104 (#223).
28
J.F. Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Develapment, and
Meaning of Stational Liturgy, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 228 (Rome, 1987), pp. 167-226.
daily prayer originally known as '6 EKKi\llaLCXO'Illc;' but cited by late Byzantine
authors as the 'qof1Ct'ILK~ cbwi\ou8(cx' or 'Sung Office' .29 Imperial patronage
aided the erection of churches designed to accommodate the movem ents of
clergy and congregants in the evolving local rite, a process that climaxed with
the Justinianic cathedral of Hagia Sophia. 30
The architecture of Hagia Sophia today serves as a tangible monument to
the apogee of what Taft has called the 'Imperial Phase' of Constantinopolitan
liturgy, but some sense of its equally magnificent sonic scale may also be
discerned from textual sources. In AD 612 Herakleios issu ed a novella assigning
a total of 525 clergy to Hagia Sophia and its three d ependent churches.31 At
least 415 of these clergy - namely the 80 priests, 150 d eacons, 160 readers and
25 cantors enumerated by Herakleios - exercised a liturgical ministry that
potentially involved singing.32 The cantors constituted an elite vocal ensemble
from which would emerge soloists, some (or in certain periods and places
perhaps even a majority) of whom were high-voiced eunuchs. 33 As a group
they were divided into a pair of semi-choruses that alternated weekly in their
29
S. Parenti, 'The Cathedral Rite of Constantinople: Evolution of a Local Tradition',
Orientalia Christinna Periodica 77 (2011), pp. 449-69, at pp. 451-4.
30
The classic treatment is T.F. Mathews, The Early Churches ofConstantirwple: Architecture
and Liturgy (University Park, PA, 1971). For preli minary remarks on experiencing chant in
the acoustics of Hagia Sophia, see Pentcheva, The Sensual Icon, pp. 52-5. Technica l details
regarding the acoustic properties of the monument are addressed in CA. Weitze, J.H. Rindel,
CL. Christensen and A.C Gade, 'The Acoustical History of Hag ia Sophia Revived through
Computer Simulation', ODEON Room Acoustics Software, at http://www.odeon.dk/pdf/
ForumAcousticum2002.pdf (accessed 24/07/10).
31
Novell a I in J. Konidaris, 'Die Novellen des Kaisers Herakleios', in D. Simon (ed.),
Fo11 tes Minores V, Forschungen zu r byzantinischen Rechtsgeschichte 8 (F rankfurt am Ma in,
1982), pp. 62-72 and 94-100.
32
Taft has arg ued that the singing ' my rrh bearers' observed by a Russian pilgri m during
his visit to Hagia Sophia in 1200 AD were in fact deaconesses. Adding the 40 deaconesses in
Novella I to the list of musical personnel brings the total number of clerical singers under
Herakleios to 455. Furthermore, based in part on the late (fifteenth-century) witness of
Symeon of Thessalonica to Constantinopolitan cathedral liturgy (n[pt ,YEipOTOVLWV, J.P.
Migne, Patrologin Grneca 155, cols 365-69), Spyrakou has concluded that the subdeacons,
whose number was set at 170 by Herakleios, acted musically as readers when they were
not performing their unique duties as assistants to the celebrants. See R.F. Taft, 'Women at
Church in Byzantium: Where, When- And Why?', Du mbarton Oaks Pape rs 52 (1998), pp. 27-
87, at pp. 67- 8; and Spyrakou, Oi xopoi tJ!cu\TcZJv, pp. 165-6.
33
The twelfth-century canonist Balsam on reports that eunuchs dominated the ranks of
soloists in his day, but the degree to which this was generall y true in Byzantium during the
centuries that preceded 1204 (after the Fourth Crusade references to eunuch singers become
extremely rare) is far from certain. Maximalist and minimalist assessm ents of the prevalence
of cnstmti are, respectively, Moran, 'Byzantine Castrati'; and Troelsgard, 'When Did the
Practice of Eunuch Singers' .
precedence and were often directed by deacons. 34 The cantors also provided
leadership for the larger corps of readers, who followed the ir div ision into two
groups and a system of weekly alternation. Readers, although confirmed in
their ministry with the same prayer employed in the ordination (XELQ08£cr(a)
of cantors, nevertheless occupied a lower place in the musical hierarchy,
performing simpler choral chants and leading the congregations in the singing
of refrains. 35 Choirs of monks, nuns and orphan children added further sonic
diversity to worship in the great urban churches of Byzantium. Communities
of monks (ciCTKT]'t~QLct) stationed permanently near Hagia Sophia regularly
assisted the secular clergy of the Great Church with the task of maintaining a
full roster of services at the cathedral, whereas other vocal ensembles seem to
have appeared occasionally to enhance the splendour of major solemnities. 36
To fill out our outline of the soundscape of Constantinopolitan cathedral
liturgy, we must now consider the music actually sung in its services. Nearly
all of the surviving manuscripts containing texts sung in the rite of Hagia
Sophia postdate the traumas of Iconoclasm, whilst those featuring diastematic
Middle Byzantine notation are later stili.37 Indeed, the only musically notated
sources for the ordinary two-week cycle of psalmody sung at the vespers and
matins in the Sung Office are a pair of codices from late Byzantine Thessalonica:
Athens EBE 2062 (late fourteenth century) and Athens EBE 2061 (first quarter
of the fifteenth century). 38 Products of the twilight of Byzantium, these
34
It is known from his vita that the great sixth-century Constantinopolitan poet-
composer Romanos the Melodist was a deacon. Only in the past few years, however, have
scholars revealed the extent to which deacons played important musical roles in Late Antique
worship, especially in the rites of Old and New Rome. See Spyrakou, Oi xopoi l)!aATwv, pp.
203-11; and 'Deacons as Readers and Psalmists in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries', eh. 7 in
C. Page, The Christian West and Its Singers: The First Thousand Years (New Haven, CT, and
London, 2010), pp. 155-71.
~5 Spyrakou, 0 /,ropo! ljicckrr4Jll, pp. 117- 24; ond Moran, Si11gers, pp. 15- 16.
36 Spyrakou, 01 xopoi ljlfiATcDv, pp. 178-203. Regardi ng the musica l training and
liturgical contributions of children at the Orphanotropheion said lo have been founded by
St Zotikos in late fourU1- or early fifth-century Constantinople, see T.S. Miller, The Orpha11s of
Byza11ti11m: Olild Welfnre ill tile Christia11 Empire (Washington, D.C., 2003), pp. 209--46. Musica l
parallels beh¥een Old <J.nd New Rom are explored in Page, ?1u! Cl~ristian West and Its Singers,
Chapter 12 'Schooling Singe•· in Rome', pp. 243-59.
37
·n1e earliest surviving servic book for the rite of the Great Church is the eighth-
century Euchologion MS Barberini 336 cited above: Parenti and Velkovska (eds), L'Eucologio
Barberini Gr. 336. Extant source for musical practice in the Constantinopolitan cathedral rite
are surveyed in my 'Sunday Matins', pp. 48-61 .
38
The texts of the cyd •s of cathedral psa lmody in Athens 2061 and Athens 2062 have
been edited in KL Georgiou, ''"H ef31iopabu::dcx tXVTl<jx<IVLK~ Kll'rGWOJ.lli '((~V ljlcu\~IWV KCXl
Tc71v cjll>Wv Eh; Tit~ l\LirpaTtKc.'t~ Al<o.-\ou9tL'(C: eo1tEQLVOV Kal Q9Qou. 'EAArJVIKOL MouatKOi
K~nw; 2061-2062 'EOvLKii Bt~AtoO •j•<:•J~ fJT]VWv' (l)h.D. diss., Pontifical Oriental
In titute, 1976). Overviews of !:heir music are Strunk, 'The Byzant·ine Office', pp. 112-50; and
manuscripts were copied at a time when the Sung Office was regularly served
only in Thessalonica, it having been relegated elsewhere to occasional festal
use. 39 Despite all of this, many of the musical setting in thes TI1essalonian
codices faithfully preserve archaic patterns of ca ll and respon e that had been
established a millennium ago to faci litate congregational participation in Late
Antiquity. Some of these antiphonal form explicitly r quire the participation
of a cathedral's full range of singing personnel: celebrants, deacons, elite
choirs together with their soloists, and choirs of readers that at times either
lead or stand in for the congregation. Musically elaborate re ponsorial chants
such as prokeimena, ettings for which first appear with Middle Byzantine
notation in manu cdpts of the late twelfth and thirteenth centurie , genera lly
employ only one or two classe of participants, namely solo psnltai and
choristers. 40 Additional musical textur was provided by cl1.ang s of mode,
vocal register or timbre, and variation in the rate of interchange between
s patially separated singer , from vigorou in litanies and feria! antiphons from
th Con tantinopolitan Psalter to glacia l in rnelismatic responsorial chants.
Progression through the weekly and yearly liturgical cycles for the rite f
the Gr at Church reveals addi tional layers of acoustic design that inv sted
ead1 gathering for worship with a unique aural topography maJ·ked by peaks
and valleys of vocal range, onic density, musical complexity, ru1d chru1ges of
acoustical environment. Rubrics record variations in the identity and number
of singers (including the participation of gue t en embles of orphru1s or
monastics), as well as in their patterns of deployment to locations both inside
and outside of churches. Each one of th.ese alterations to the means of musicaJ
Balageorgos, 'H tf!aATLKIJ rrapa6oa7J, pp. 292-335. For additional details about the contents
and dating of these manuscripts, see Lingas, 'Sunday Matins', pp. 211-16; and Balageorgos,
H tf!arl'wo) rrapa6oatj, pp. 187-93.
39
Symeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica from 1416 or 1417 until his death in 1429,
reports that his Thessalonian cathedral of Hagia Sophia was the last church to maintain
daily celebration of the Sung Office, its performance elsewhere having been limited to the
performance of asmatic vespers in the Great Church of Constantinople on the eves of three
feasts: the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14 September), St John Chrysostom (13 November),
and the Dormition of the Mother of God: De sa era precatione, Migne, Patrologia Graeca 155, cols
553-56; English translation in Symeon of Thessalonike, Treatise on Prayer: An Explanation of
the Services Conducted in the Orthodox Church, tr. H.L.N. Simmons, The Archbishop Iakovos
Library of Ecclesiastical and Historical Sources 9 (Brookline, MA, 1984), pp. 21-2. Yet the
transmission of asmatic festal vespers in late Byzantine musical manuscripts indicates, as I
have sh own elsewhere ('Festal Cathedral Vespers', pp. 428-48), that this service was more
widely performed in Paleologan Byzantium both on feasts and Saturday evenings.
40
TI1e complete repertory of melodies from twelfth- and thirteenth-century manuscripts
has been edited in G. Hintze, Oas byzanlinische Prolceimena-Reperloire Untersuclnmget7 und
kritische Edition, Hamburger Beitrage zur Musikwissenschaft 9 (Hamburg, 1973). See also S.
Harris, 'The Byzantine Prokeimena', Plainsong nnd Medieval Music 3 (1994), pp. 133-47.
ALEXANDER LINGAS
323
production, which included the propagation of sound in particular acoustical

environments, in some way reshaped the soundscape of worship.
Despite regularly noting the assignment of chants to a particular mode of
the Octoechos, only rarely do rubrics for services of the Great Church contain
qualitative or technical musical terms, so it is primarily notated chantbooks
that enable us to discern how changes of musical style related to the daily,
weekly and seasonal rhythms of Byzantine cathedral worship. Where custom
endowed a psalmodic text of the Sw1g Office with multiple melodies, their
relative solemnity may fruitfully be charted along a pectrum marking the
relative prominence of their text or music. Placing th se melodies at their
appropriate points between the spectrum's xtreroes f unmodulated speech
and wordless singing, we find that festal chants tend to be both longer and
musically more varied in melodic contour than their ferial counterparts. The
same procedure may be applied cumulatively to the musical content of entire
services, leading one to the complementary conclusion that festal services
were generally invested with greater musical sophistication.
How this worked in practice may be seen from the outline of the festal
asmatic vespers in Table 17.1. This service differed tructmally from its
ferial weekday counterpart mainly in i.ts omission of th addjtional variable
antiphon U1at wer customarily sung between U1e first and final antiph ns
of its opening ect:ion, and in the inclusion of chanted readings from the Old
Te tament at its end. For their celebration both the festal and fe.rlal versions
of Constantinopolitan cathedral vespers required th participatiOl1 of
representative of th higher clergy,. a double-choir of cantor led by soloists,
and complementary choirs of readers. Wh rea the Prokeimenon was assigned
only to the most accompli h d singers of the elite ch.oir f psalfai, Table 17.2
shows how the invariable openjng antiphon of the service incorporated all
singers present. Although soloists drawn from the psaltai and high r clergy
began and ended the anti ph n, th bu lk of its biblical text was delivered by the
choirs empl ying a ste reotyped melodic formula ('psalm-tone'), each iteration
of which wa punctuated by a bri.e f refrain. In performance this hierarchically
ordered alternation of ingers and melodic styles would have yielded a
soundscape characterised by sonic, musical and spatial variety.
Table 17.1 Musical styles in the chants of festal vespers celebrated according to the rite of the Great Church of Hagia Sophia
(the Sung or Asmatic Office)
Sung Item Lesser Feasts Saturdays and Comments

Greater Feasts
First A n tiphon (Psalm 85) • A soloist chants musically florid introductions As on lesser feasts, With the exception of settings
before the final petition of the deacon and after the but generally set in of the Kneeling Vespers of
. ecphonesis of the celebrant
The stichologia: the two choirs of cantors perform
alternate verses of the main body of the psalm us-
a more elaborate
musical idiom and/or
Pentecost transmitted in South
Italian copies of the Psaltikon,
different mode the choral psalmody of asmatic
. ing a syllabic musical formula (psalm tone).
The appropriate choir of readers punctuates each
verse with a brief syllabic refrain
Vespers is found only in psalmodic
anthologies (Akolouthiai) of the 14th
and 15th centuries.
• Florid solo coda
Final Antiphon (Teleutaion) •
. Florid solo introductions as in the First Antiphon
The cantorial choirs employ a syllabic psalm tone
As on lesser feasts, but
set in a more elaborate
. for the stichologia, which is often abbreviated.
Each psalm verse is followed by a moderately
florid refrain ('Alleluia')
different mode
Ps. 140 with Kekragarion .. Florid solo introduction As on lesser feasts, but
and Entrance'
. Syllabic choral psalm tone
Syllabic 'Kekragarion' (poetic refrain of one or two
set in a more elaborate
...
sentences) different mode
Solo verse at the Entrance
Syllabic choral psalmody resumes
[In some late sources: stichera from the Palestinian
. rite]
Florid solo coda
Sung Item Lesser Feasts Saturdays and Comments

Greater Feasts
Prokeimenon Melismatic responsorial psalmody led by a soloist As on lesser feasts The initial refrain and its verses are
from the ambo. notated in the Psaltikon. A more
elaborate final choral refrain (doche)
is transmitted for some chants in the
Asmatikon.
First 'Little' Antiphon: Syllabic refrains (Neumatic in some MSS) Neumatic refrains
Ps 114 wl refrain 'At the
Iprayers oj_the Mother of God'
Second 'Little' A ntiphon: Syllabic (Neumatic in some MSS) Neumatic refrains MSS provide only incipits of the
Ps. 115 wl refrain '0 Son with syllabic troparia
of God' +2 troparia ('Only- concluding troparia
begotten Son' and 'Let us
sing the praise of the most
g lorious Mo ther of God')
Third 'Little' Antiphon:
Ps. 116 + Trisagion
Syllabic (Melismatic in some MSS) + a florid solo coda . Florid solo intro- Trisagion replaced by 'Christ has
duction risen' for Paschal Vespers
• Melismatic re-
frains
• Florid solo in-
traduction to the
final refrain
OT Readings Sung w/ lectionary notation Sung from lectionary From the Prophetologion
notation
Concluding Hymns Syllabic, with some exceptions Syllabic, with some
(A polytikia) exceptions
Table 17.2 Outline of the invariable opening psalm of Asmatic Vespers
1. Litany of Peace
'0 L'..LaKovoc;. 'Ev clQrjVr:J, mu KUQLOU bcT]8Wf.1EV.
Deacon: In peace, let us pray to the Lord.
'0 Aa6c;. KuQLE, i-AET]O"OV.
People: Lord, have mercy.
Deacon: For the peace from on high and for the salvation of our souls, let
'0 1'-..LaKOVOc;. 'YTIEQ 'fie; avw8EV dQrjVT]C: Kal 'fie; <J"W"[T]QLCXC: "[WV <)!uxwv
us pray to the Lord.
TJf.lWV, mu KUQLOU bET]8Wf.1EV.
'0 Aa6c;. KuQLE, £AET]O"OV.
People: Lord, have mercy .
... .. .
K"[,\ . Etc.
... . ..
Deacon: Help us, save us, have mercy on us, and keep us, 0 God, by your
'0 1'-..liiKovoc;. 'Av,u\ai3ou, awaov, i-AET]aov Kal bLa~vAai:,ov iJf.lac;, 6
grace.
8c6c;, 'lJ 0"1] xaQm.
2. Antiphon Solo Intonation #1

The Choir Leader: And hear me. Glory to you, 0 God.
'0 1'-..of.lEO"nKoc;. Kal ionaKoua6v f.lOV" b6i:,a am, 6 8c6c;.
3. Conclusion of the Litany, Prayer and Ecphonesis

Deacon: Commemorating our all-holy, pure, most blessed and glorious
'0 1'-..LaKOVOc;. Tfic; ITavaylac;, axQaVmV, UTI£QEUAOYT]f.1EVT]C:, £vb6i:,ou,
Lady, Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, with all the Saints, let
1'-..cO"TIOLVT]C: TJ f.lWV 8EQ"[OKOU Kal itanaQ8£vou MaQlac;, f.lf"[Ct naV"[WV
us entrust ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our
"[WV aylwv f.1VT]f.10VEUO"fXV"[Ec;, Eaumuc; Kal aMrjJ..ouc; Kalmxaav "[TJV
i:;wi]v TJ f.lWV XQL<J""[0 ' c}l 8c0 naQa8Wf.1E8a. God.
'0 Aa6c;. L:ol, KuQLL

People: To you, 0 Lord.
EYXH ANTicpONOY A'
PRAYER OF THE FIRST ANTIPHON
o 'IEQEvc; [f.luanKwc;J. KuQlE olK,lQf.lov Kal £Mfif.lov ...
Priest [softly]: 0 Lord, compassionate and merciful. ..
'EK~WVT]O"lc;· "On TIQETIEL O"Ol naaa b6i:,a, nf.liJ KiXl TIQOO"KUVT]O"lC:, "[W
rra,Ql KiXl '[0 Yl0 Kal '[0 Aylc,u IlvcUf.lCXn, vuv Kal ad Kal clc; muc: Aloud: For to you belong all glory, honour and worship, to the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages.
alwvac; '[WV alwvwv.
4. Antiphon Solo Intonation #2

'0 1'-..of.lEO"nKoc;. 'Af.lrjv. KALvov, KvQLE, '[6 ouc; aou, Kal i':naKoua6v f.lou· The Choir Leader: Amen. Incline your ear, Lord, and hear me. Glory to
b6i:,a am, 6 8c6c;. you, 0 God.
5. Antiphon Stichologia
Ol XOQOl iovaMc\:1:,. The choirs alternately.
'0 A'xoQ6c; TWV <jJaA'[WV· KAivov, KDQlc, '[Q ouc; O"OU, Kal i':naKOUO"OV Cantors Choir #1: Incline your ear, Lord, and hear me.
f.lOU"
'0 A' XOQOC: '[WV avayvW<J"'[WV· L'..6i:,a O"Ol, 6 8c6c;. Readers Choir #1: Glory to you, 0 God.
'0 B'xoQOC: '[WV <jJiXA'[WV· 'On mwxoc; KiXl m'vllc; cLf.ll ioyw· Cantors Choir #2: For I am poor and in penury.
. ' ' -~ B' XOQOC: '[WV avayvWO"TWV. L'..6E,a O"Ol, 6 8c6c;. Readers Choir #2: Glory to you, 0 God.
0 A_ XOQOC:. '[WV ~~'[WV· ~vJ..aE,ov '[TJV <)!uxrjv f.lOU, on om6c; cLf.ll" Cantors Choir #1: Preserve my soul, for I am holy. Save your servant my
awaov mv bouJ..ov aov, o 8c6c; f.lOU, '[QV 1-J..nli:;ov'[a 1-nl a{ God, who hopes in you. '
'0 A' XOQOC: '[WV avayvWO"'[WV·. L'..6E,a O"Ol, 6 8c6c;.
... Readers Choir #1: Glory to you, 0 God .
K'[J... .. .
... Etc .
...
6. Antiphon Solo Coda

Kal6 1'-..0f.lEO"nKoc; TIEQLO"cn'Jv. The Choir Leader.
L'..6E,a am, 6 8c6c;· b6E,a am, 6 8c6c;· b6E,a am, 6 8£6c;. Glory to you, 0 God. Glory to you, 0 God. Glory to you, 0 God.
Fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Byzantine manuscripts with music for

festal cathedral vespers reveal that on commemorations of the Mother of God
and other saints~ a level of solemnity they designate with the generic rubric
'de; 'mai]f-!ouc; EOQTCcc;' ('for notable feasts') - the psalmodic antiphons sung
during the first half o£ the service were sung in syllabic or mildly decorated
melodic styles.4' Diverging only slightly from th styli tk norms of their ferial
counterparts in the we kday offices of th Constantin politan cathedral rite,
these antiphon feature choral melodies that remain g nerally obe.r and
utili.tarian (charact ristically, sol passages are of greater mel die interest) .
Versions of cathedral vespers for solemnities of Christ in the same sources, on
the other hand, tend to endow their antiphons with chants that are musically
more substantial, melodically distinctive and challenging for their singers to
perform. This difference in musical style may be glimpsed in Example 17.1,
which contrasts three settings from a late Byzantine manuscript of the choral
refrain for Psalm 85, the invariable opening psalm of asmatic vespers: (a) a
shmningly unimaginative version in Mode Plagal 2 for the feasts of ai:nts;
(b) a melody in Model for Easter; and c) a setting in Mode Plagal4 ascrib d
variously to the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14 September) and ordinary
Saturdays, the latter f which have a paschal theme du to their po ition on
the ve of the Sunday commemoration of the Resurrection of Christ.
The tendency within th Constantinopoli.tan cathedJ·al rite to manifest
heightened solemnity on great feasts with more elaborate mu ic is perhap
expressed most strikingly in notated setting of the asmatic Kne ling Vespers
of Penteco t (gonyklesia) that are h~ansmitted in South rtalian manuscripts of
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 42 Copied for use in Stoudite monasteries
of Magna Graecia that extraordinarily celebrated vespers according to the rite of
the Great Church each Pentecost, these settings represent the most technically
sophisticated vocal traditions cultivated at the Great Church of Hagia Sophia
prior to 1204. 43 Their music for Psalm 18 ('The heavens declare the glory of
41
I analyse these settings in 'Festal Cathedral Vespers', pp. 421- 59.
42
Overviews of these musical settings are D. Conomos, 'Music for the Evening Office
on Whitsunday', Actes de XV' Cougrcs International d'Etudes Byznntines (Athens, 1979), pp.
453-69; and S. Harris, 'The Byzantine Office of the Genuflexion', Music and Letters 77 (1996),
pp. 333-47.
43
These traditions are preserved in three musical collections - the Asmatikon, the
Psaltikon and th e Asm a ~that survive m ainly in South Italian copies. The Asmatikon contains
the elaborate choral chants performed in the rite of the Great Church by elite choirs of cantors,
whilst the musi c for their soloists is included in the Psaltikon. Th e Asma is a collection
of fl orid chants that are stylistic forerunners of the kalophonic repertories of Paleologan
Byzantium. For an overview of these collections, see A Doned a, 'I manoscritti liturgico-
musicali bizantini: Tipologie e organizzazione', in A. Es cobar (ed.), El pnlimpsesto grecolatino
COlllO fen 6m wo librario y textunl, Colecci6n Aetas. Filologia (Zaragoza, 2006), pp. 103-10; as well
as th e detailed inventories in P.B. Di Salvo, 'Gli asm ata nella musica bi zantina ', Bollettino de/In
Bndin Gmn di Grottnjerrn tn XIII, XIV ( 1959-60), pp. 45- 50, 127-45 [XI!Jj and 45-78 [XIV]; P.B.
Example 17.1 Choral refrains for Psalm 85 from MS Athens EBE 2061
(~ •
/l6
•
~a
•
<JOt,
•
6 8E-
• a
6~.
11
Example 17.1a For the Feasts of Saints (fol. 50r)
(~ Z??'. • •77•
t""
;; • • 8
t2
11
116- ~a O'Ot
-- 6 ®E- - 6c;.
Example 17.1b For Easter Sunday (fol. 48r)
(~ 6.6-
•
~a
•
O'Ol,
•
6 ee-
• 11
6c;.
11
Example 17.1c For Saturday Evenings (and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross)
(fol. 21r)
God'), the final variable antiphon (Teleutaion antipltono11) of Penteco t vespers,

is particularly remarkable f r its florid melodic t:yle, monumental seal and
hybrid formal construction. An utline of the musical setting in an appendix
t the Psaltikon Florence Ashburnhame.nsis 64, a manuscript copied at the
monastery of Grottaferrata near Rome in the year 1289, is shown in Tabl 17.3.44
Di Salvo, 'Asrnatikon', Bollettino della Badia Greca di Grottaferrata XVI (1962), pp. 135-58; and
C. Thodberg, Der byzantinische Alleluiarionzyklus: Studien im kurzen Psaltikonstil, Monurnenta
Musicae Byzantinae Subsidia (Copenhague, 1966), pp. 9-31.
44
Fols 259r-264v. This manuscript h as been published in facsimile as C. H oeg (ed.),
Cor1tacarium Ashburnhamense: Codex Bib/. Laurentianae Ashburnhamensis 64 phototypice depictus,
Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae 4 (Copenhagen, 1956). Conomos offers a slightly different
analysis of this chant in 'WhHsunday', pp. 459-69.
Table 17.3 The final Antiphon ('Teleutaion') prior to the Lamplighting Psalms as sung at the asmatic Kneeling Vespers
of Pentecost according to the Psaltikon MS Florence Ashburnhamensis 64. With additional rubrics from the
Euchologion MS Grottaferrata r.~. 35 (GROT) and the Typikon of San Salvatore di Messina MS Mess. gr. 115
(MES)*
Liturgical Unit Musical Style Vocal Musical Form Greek Text with Intonations and Translation
and Additional Rubrics Range Asmatic Letters from MS Ashb. 64 (Intonations and asmatic letters omitted)
(relative
pitch)
1. Continuation of Improvised '0 LlLaKovo~.' AvnAa~oiJ, CJWCJOV, EAET]CJOV Deacon: Help us, save us, have mercy
Small Litany cantillation Kal bLa<jH)Aal;ov iJflli~, 6 Elc6~, ~1'] cr1'] on us, and keep us, 0 God, by your
X6:QLH. grace.
2. Antiphon Solo Melismatic chant d-e' '0 LlOflECJnKo~. Ncavcvavw. The Choir Leader:
Intonation #1 A Ti]v olKOD!lE-vc•VcVEVTJYYTJV. Avay·ia· The Universe.
c-b B Axaoua xaoua· AEXEOUEyyE- EVaVE VEVE · Alleluia.
EAouvou·ia· Avay'ia.
d-e' c Ai\Ac:vctVCVEOU£• VEVctVEAOUHX· ayya. Alleluia
Ncavc~:
e-d' D(ab) Avayyaa aovavavaova·

avavaovavavaova. (NEavc:c;)** Alleluia
g-e' AvaAAcxwuyyc:
cvcxcvcouEouc·Aouvou·layya.
3. Conclusion of the Improvised '0 LlL6:Kovo~. Tf]c; Tiavaylac; ... XQLCJ~'fl ~0 Deacon: Commemorating .. to Christ
Litany, Prayer and cantillation and El£0 TWQa8WflC8a. our God.
Ecphonesis congregational '0 Aa6~ . l.:ol, KDQL£. People: To you, 0 Lord.
response '0 '!cQEDt; ... . vuv Kala cl Kal EL<; roue; Priest ... now and for ever, and to the
aiWvac: rrWv aiWvwv. ages of ages.
'0 LlOflECJTLKO~ . ['Aflr'JV.]

The Choir Leader: Amen.
Melismatic chant A'
4. Antiphon Solo NcavE~ .
Intonation #2 ~ Ps d-d' The heavens declare the glory of God
Ol ouQavol btTJYOiivtat b6E,av Elwu.
18:la A:vay'ia.
Axaoua xaoua AAcxwu<yyE cvavE .VEVE Alleluia
GROT and MES: The c-b B'
cAouvou'iayya.
choir of psaltai enters
(Ntxw:vf!C.)
at 'i'lLT]youv~at'
TiolT]CJLV b£ XELQWV mhou itvayy£An ~6 The firmament proclaims the work of
d-b A"
S. Antiphon a<fQtwvwvw~tayya. A vaykt
his hands.
Stichologia Alleluia.
d c' c AAAcvavcvc:ouc· vc:vavc· AoUvou'la.
(Ncxwvc~) . 'HflEQa u'] TlflEQ<;t EQcDyc~at
Day to day produces speech and night
d-b A"'
Qi)fla Kal vu[ VUK~L £ivayy£Aa to night proclaims knowledge.
y \'WvW\I")VW<1lY)'lV. N W:V£<;.
e-d' D(a'b')' Avaova avavaoua avavaoua

(Nmvc~ .)
Alleluia.
g-e' avaAA£XCOUc EVEXEVCOUE XCOU£

AoUvou·lvLa
(Ncxmvcc;). OuK clcrl AaALal, oui'l£ There are no sayings or words in which
d-e' A""
A6yoL, Wv oUxL itKoUovTal al cpwval
their voices are not heard.:
ava.mWY)'wv. Avay'ia.
Axaoua xaoua Atxcou<yyc cvav£ vc
Alleluia
c-b B"
Aouvouia. (N~x~av£c;).
El~ n cwav ~~v yf]v £1;T]A8tv 6
Their sound has gone out into all the
d-e' A'""
cp8 6yyoc; au~wv, Kal de; ~(x 1IEQa~a earth, and their words to the ends of
the world:.
~i] s olKouflEVTJ~ ~ix Qr']flam
a vQVllVIJ.Vc.t\IT<OJyyW\1.
AAAcvavtvcouc- vcvavc Aouvoviv~a . Alleluia.
db C"
(Ncxmvc~ .) 'Ev ~0 r'JAL'fl i'8no ~6
He has pitched his tent in the sun; and
d-e' A'"" he is like a bridegroom who comes
CJKrjVWfla au~OU, Kal at'nO~ W<; VUflcjlLOt;
fK7IOQCU6!J.EVoc;; Ex naarroD itvavaVrroiJ.
out of his marriage chamber.
(Nt avtc;.J
D(a" b" )" Avaouavavaoua·avavaoua
e-d' Alleluia.
(Ncavt<;)
g-<e' AvaAcxwvE cv<xwuc xcouc
Aouvou'cvLayya.
(Sa . Optional (c--<e') (ABCD(ab))' Eha anxoi\uyetTCtl n) Enli\oLTIOV TOll And then the stichologia of the rest of the
continuation of tj;aAflOU psalm is performed [or, in MES and
the Stichologia) [MES (~GROT): GROT: And he performs as many verses
Kai Myu cnixou~ ocrou~ 81'Au.] as he wishes.]
6. Doxology and Coda d-e' A"'"'' (Ncxwvcc.) !1M,a TiaTQl, Kai ric~, Kal Glory to the Father and to the Son and
Ay t4J TivEU)-!avavauyyL to the Holy Spirit.
c-b B"' Axaoua xaoua c\:AAcxwucyye cvavc Alleluia .
vcvc:vc:i\oUvou·Layy a .
d-e' A"''''' (Ncxwvcs.) Kal vuv, Kal d, 1cal Both now and ever and
Els: ToU c; o:ic0vac T~JV a.LcJvcvv. to the ages of ages. Amen .
AvavavavaflT\rrfJV.
Avo:y'La.
d-e' C'" Ai\i\c:va.vavcouc: c:vcvavc: Alleluia,
i\o0vou·lvLVLvL£xyya
Ncavcc .
e-d' D(a'" b"')' " A vavcwvavavaova avavaova
Neavec Alleluia.
g--<e' AvaAAcxcoueyyc EVEXEVEOUE xmue
Aouvou'l£Xyya .
H0eg (ed .), Contacarium Ashbumhamense, fols 259r-64v; 0. Strunk (ed.), Specimina notationum antiquiorum: Folia selecta ex variis codicibus saec, x, xi, & xii phototypice depicta,
Monumenta musicae Byzantinae 7 (Copenhagen, 1966), plates 38-42; and M. Arranz, Le Typicon du monastere du Saint-Sauveur aMessine: Codex Messinensis gr. 115, Orientalia
Christian a Analecta 185 (Rome, 1969), p. 279.
Intonations in parentheses are indicated in the manuscript by martyriai (intonation signs).
In this festal Teleutaion the standard format for Constantinopolitan antiphonal

psalm dy serves as a framework for a cycle of modified repetitions of a
equence of three AUeluias -each of which has been extended through the
interpolation of additi nal yllables, a styli tic trait d1aracteristic of melismatic
eh ral chants in the repertories of the Great Church - that is heard without
interruption only once as the conclusion to the first solo intonation. This
threefold Alleluia is constructed in three distinct musical segments, the third
of which (D) is divided into two parts (a and b) that together are roughly
equal in length to the fir t two segments combined (Band C). When sung in
sequenc (BCD(ab}), the Alleluia execute a gradual ascent in vocal register
(te itura) to a cadence a sixth above their starting pitch. When the antiphon
resumes after the diaconal litany, its econd intonation is elided both mtJSicaJ'Iy
and textually into the stichologia of the psalm, where the components of the
triple Alleluia appear separately with minor melodic variations as refrains to
successive verses. Psalm verses following the second solo intonation begin
with a traditional choral psalm-ton , but substitute the ne t florid Alleluia in
the sequence for the customary simple choral refrain. At the end of every third
refrain the music reache a onic and registral limax, after which the melodic
ascent begins anew with further melodic variations.
Before moving on to Palestinian traditions, it is worth pausing here briefly
to consider how listeners whose musical and temporal expectations had been
shaped by the daily psalmody of the Constantinopolitan athedral rite might
have perceived this extraordinary antiphon for Pentecost vespers, which lasts
nearly thirty-five minutes on a recent recording by Cappella R mana. 45 On
ferial occasions, as we have noted above, antiphons sung during th opening
section of Sung Vesper (and, incidentally, Sung Orthros as well) consisted
mainly of a highly repetitive stichologin in whid1 the choirs altemated in
rendering verses syllabically to a imple mu ical formula that led always to the
same (and u ually brief) refrain. Congregants familiar with ordinary asmatic
antiphonal psalmody who attended Pentecost vesper would have had their
stylistic e pectations initially satisfied when they h ard a oloist begin the
Teleutaion's fir t intonation at the usual point in the diaconal litany, but might
well have experienced some disorientation as the music continued to unfold
and ascend in tessitura over the approximately six minutes required for its
performance.
45
Cappella Romana, Byzantium in Rome: Medieval Byzantine Chant from Grottaferrata,
dir. Ioannis Arvanitis and A. Lingas (Cappella Romana 403-2CD, 2007), Disc 2. Although
the manuscript offers the option of repeating music to achieve a complete rendition of the
psalm in the stichologia, the recording features only the notated six verses actually provided
with musical notation. Ioannis Arvanitis edited the music for modern performance without
recourse to the traditions of 'long exegesis' employed by Greek cantors during the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries, which would have produced a musical work at least
quadruple in length.
Yet it was only once listeners were well into the antiphon's stichologia
that they would have begun to apprehend its unusually expansive sonic and
temporal proportions. Although each psalm verse after the second intonation
was rendered musically with a traditional syllabic psalm-tone, it was dwarfed
in scale by the Alleluia appended to it. The normal function of a stichologia -
that of efficiently conveying the bulk of a psalmic text in a musically repetitive
(and therefore, arguably, affectively unobtrusive) manner- was not so much
ignored as overshadowed by the goal of offering extravagant praise to God. This
purpose would, of course, have been inherent to any antiphon that featured
'alleluia' as a refrain due to the literal meaning of the word, but here in the
Teleutaion it was being pursued through primarily musical means. One sign of
this was the way in which 'alleluia' was brought to the edge of intelligibility
with ecstatic melismata and the intercalation of so-called 'asmatic' letters.
Another was the presence in the antiphon of elements of musical design that
operated independently of its psalmic text: the unusual formal construction of
the first solo intonation, its division into a cycle of three Alleluias during the
stichologia, the repeated slow ascent in tessitura, and the melodic variations
that distinguished each cycle of Alleluias as being in some way unique.
Byzantine liturgical commentaries unfortunately do not explicitly deal
with matters of musical form and style, but it seems reasonable to assume
that the reactions of listeners to this Pentecost antiphon would have been
shaped by what Metropolitan Kallistos Ware calls the 'dominant "model"'
of liturgical interpretation in Byzantium: an anagogical vision in which
earthly worship is seen as an icon of heaven through which human beings
participate in the perpetual angelic ministry of praise. 46 Bearing this in mind,
it is not hard for one to see the elaborate music of the Teleutaion as an attempt
to depict in sound the notion that 'The heavens are telling the glory of God'
with music that is more angelic than human in form and scale. Reflections of
the interpenetration of heavenly and earthly worship in this antiphon may
be discerned not only in such obvious features as the periodic suspension of
normal speech, but also in its combination of cyclical and teleological formal
devices. The three Alleluias ascend melodically to a particular goal, the
achievement of which brings about a repetition of their sequence accompanied
by melodic variations. A limit is placed on their potentially endless repetition
by the text of Psalm 18, the doxology of which is interwoven with the final
modified recapitulation of the refrains.
46
Bishop [now Metropolitan] Kallistos of Diokleia, 'The Meaning of the Divine Liturgy
for the Byzantine Worshipper', in Morris (ed.), Church and People in Byzantium, pp. 8-11.
General introductions to the origins and importance of anagogical vision within Byzantine
liturgy arc J.A. McCuckin, Standing in God's Holy Fire: The Byzantine Tradition, Traditions of
Christian Spirituality Series (London, 2001), pp. 23-32 and 131-49; and R.F. Taft, S.J., 'The
Liturgy of the Great Church: An Initial Synthesis of Structure and Interpretation on the Eve
of Iconoclasm', Dumbarton Oaks Papers 34-35 (1980-81), pp. 45-75, at pp. 59-62.
The Palestinian Divine Office in Middle and Late Byzantium
The catechetical homilies of St Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386) and the diary of
the Spanish pilgrim Egeria show that by the end of the fourth century A.D.
the Holy City of Jerusalem had developed its own distinct system of public
worship. 47 At its centre was the great cathedral of the Anastasis constructed by
Constantine I, which served as hub for a stationalliturgy that recalled events
in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus through the performance of prayers,
readings and psalmody at sites associated with those events. Monasticism
flowered during the same era both in Jerusalem itself and in the Palestinian
deserts that surrounded it, with the Great Lavra of St Sabas soon emerging
as the preeminent extramural community. 48 Whereas some ascetics cultivated
musically austere forms of prayer and worship, others embraced to varying
degrees the popular and melodious psalmodic practices of the cathedral. The
monks and nuns (monazontes and parthenae) that Egeria witnessed chanting
at the Anastasis were forerunners of the Spoudaioi, a resident community of
monastics that, like the asketeria of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, contributed
to the cycles of cathedralliturgy. 49
Despite the upheavals and losses of imperial control brought about by
the Persian and Arab conquests of the seventh century, Jerusalem retained
and further developed its own system of cathedral worship throughout
the first millennium and in so doing profoundly influenced other liturgical
traditions, including those of Constantinople, Rome, Armenia and Georgia. 5°
47
Compact surveys of the sources and forms of early Hagiopolite liturgy are
J.F. Baldovin, Liturgy in Ancient Jerusalem, Alcuin/GROW liturgical study 9 (Bramcote,
Nottingham, 1989); and S. Verhelst, 'The Liturgy of Jerusalem in the Byzantine Period', in 0.
Limor and G.G. Stroumsa (eds), Christians and Christianity in the Holy Land: From the Origins to
the Latin Kingdoms, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 5 (Turnhout,
2006), pp. 421-62. See also the explanatory essays and commentary in J. Wilkinson, Egeria's
Travels, 3rd edn (Warminster, 1999).
48
On these monasteries, see Y. Hirschfeld, 'The Monasteries of Palestine in the
Byzantine Period', in Limor and Stroumsa (eds), Christians and Christianity in the Holy Land,
pp. 401-19.
49
Their establishment is briefly described by J. Patrich, Sabas, Leader of Palestinian
Monasticism: A Comparative Study in Eastern Monasticism, Fourth to Seventh Centuries,
Dumbarton Oaks Studies 32 (Washington, D.C., 1995), p. 5. On their contribution to
cathedral psalmody in the centuries after Egeria, see J.-M. Garrigues, 'Les carach~ristiques
du monachisme basilica! (Ve-VIIIe siecle)', in J.-M. Garrigues and J. Legrez (eds), Moines dans
l'assembll!e des fideles al'epoque des Peres, IVe-VIIIe siecle (Paris, 1992), pp. 151-221, at pp. 166-8.
50
Armenians and Georgians adopted the urban rite of Jerusalem with only fairly minor
structural modifications, leading to the survival in their languages of Palestinian liturgical
sources representing stages of development for which evidence in the original Greek is
fragmentary or non-existent. It is from the Georgian sources in particular that the nature
and extent of influence of Hagiopolite worship on the liturgical practice of the Late Antique
Whilst a detailed account of the dissemination of Hagiopolite liturgical forms

is beyond the scope of this study, it is worth noting two musical innovations
that profoundly altered the soundscape of Byzantine worship.
Like the Great Church of Hagia Sophia, the cathedral of the Anastasis
possessed a Divine Office rooted in biblical psalmody. The scriptural core
of Hagiopolite worship was expressed in the Palestinian Psalter (which
differed from that of Hagia Sophia in its shorter verses and division not
into antiphons, but kathismata and doxai), the fixed psalms and canticles of
the Book of the Hours (Horologion), and seasonally appropriate psalmodic
chants attached to the temporal cycles of its Jectionaries. 51 Whereas, as we
have already seen, the Sung Office of Constantinople continued to provide
its worshippers with a fairly strict diet of biblical psalmody, the musical
repertories of Jerusalem were transformed at an early stage by a movement
to adorn its psalms and canticles with ever-increasing quantities of newly
composed hymns that served not only as vehicles of praise, supplication
and thanksgiving, but also of scriptural exegesis and catechism. The
development of hymnody moved in parallel with the adoption in
Jerusalem of a system of eight musical modes (the Octoechos), the first
signs of which Froyshov discerns in the fifth (or perhaps even as early as
the later fourth) century. 52 The Octoechos provided Palestinian churches
with a shared vocabulary of scales and melodic for mulas to be exploited
by cantors and composers, as well as a principle of liturgical organisation
manifested most prominently in the establishment of an eight-week cycle
of Sundays on which one of the modes would predominate. 53 An initial
and early medieval Greek East and Latin West are now being revea led. Key studies of these
patterns of influence include C. Renoux, 'De Jerusalem en Armenie. L'heritage liturgique de
l'Eglise armeniem1e', in T. Hu mm el, K. Hi.ntlian and U. Carmesund (eds), Patterns of the Past,
Prospects for the Future: The Christian Heritage in the Hol y Lmtd (London, J 999), pp. 114-23;
S.S.R. Fwyshov, 'The Geo1·gian Witness to the Jerusalem Lihugy: New Sources and Studies',
in B. Groen, S. Hawkes-Teeples and S. Alexopoulos (eds), Inquiries into Eastern Cltristin11
Worship: Selected Papers of the Second Interna tional Congress of the Society of Oriental Liturgies,
Rome, 17-21 September 2008, Eastern Christian Shtdies 12 (Leuven, 2012), pp. 227-67; and
P. Jeffery, 'Rome and Jerusalem: From Oral Tradition to Written Repertory in Two Ancient
Liturgical Centers', in G.M. Boone (ed.), Essays on Medieval Music: Inl-lonor ofDavid G. 1-l11ghes
(Cambridge, MA, 1995), pp. 207-47.
51
See C.R. Parpulov, 'Toward a History of Byzantine Psalters' (Ph .D. diss., University
of Chicago, 2004), pp. 11- ·12 (on the Palestinian Psalter); and Fmyshov, 'The Georgian
Witness', pp. 244- 56 (Horol ogia and lectionaries).
52
S.R. FnJyshov, 'The Early Development of the Lihngical Ei ght-Mode System in
Jerusalem', St Vladinzir's Theologicn/ Quarterly 51 (2007), pp. 139-78.
53
Regarding the musical aspects of the early Octoechos and the dissemination of the
eight-mode system to Syriac, Latin, Byzantine and Slavic traditions of chant, seeP. Jeffcry,
'The Earliest Okt6echoi: The Role of Jerusalem and Palestine in the Beginnings of Modal
Ordering', in P. Jeffery (ed .), Th e Stu dy of Medieval Chant: Paths nnd Bridges, East and West. In
synth i of these deveJ pment is pr served in the 'An ient Iadgari', a

Georgian translation of a l st ixtb- entury Greek hymnal that include
a m dally ordered gr up of eight ets of Sunday hymns eel brating the
resurr ction of Christ.54
Christian efforts to regroup following the Per ian ack of jerusal m
in 614 brought Palestinian cathedral and monastic traditions into even
closer alignment, adding n w mom ntum to the proces of musically and
textually enriching Pal tinian Uturgy. The out tanding early (igure in
this second wave of liturgical creativity was Pab"iarch Sophronio (d. 63 ),
a bishop with mona tic formation who contributions to Hagiopolite
worship includ h milies, prayer and hymns with original melodies
(idiomela) .55 Among the latter are chants for the services of Great Friday,
Christmas and Theophany that are still used today in the Byzantine rite
(alb it with newer melodies).
S phronios proved to b the first of many of eponymous 'melodists'
(po t-compo ers) associated with the church of Jerusalem, the list of which
includes Andr w of Crete (d. 720), John of Damascus (d. 749) and Ko ma
of Ma·iouma (d. 787). Their hymns w r · incorporated during the eighth
century int a r vised hymnal for the H ly Oty that in the original Greek
bore the generic tit! 'Trop Jogion', th er wning glory f which were the
complex str phic poem known today as kanons. 56 For insertion betwe n
th verses of the canticle or ' odes' of Pal stinian morn ing prayer (up to
the full set of nine might be appointed on a given day), the Anci nt ladgari
had only provided heterogeneou coJJections of thematically appropriate
hymns comparable to those till u ed in th modern Byzantin rit for Lauds
Honor of Kenneth Levy (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 147-209. Jeffery's discussion of the emergence
of the Octoechos in Hagiopolite liturgy should be read in the light of Fmyshov, 'The Early
Development', pp. 164-9.
54
French translation and commentary in C. Renoux, Les hymnes de la Resurrection: I.
Hymnographie liturgique georgienne. Introduction, traduction et annotation des textes du Sinai" 18,
Sources Liturgiques 3 (Paris, 2000).
55
A summary of his life and works is C. v. Schi:inborn, Sophrone de ft'rusalem: Vie
monasitque et confession dogmatique, Theologie historique 20 (Paris, 1972), pp. 53-117.
Regarding the conflicting attributions for the Royal Hours of Great Friday, see S. Janeras,
Le Vendredi-Saint dans la tradition liturgique byzantine: Structure et histoire de ses offices, Studia
Anselmiana 19; Analecta Liturgica 13 (Rome, 1988), pp. 250-59.
56
The surviving Georgian sources of the Tropolo ion (th 'N w fadgari') and the
fragmentary counterparts of their Greek originals discovered among th New Finds of Sinai
are surveyed in Fmyshov, 'The Georgian Witness', pp. 237-40; and R. Krivko, ' HnafiCKO-
cAaBi!HCKHe fHMHorpaqm:'leCKHe rrapaAlleAH', Bec/IIHI/K npa110C.\Il6110l 0 CtiJI/110-TU.\"0/IOOCKOZO
zy.\1aHumapHozo yHuBepcumema. CepuJI 3: ClJu,\OAOlliJI l (200 ), pp. 56-102. Kr(\•ko (pp. 73-4)
observes that the appellation Kavwv was originally a Palestinian ·ynonym for ' · rvice'
('c\:JwAou8ia'), which explains why both terms are attached to th hymnographic g•nre in
early sources.
and the Lamplighting Psalms. 57 With the advent of the kanon, however, a
single author assumed the ta k of writing and perbap compo ing music
for a single multi- ection po m in which each de wa suppli d with a et
of hymn ('troparia') that were m tricaUy and mel dically identical to a
mod I stanza ('heirm '). Th beirm i could be either originally composed
.for that kan n (as wa usuaJ on gr at feas ts), or borrowed from the extant
rep rtory of m del tun s. Listeners to the performanc of a kanon would
hew · been oblivious to acrostics form ed by the initia l I tters of it troparia,
but they would have discerned as marks of tmity th developm nt f a
single topic in its te t and th us of a ingl m de - and, according to
Arvanitis, dupl meb·e58 - in it musi . At th same time, they would hav
be n c nscious of th variety created by the equence of biblical canticles,
the efforts of the po t to echo the scriptural langu age of each ode's host
anticl , the use f multiple tunes, and shjfts between pitch and stress
accent as heim1oi wer applied to successive tropru:ia.59
57
The nine canticles (odes) of Palestinian orthros are: (1) Exodus 15:1-19; (2)
Deuteronomy 32:1 - 43; (3) 1 Kings (~I Samuel) 2:1 - 10; (4) Hab akkuk 3:1-1 9; (5) Isaiah 26:9- 20;
(6) )onah 2:3-10; (7) Danie\3:26-56; (8) Daniel3:57-88; and (9) Luke 1:46- 55, 68- 79. Eventually
the Second Ode fell from use on non-penitential occasions, about which see L. Bernhard, 'Der
Au sfa ll der 2. Ode im byzantinischen Neuenodenkanon', in T. Michcls and A. Rohracher
(cds), Heuresis. Festschrift fiir Andrens Rohrncher, 25 ]ahre Erzbischof V. Salzburg (Salzburg,
1969), pp. 91- 101; and R. Krivko, 'K ucTOpmr wropot'I necmt rHMHOrpa<pwrecKO ro KaHOHa:
yTparhi Il ItHTeprro.IIHLIHII', in D. Christians, D. Stern and V.S. Tomelleri (eds), Bibel, Liturgic
und Friimmigkeit in der Slavia Byznntina. Festgabe fiir Hans Rothe z11m 80. Geburtsta;.;, Studies on
Language and Culture in Central and Eastern Europe 3 (Munich, 2009), pp. 229-42. For an
example of a heterogeneous collection of anonymous hymns intended for use with the full
Palestinian sequence of Nine Od es, see the texts for Palm Sunday translated by Renoux from
th e Ancient lad gari: C. Renou x, L'hymnnire de Saint-Snbns (Ve-\II/e siecle): Le mrmuscrit georgiett
H 21 23. 1. Du Sa medi de Lazn re il In Pentec8te, Patrologia Orientalis 50, Fascicule 3, No. 224
(Turnhout, 2008), pp. 298- 312.
58 1. Aw<mitis, '1l1e Rhythmical and Metrical Structur of th Byzantin Heirmoi and
Stichem as a Means to and as a Res ult of a New Rhythmical lnterpretati n of th Byzantin
h;:mt', Acta Mttsicne Byznntinae 6 (2003), pp. 14-29; and, in much greater detail,}. Arvaniti ,
oufJpl>c; 't~lV ' KI0\1]<711l(J'[LI((;)V j.t£1\C~V J.lCO'Gl CtTC ·ni 1liXAIX L(lYQ£X<Jlll<~ i!QtUV Iml TIJV
t~'lYilO'Il T~c; 7H:\A uxc; <TilJ.ll>lOYQCiq>i.ac;. 'H ~l 'tQLK~ KGl QUf:lJ.liKTJ bopij 'fC~V TtaAaLc;,v
CTHXllQCOV 1ml clQ~Lci.lv' (Ph .D. diss., Ionian University, 2010). Several decades before, Jan van
Bie:c.en had reached a similar conclusion about the use of duple rhythms in kanons in his
study The Middle Byza ntine Kmwn -notation of Mmm script H (Bilthoven, 1968).
59
For a theological analysis of three kanons (those for Easter, Transfiguration and the
Dormition of the Mother of God) by John of Damascus, see A. Louth, St. John Damascene:
Tradition nud Origiunlily iu By:znntiue 17reolo;.;y, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford
and New York, 2002), pp. 258-82. The rhythmical and metrical issues arising from the
application or m dieval heirmoi to their troparia are analysed in Arvanitis, ''0 QU8f1Clc; TCOV
i:KJ(I\qmnOTI1<ci.lv p t t\(i.lv', pp. 277-328.
The cumulative effect of these developments in hymnody was a

reordering of the liturgical soundscape in the cathedral rite of Jerusalem,
as well as in those nearby monasteries where melodious chanting was
view d w ith favour. 60 O riginally, as witness d by Egeria, the antiphonal
p alms and canticles of Hagiopolite worsh ip bad resembled those found
in th Sung Offic f Constan ti nop le, consi ting mainly of their scriptural
texts with the addition of a small number of r frains. With the emergence o£
the hymnodic repertories compiled in the Tropologion, biblical psalmody
in the festal offices of Palestine was demoted textually and musically to a
supporting role of providing a framework for ever-increasing quantities
of through-composed or strophic prop r hymns. Tbe consistency and
familiarHy afforded to worshippers by the chanting of important fixed
scriptural el ments of morning and ev ning worship- the nine canticles
and Laud (Psalm 148-50) at o.rthros, and the Lamplighting Psalms
(Psalms 140, 141, 129 and 116) at vespers 61 - was increasingly replaced
by variability and novelty, characteristics tha t Stoudite monasticism !at r
extended systematically to ferial offices.
Patriarch Germanos I of Constantinople (reigned 715-30) not only
aligned himself with 0 1alcedonian Christians of the Holy Land by sharing
their opposition to Monoth li tism and Iconoclasm, but he also composed
hymn that appear in the Jerusalem Tropologion. 62 Palestinian hymnody
b came a permanent feature of th · Constantinopolitan liturgical scene
60 As famously portrayed in Narration of the Abbots John and Sophronios, some Middle
Eastern ascetics of the sixth to eighth centuries resisted the importation of musical repertories
and practices from cathedral liturgy, arguing that they were worldly and generally
inappropriate to monastic life. For the text of the Narration and analyses of its liturgical
content and relationship to other witnesses of resistance to the musical enrichment of
monastic liturgy, see A. Longo, 'I! testo integrale della "Narrazione degli abati Giovanni e
Sofronio" attraverso le 'EQfllJVELC<L di Nicone', Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici n.s. 2-3
(1965-{)6), pp. 223-{)7; B.M. .ilypbe, "TioaeCTBOBamte OTI..\OB MoaHHa 11 CO<ppomtR' (BHG) KaK
AI-!TyprwrecKl1M HcToqmtK', Vizantijskij Vremennik 54 (1993), pp. 62-74; and S. Froyshov, 'La
reticence a I'hyrnnographle chez des anachoretes de I'Egypte et du Sina'i du Se au Se siecles',
in J. Claire, A.M. Triacca and A. Pistoia (eds), L'hym nographie: Conferences Saint-Serge, XLV!e
Semaine d'etudes liturgiques, Paris, 29 juin-2 juillet 1999, Bibliotheca Ephemerides Liturgicae
Subsidia 105 (Rome, 2000), pp. 229-45.
61
Regarding the use of these items as core elements of public evening and morning
worship in Late Antiquity and the early middle ages, G.W. Woolfenden, Daily Liturgical
Prayer: Origins and Theology (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 280-91.
62
On the life and works of Germanos, see L. Lamza, Patriarch Germanos I. von
Konstantinopel (715-730): Versuch einer endgiiltigen chronologischen Fixierung des Lebens und
Wirkens des Patriarchen mit dem griechisch-deutschen Text der Vita Germani am Schluss der Arbeit,
Das ostliche Christenhtm n.F. 27 (Wiirzburg, 1975). The contributions of Germanos to the
Tropologion as reflected in copies of the Georgian Iadgari are discussed in Jeffery, 'The
Earliest Oktoechoi', pp. 198-202.
after 799, when Abbot Theodore of Sakkoudion in Bithynia moved his

community to the monastery of St John of Stoudios and began celebrating
in its church the monastic Divine Office of St Sabas. 63 Like Germanos
before him, St Theodore the Stoudite (as he later became known) was a
prominent iconophile and his embrace of the hymns of the Tropologion
was motivated in part by his admiration for their doctrinal orthodoxy.
Yet Theodore and his monks did not rest after transplanting the Saba'itic
Divine Office to Stoudios, but used its Horologion and Tropologion as the
basis for a creative synthesis incorporating elements of the rite of Hagia
Sophia and vast quantities of new hymnody. 6" From the Great Church
they borrowed the office prayers of its Euchology, the readings and
responsorial psalmody of its lectionaries, the florid solo and choral chants
of its elite choirs, and the paraliturgical cycles of kontakia sung at its vigils.
To varying degrees they also adopted cathedral traditions of melodious
antiphonal psalmody, most completely in some Stoudite monasteries on
Pentecost when the Kneeling Vespers (Gonyklesia) was, as we noted above,
celebrated according to the rite of Hagia Sophia. 65
Having thus enriched their worship with music from the Sung Office,
Stoudite monks then made seminal contributions to a multi-generational
project to fill out the repertories of the Tropologion, especially its provision
£or lesser feasts and ferial days. 66 Although St Theodore the Stoudite is
63
T. Pott, Byzantine Liturgical Reform: A Study of Liturgical Change in the Byzantine
Tradition, Orthodox Liturgy Series Book 2 (Crestwood, NY, 2010), pp. 118-42.
64
On the musical aspects of the Stoudite reform, see Lingas, 'Sunday Matins', pp. 145-9.
65
Pott, Byzantine Liturgical Reform, pp. 132-3. The celebration of Pentecost vespers in the
Stoudite communities of Southern Italy is addressed in Spyrakou, 0[ xopoi Vmthrilv, p. 227;
M. Arranz, S.J., 'L' office del' Asmatikos Hesperinos ("vepres chantees") de !'ancien Euchologe
byzantin, !le Partie: La psalmodie', Oriental in Christinnn Periodica 44 (1978), pp. 391-419, at pp.
412-15; Conomos, 'Wllitsunday', pp. 457-69; and Harris, 'Office of the Genuflexion'.
66
The contents of the so-called 'Typikon of the Anastasis'- Jerusalem Hagios Stauros 43,
a Creek manuscript dated '1122' but containing Holy Week and Eastertide services celebrated
in the cathedral rite of Jerusalem prior to the year 1009- suggest that efforts to expand the
repertories of Palestinian hymnody were initially not limited to Stoudite monasticism, but
involved more complicated patterns of artistic production and exchange. Evidence for this
may be seen in the inclusion of Stouditc hymns in Hagiopolite services, variations between
the two regional traditions in the liturgical assignment of certain shared texts, and the relative
superabundance of hymns for some occasions in the Typikon of the An.astasis. Hagios Stamos 43
provides, for. example, not only idiomela but also a set of three prosomoia for Lauds on Great
Friday for a tota I of ten stichera. See 'TuTiucov ·n1c; i::v 'Icgorro;\u~Lmc; 'EKKAllCJ[ac;. fi.LaTa/;Lc;
Tcov iEQC~J\' aKoAouEhc;JV Tllc; wyaA11c; Ef~llof1G'!Iloc; T00 KUQLOu 'i~Lc~JV 'IllCJO\) XQLCJT00, IWTCt
TO aoxai:ov TllC: i::v 'IEQcmoMJ~LoLc; tiCI<AllCJ[ac; i8oc;, ljTOL TO i:v TC~ vm~1 Tile; AvaaTaau,,c;',
in A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus (ed.), AvaAEKTLl 'Icpoaot\VIILTUCI]s I:Ta;o:uot\oyiac; 1j I:v;\t\oyl)
AvcKOOTCuV 1WL CJ7TLlViCuV [;\;\I)VLIULJV auyypo:cjx,)Jt 7Icp1 TCt!V KLtTIY Tl/v '[c_{Jitll 6pf!oi56[cov
EKK;ti)CJLCDv 1wi !ici:Jt/CJTLl T7jc; TWl' lla;\mrJTLJir0v (St Petersburg, 1894), pp. J-254, at pp. 141-4.
credited with the creation of the antiph ns of the Octoechos, he and his
successors mainly wrote in e.xjsting Palestin.ian genres. 67 The task of filling
th liturgical cycles with hymnody wa essentially complete by the twelfth
century, the time by which fift en volumes of proper hymnody employed
in the modern Byzantin rite had come into xisten,ce - the Parnkletike or
Great Octoed1os, the twelve volum s of Menaia (one for each calendar
month), and for the movable Penitential and Paschal seasons, the Triodion
and the Pentecostarion. Containing a total of over 60,000 hymns in their
published forms, these collections consist mainly of contrafacta sung to
a circumscribed body of model melodies that were transmitted either by
ear or, in the case of kanons, with the aid of an Heirmologion, a musically
notated reference book of model stanzas (heinnoi). 68 The Sticherarion,
another notated chantb o.k, wa a v hicle for dis emjnating stich ra and
other office hymn with unique melodies (idiomela). 69 Th proportion of
idiomela to prosomoia app inted to be sung was generally a function of
lihugical significance, with the most important occasions featuring tb
highe t p rcentage of through-compo ed stichera and weekdays without
a major commemoration the !owe t.
In adapting for monastic u e hymnody from the dev loped mba.n rite .f
Jerusalem, the Stoudites xt nded certain principle of liturgical design to theh·
I gical conclusion . Thank to the proliferation of pr per hymn , Hagiopotite
ervices came to b marked by musical variety, textu.al particularity and
exegetical 1 quacity. As th Stoudit s continued to augment the repertories
of hymnody attached to the Hor logi n, a form of reductio ad absurdum was
eventually reach d when every day of th year came to possess multiple sets
of proper hymn and p alms. The ne d to eh ose from among this surfeit of
material stimulated the er ati n of liturgical Typika, separate books of rubrics
67
Strunk, 'The Antiphons', pp. 165-90. The prolific Joseph the Hymnographer
is an example of a poet who seems to have written only contrafacta, with all 466 of the
hymns attributed to him by Tomadakes relying on existing melodies. See E.I. Tomadakes,
Twai)</J 6 Y~woypa</Jo<;: Bioc; Kai lpyov, A811ViX ouyyQ£Xf-lf.l£X TIEQLOClllCOV '[~<; i:v A8ijvm<;
'EmoUJf.lOvucij<; 'E'rmQEia<;. EuQCt bta'rQL(3wv Kal J.-lEAE'rf]f.lchwv 11 (Athens, 1971).
68
The number of proper hymns in the liturgical books in the modern Byzantine rite is
from K Levy and C. Troelsgard, 'Byzantine Chant', inS. Sadie and J. Tyrell (eds), The New
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 2001), p. 743. Model melodies for hymns
other than kanons are 'automela', with their contrafacta called 'prosomoia' . A small number
of manuscripts include notated versions of automela, about which see C. Troelsgi\rd, 'The
Repertories of Model Melodies (Automela) in Byzantine Musical Manuscripts', Cahiers de
I'Institut du Moyen-Age grec et Iatin 71 (2000), pp. 3-27.
69
C. Troelsgard, 'What Kind of Chant Books Were the Byzantine Sticheraria?', in L.
Dobszay (ed.), Cantus planus: Papers Read at the 9th Meeting, Esztergom & Visegrad, Hungary,
1998 (Budapest, 2001), pp. 563-74.
that governed the selection of proper chants and readings by establishing

relative priorities among their liturgical cycles. 70
The influence of the Sung Office was evident in the way that some Stoudite
houses sought to make their offices musically seamless by chanting almost
everything? 1 It was customary in some places, for example, for the entire
community to sing at the beginning of every orthros its fixed set of Six Psalms
(the Hexapsalmos: Psalms 3, 37, 62, 87, 102 and 142). 72 Stoudite monasteries
also imitated the Rite of the Great Church in their arrangement, albeit on a
much reduced scale, of their designated singers into semi-choirs around
a central ambo. These choirs were assisted in their renditions of hymns
by a canonarch, an official whose role was to prompt them audibly from a
scroll or book with their next line of text, a practice similar to 'lining out' in
some Protestant traditions of hymnody?3 Respites from the steady patter of
texts rendered in syllabic or neumatic styles were occasionally provided by
interludes consisting of either catechetical readings or melismatic chants, both
solo and choral, borrowed mainly from the rite of Hagia Sophia: kontakia,
hypakoai, prokeimena, Alleluiaria and the great responsories of Christmas
and Theophany? 4
711
E. Velkovska, 'Byzantine LihHgical Books', in A.J. Chupungco (ed.), Introduction to
the Liturgy, Handbook for Liturgical Studies Vol. 1, tr. E. Hagman (Collegeville, MN, 1997),
p. 232.
71
M. Arranz, 'Les grands etapes de la Liturgie Byzantine: Palestine-Byzance-Russie.
Essai d'apen;u historique', Liturgic de l'eglise particuliere et liturgic de l'eglise universelle,
Bibliotheca Ephemerides Lihugicae, Subsidia 7 (Rome, 1976), pp. 43-72, at p. 64. Rubrics
directing the melodious chanting of festal psalmody occur frequently in the Typikon of the
Stoudite monastery of San Salvatore in Messina: Arranz, Le Typicon du monastere du Saint-
Sauvcur aMessine: Codex Messinensis gr. 115, pp. xxxvi, 186, 328 and 85.
72
Spyrakou, Oi xopoL ~Jcti\'[({JV, p . 227.
73
Spyrakou, Oi xopoi t)!akuZJv, p. 462-66; Troelsgard, 'What Kind of Chant Books', pp.
565-70; and, on the similar Protestant practice, 'Lining Out', in Grove Music Online. Oxford
Music On/ ine, at http://www .oxfordmusicon Iine. cam/subscriber/ article/ grove/music/16709
(accessed 21/09/12)
74
Their melodies were transmitted with musical notation in the Psaltikon and
Asmatikon. Interestingly, kontakia (and possibly hypakoai as well) were originally syllabic
chants that had been transformed through musical elaboration- a medieval counterpart to
'long' exegesis? - into occasions for musical contemplation. Some idea of the differences
between the syllabic and melismatic styles may be gained by listening to the two versions of
the kontakion for St Bartholomew of Crottaferrata included on Cappella Romana, Byzantium
in Rome, disc 1). The ordinary version sung to a melody from MS St Petersburg gr. 674 (fol.
14r) takes only 2:34 to perform, whilst the florid setting from the Psaltikon Ashburnhamensis
64 lasts 9:40. If the even longer oikos for St Bartholomew that follows the kontakion in
Ashburnhamensis had been performed at the same tempo, the lihugical unit of Kontakion
and Oikos would have provided a musical interlude of approximately twenty-three minutes
between Odes 6 and 7 of the kanon.
The turn towards more rigorous forms of monasticism evident in some

Byzantine founders' typika (ktetorika typika) of the later eleventh century was
accompanied in liturgical documents by what Taft ha identifi d to b 'a
large infiltration of second-generation Saba"itic material into the monasteries
of Constantinople' ?5 Two trends shaping the sound. cape f worship may
be observed in this new layer of Saba"itic material: a tenden y to substjtute
solo recitation for choral singing in renditions of non-festal psalmody, and
the revival of the Palestinian all-night vigil (agrypnia) on Saturday nights
and the eves of major feasts? 6 A few of the reform ktetorika typika also revive
suspicions about the danger or efficacy for monastics of chanting, especially
when practised in its more mu icaUy elaborate forms, that previously we saw
articulated by Sina"it and Palestinian ascetics of the sixth to eighth centuries. 77
A closer look at the sources reveals that late Byzantine monks celebrating a
reformed 'Neo-Saba"itic' rite managed both to share certain presuppositions about
the need for performing psalmody with complll1ction, and to display significant
diversity in thought and practice regarding their lituxgical s undscapes. One end
of the ideological spectrum was represented by the great h sychast St Grego1y of
Sinai (c. 1265-1346), who viewed melodious chanting as something, along with
discursive language, that spiritually matw·e ascetics should ultin1ately b-anscend. 78
Yet before we are seduced by the etymology of hesychasm (= 'quietude') into
assuming that the soundscapes of Neo-Saba!tic offices were uniformly less varied
or musical than their Stoudite counterparts, it is necessary to consider what was
actually being sung at Athonite all-night vigils.
Thanks to musical developments advanced by the cantor, composer,
theoretician and Athonite monk St John Koukouzeles (c. 1280-c. 1341), the
75
R.F. Taft, S.J., 'Mount Athos: A Late Chapter in the History of the Byzantine Rite',
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 42 (1988), pp. 179-94, at p. 190. On the reforms advanced by these
ktetorika typika, see 'Early Reform Monasteries of the Eleventh Century', eh. 4 in J.P. Thomas,
A.C. Hero and G. Constable (eds), Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete
Translation of the Surviving Founders' Typika and Testaments, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 35
(Washington, D.C., 2000), pp. 441-53.
76
Taft, 'Mount Athos', pp. 187-92.
77
Spyrakou, 0[ xopoi 1/Jr.:dtTwv, pp. 212-17; R.T. Dubowchik, 'Singing with the Angels:
Foundation Documents as Evidence for Musical Life in Monasteries of the Byzantine Empire',
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 56 (2002), pp. 277-96, at pp. 289-90.
78
Gregory of Sinai, 'Different Ways of Psalmodizing', translated in G.E.H. Palmer, P.
Sherrard and K. Ware, The Philokalia: The Complete Text compiled by St Nikodimos of the Holy
Mo11ntain and St Makarios of Corinth (London and Boston, 1995), pp. 266-74; discussed in A.
Lingas, 'Hesychasm and Psalmody', in A. Bryer and M. Cunningham (eds), Mount Athos nnd
Byzantine Monasticism: Papers from the Twenty-eighth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies,
Birmingham, March 1994, Society for the Promotion of Byzantine, Studies 4 (Aldershot, 1996),
pp. 155-68, at p. 158.
restored agrypnia became in late Byzantium a showcase for sonic variety. 79 As

codified in the rubrics of the Diataxis of Divine Service attributed to the Athonite
abbot and later patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos (c. 1300-1379), the Neo-Saba'itic
all-night vigil was largely an amalgamation of the festal versions of Palestinian
vespers and matins.Ho It rested on a musical foundation of the received
repertories of anonymous psalmody and Stoudite hymnody as recently edited
by Koukouzeles. 81 Overlaying these revised traditional chants were new
musical works composed as their alternates or supplements. Usually bearing
the names of their composers, some are distinctly personal re-workings of
earlier material, whilst others employ original melodies that in some cases also
set new texts. Many are lengthy compositions cast in a virtuosic 'kalophonic'
('beautiful sounding') i.diom marked variously by textual repetition or troping,
melismatic passages, and vocalisations on nonsense syllables ('teretismata').H 2
Mature kalophonic works first appear in significant quantities integrated
with traditional material in a new chantbook attributed to the editorship of
Koukouzeles entitled the 'Akolouthiai' or 'Orders of Service', the earliest
surviving copy of which is Athens EBE 2458, dated '1336'. 83 Subsequent
generations of late and post-Byzantine composers further enriched the
repertories of Koukouzelian chant, leading not only to the compilation of
79
On Koukou%eles and his musical innovations for the Byzantine Divine Office, sec
E.V. Williams, 'John KoukmLzeles' Reform of Byzantine Chanting for Great Vespers in the
Fourteenth Century' (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1968); and E. V. Williams, 'A Byzantine A1·s
Novn: The 14th-cen tury Reforms of John Koukouzeles in the Chanting of Great Vespers', in H .
!lirnbaum and S. Vryonis, Jr. (eds), Aspects of the Bnllwns: Crmtiuuity nud Chnnge: Co11trilmtiolls
to the ln!emnlionnl Bnllw n Conference held nt UCLA, October 23-28, 1969, SJavistic Printings and
Rcprintings (The Hague and Paris, 1972), pp. 211 - 29; and Lingas, 'Hesychasm', pp. 159-68.
811
'L'whn~LS Tljc; LCQolnmcovim;', Migne, Pnlrologin Gmem 154, cols 745-66; 21nd Taft,
'MountAthos', pp. 191-2.
HI
Discussions of Stoudite collections of hymnody ed ited by Koukouzeles are
S.S. Antoniou, 'La tradition de l'Heirmologion de Jean Koukouzeles', Byznntion: Revile
fntemntionnle Des Etudes Byzn11lines 74 (2004), pp. 9-16; and J. Raasted, 'Koukouzeles' Revision
of the Sticherari on an d Sinai gr. 1230', in J. Szcndrei and D. Hiley (eds), Lnbomre frn!i·es in
U1711111: festschrift Lnszl6 Dobszny Z/1111 60. Gclmrtstng, Spolia Berolinensia: Berliner Beitrage zur
Mediiivistik (1-lildesheim, 1995), pp. 261-77.

82
The emergence of these techniques in 'proto-kalophonic' reperto ries of the earlier
thirteenth century is discussed in C. Troelsgard, 'Thirteenth-century Byzantine Melismatic
Chant and the Development of the Kalophonic Style', in G. Wolfram (ed.), I'nlneobyznntine
Notat ions III: Actn of the Congress held nt Heme11 Cnstle, The Netherlnnds, ill Mnrch 2001 (Leuven,
2004), pp. 67- 90.
83
This manuscript is described in G.T. Stathi s, "J-1 aopcnuo'1 btctcj:)(JQOTioiquq OTI<vc
Kt-YHT)'QCtcpnm o'l:(Jv Lc(:Jbum EBE 2458 TO\J h:ou.; 1336', Xpt.arwvuct) 61·aal1'i\oviKIJ.'
n(T!l11'10iloy6o~ tTlO;(I ). llrYT(ll l\'fl,\U(OV R>pvpa ffll'TC(JI I(UJI' M[;tniDI', 'hpa MoV/) Bllll'Ti.'rbitil',
29-31 OKTI<i{Jpiov '1987 (Thessalonica, 1989), pp. 167- 241. F01· a brief general treatm ent o£ the
contents of Akolouthiai manuscripts, see Doneda, 'I manoscritti', pp. 108-10.
expanded versions of the Akolouthiai, but al o to the appearance of specialised

collections devoted to particular genres of kalophonic chant: the Kalophonic
Sticherarion (Mathematarion), the Oikoimatarion and th Kratematarion. 84
The use of particular musical styles and genres in Stoudite and Neo-Saba"itic
versions of festal vespers is compared in Table 17.4, from which it can be seen
that both traditions shared a common core of psalms and hymns generally set
in closely related musical idioms. 85
84
The emergence of these books is discussed by C. Adsuara, 'Textual and Musical
Analysis of the Deuteros Kalophonic Stichera for September' (Ph.D. diss., Universidad
Complutense, 1998), pp. 127--43.
85
The extent to which continuity of musical style in a repertory or genre may be securely
documented varies widely according to the availability of notated sources. Continuities of
musical style in stichera and prokeimena may be verified by comparing their neumations
in manuscripts copied before and after the b ginning of lhe fourteenth century. 011 the
prokeimena, see Hintze, Das byzantinische Prokeiml!.lrn-Reperloire; and Harris, 'Prokeirnc.na';
and C. Troelsgard, 'The Prokeimena in the Byzantine nite: Performance and Tradition', in L.
Dobszay (ed.), International Musicological Society Study Group Cantus Planus: Papers Rl!llrl at tire
6th Meeting Eger, Hungary 1993 (Budapest, 1995), pp. 65-77. Since lhe lnvltatorium 'Come,
let us worship' (' il.Etl't£, TIQOaKuvi]awflEV') and the music for many psalms first appea r with
notation in fourteenth-century manuscripts, the reconstruction of their performance in earlier
periods must rely on a combination of these n taled sources {mainly Akolouthi ai manu cripts
such as Athens EBE 2458) and Middle Byzantine rubrics. The earliest notated settings of the
lnvitatorium and Psalm 103, however, appear as appendices to copies of the Koukouzelian
Heirmologion in MS Sinai 1256 (dated '1309') and MS Sinai 1257 ('1332'). See Williams, 'John
Koukouzeles' Reform', pp. 109--42; and M. Velimirovic, 'The Prooemiac Psalm of Byzantine
Vespers', in L. Berman (ed.), Words and Music, the Scholar's View: A Medley of Problems and
Solutions Compiled in Honor of A. Tillman Merritt (Cambridge, MA, 1972), pp. 317-37. Music for
the Lamplighting Psalms is surveyed in A. Jung, 'The Settings of the Evening and Morning
Psalms According to the Manuscript Sinai 1255', Cahiers de l'Institut du Moyen-Age Grec et
Latin 47 (1984), pp. 3-63 (Sinai 1255 is mainly a Kalophonic Mathematarion, but also includes
traditional settings of the eight-mode cycle of Sunday stichera with their psalm verses); and
S. Kujumdzieva, 'The Kekragaria in the Sources from the 14th to the Beginning of the 19th
Century, Eger 1993', in Dobszay (ed.), International Musicological Society Study Group Cantus
Planus, pp. 449-63. On the late Byzantine neumations of simple forms of psalmody and their
relationship to earlier oral traditions, see Strunk, 'The Antiphons', pp. 170-74; and S. Harris,
'Byzantine Psalmody: An Interim Report', in L. Dobszay (ed.), Cantus Planus: Papers Read
at the 7th Meeting, Sopron, Hungary, 1995 (Budapest, 1998), pp. 273-81; and C. Troelsgi\rd,
'Simple Psalmody in Byzantine Chant', in L. Dobszay (ed.), Cantus Planus: Papers Read at the
12th Meeting of the !MS Study Group, Lillnfi.ired/Hungary, 2004. Aug. 23-28 (Budapest, 2006), pp.
83-92.
Jroni ally, the melody {what is probably the m t ancient extra-scriptu:ral hymn
of th Palestinian evening office, 'Joyful Light' ('<De~ iJ\aQ6v'), ornetimes entitled the
'Thank giving at the Lighting of the Lamps' ("Enu\.uxv1oc; EVXO"QIO'rtet'), is not transmitted by
any source from the middle age , evid ntly having been so well known as to have rendered
its written transmission ·uperfluous. 111e simple melody that finally does appear with
notation in seventeenth-century manuscripts would not have been out of place in the sound
Most chants in the Stoudite office were rendered in syllabic or neumatic

styles in which the text remained clearly audible. Monotony over the course
of the service was avoided by periodic changes of musical mode and melodic
idiom from the simple, syllabic and repetitive patterns of psalm-tones to
through-composed idiomela. Additional variety was provided by frequent
alternations between the semi-choruses, their soloists, and - in responses to
litanies and ecphoneseis not indicated in Table 17.4- the higher clergy. Stoudite
vespers reached a peak of sonic and visual interest with the interwoven
hymnody and psalmody of the Lamplighting Psalms, the singing of which
was followed by the hymn cD0x; v\lXQOV and the ritual entrance of the higher
clergy into the sanctuary. Sonic interest was sustained after the entrance when
a soloist ascended the ambo to lead the solemn chanting of what was probably
the most elaborate music used in most Stoudite celebrations of festal vespers:
a melismatic prokeimenon borrowed from the repertories of the Sung Office
of Hagia Sophia.
Table 17.4 Musical styles in festal vespers celebrated according to the

Palestinian Horologion; musical styles in brackets have been
inferred from rubrics and/or later notated sources
Sung Item Stoudite Neo-Sabai:tic Comments

(through the 13"' c.) (from the 14'" c.)
Invitatoriun1 [Neumaticj Neumatic

'Come, let us
worship'
Psalm 103 [Psalm-tone with florid A psa lm-tone is Most psalmody

introduction and coda. employed until the evidently remained
In some traditions the Anoixm1taria, which unnotated until
verses are performed are melodically the appearance of
with cathedral-style elaborated verses Akolot1thiai MSS in
refrains.J with Trinitarian the 14 11' c.
tropes in neumatic
or melismatic styles .
These commence at
verse 28b and are
followed by a florid
coda.
world of medieval Byzantine psalmody, being limited in its vocal range and constructed
from the repetition of a few short motives. Modern chantbooks transmit a rnel isma tic version
of this melody label led ' Ml't\oc; c'tQxa[ov ' that has been transcribed into the Chrysanthine
'New Method' of Byzantine notation throu gh the application of exegesis. See Williams, 'Jobn
Koukou ze\es' Reform', pp. 403-1 1.
Sung Item Stoudite Neo-Saba'itic Comments

(through the 13'h c.) (from the 14'" c.)
Stasis 1 of the [Psalm-tone, in some Through-composed

1" Kathisma traditions with refrains] neumatic settings
of the Psalter: of individual verses
Psalms 1-3 with Alleluia refrains
('Blessed is the proliferate, as do
man') optional kalophonic
versions for selected
verses of Psalm 2
Opening 2 [Semi-florid settings with Semi-florid settings

Verses of the a cathedral refrain sung with a cathedral refrain
Lam plighting in the mode of the first sung in the mode of the
Psalms sticheron] first sticheron
(140, 141, 129
& 116)
Stichologia [Psalm-tone in the mode Psalm-tone in the mode

of the of the first sticheron with of the first sticheron
Lamplighting cathedral refrains] sung without cathedral
Psalms refrains
Up to 10 Syllabic (most prosomoia) As in the Stoudite Melodies for

Stichera or neumatic (idiomela) rite with optional idiomela are
settings interpolated kalophonic substitutes transmitted in the
between psalm verses. Sticherarion; the
Modal variety is common model melodies
in sets of idiomela. (automela) of
prosomoia appear
as appendices in
a small number of
MSS.
Introit ('Phos [Neumatic] [Neumatic] Notnotated

hilaron') until the 17'" c.
Prokeimenon As in th rite of Hagia Melismatic with TI1e traditional

Sophia: Melismatic optional kalophonic anonymous
responsorial psalmody cod as melismatic settings
led by a soloist from the are borrowed or
ambo adapted from the
Great Church
OT Readings Cantillation from [Cantillation?] Borrowed from the

lectionary notation Prophetologion of
the Great Church
Stichera of the Neumatic idiomela As in the Stoudite Melodies from

Lite rite with optional the traditional
kalophonic settings or kalophonic
Sticherarion
348 FROM EA RTH TO HEAVEN
Sung Item Stoudite Neo-Sabaltic Comments

(through the 13"' c.) (from the 14'" c.)
Apostic/w Syllabic (most prosomoia) As in the Stoudite ldiomela are

or neumatic (idiomela) rite, but with optional tran milted in
settings, all but the first kalophonic substitutes the tid1erarion;
of which are preceded by Prosornoia
scrip tu ra 1verses set to a mode l rnel dies
syllabic psalm tone (autom la) appear
a append ice in
a mall numb r of
MSS.
Apolytikin [Syllabic, with some Syllabic, with som e

exceptions] exceptions
A substantial portion of the music for Neo-Saba'itic vespers contained in

notated manuscripts of the Paleologan period consists of more or less lightly
retouched versions of hymns from Stoudite collections and psalms rendered
according to traditional melodic formulas. On feast days, however, the sonic
contours and temporal dimensions of the service's opening psalmody could
be radically altered by the performance of new compositions intended as
festal alternatives to traditional psalm-tones. Drawing on thirteenth-century
precedents for through-composed melismatic psalmody in the Sung Office,
their composers transformed the concluding section of Psalm 103 - the
Anoixantaria, thus named because it commences with verse 28b, 'AvoiE,avT6c;
aou Tt1v X£iQa'- and Stasis One of the First Kathisma of the Psalter(= Psalms
1-3) into sprawling and stylistically heterogeneous suites of traditional and
innovative music. 86 Their traditional elements consist of anonymous verse
settings that are sometimes labelled' old' or supplied with such titles indicating
geographic provenance as Hagiosophitikon or Thessalonikaion. Most verses,
however, are attributed individually to Koukouzeles, his contemporary Xenos
Korones and other late Byzantine composers. Almost all settings begin with
a traditional psalm-tone that soon dissolves into original and often virtuosic
music.
Eponymous composers of Anoixantaria generally augmented the psalm's
original refrain' .6.6E,a am 6 8£6c;' ('Glory to you, 0 God') with Triadika, tropes
in honour of the Holy Trinity. Those ascribed to Koukou zeles in MS Sinai 1257
are:
86
The precedents include the Pentecost Tcleu/aion discussed above and stylist ica lly
si milar collections of melismatic verses for the first antiphon of the Sung Office of or thros
transmitted in South Italian manuscripts. I discuss the settings for Constantinopolitan
cathedral orthros and their relationship to the Trinitarian tropes of the Koukouzelian
A11oixantaria in 'The First Antiphon of Byzantine Cathedral Rite Matins: From Popular
Psalmody to Kalophonia', in Dobszay (ed.), Crmtus Pln11us: Papers Read at the 9th Meeting, pp.
479-500.
V. 29b- Av'l:avcAc:Lc; n) nvcuf-la a-Lnwv, KaL £KA£(ljloum. !'.6E,a aoL Ila'rEQ,

b6E,a CJOL Ylc, b6E,a CJOL 1:0 IlVCUf-la '"[Q ayLoV, b6E,a CJOL. (F. 169r, 'You will take
away their spirit, and they will perish. Glory to you, 0 Father, glory to you,
0 Son, glory to you, 0 Holy Spirit. Glory to you!')
V. 31a - "Hnu !'] b6E,a KUQLOU clc; muc; alwvac;. !'.6E,a CJOL ayLc· b6E,a CJOL
KVQL£· b6E,a am, ~amAcu OUQCtVLE. !'.6E,a am, b6E,a am 6 E>c6c;. (F. 169v,
'May the glory of the Lord endure to the ages. Glory to you, Lord, glory to
you, heavenly King, glory to you, glory to you, 0 God!')
V.35a- 'EKAE(nmcv Ctf-lctQ'rWAoL a no 1:fjc; yfjc;. !'.6E,a am TQLCt<; avaQXE· b6E,a

am6 E>E6c;. (F. 169r, '0 that sinners might perish from the earth. Glory to you,
Trinity without beginning, glory to you [0] God!') 87
Composers limited themselves to the biblical text and its traditional refrain
'Alleluia' in their music for the psalms of Stasis One, the verses of which they
set in what were essentially two musical styles. The first is a semi-florid melodic
idiom comparable to that of the Anoixantaria that they applied to verses of
all three psalms. Their 'Alleluia' refrains, like those of the older Pentecost
Teleutaion, are variously lengthened through melismata, textual repetitions
- audibly prompted in some cases by the sung commands 'A£yc:!' ('Say!')
or T1aALv!' ('Again!') - and the insertion of small groups of extra syllables.
A setting attributed to Koukouzeles on folio 15r of the Akolouthiai Athens
2458, for example, renders the word 'Ai\i\TjAOliLct' as 'aMTJ- aAATJAOU'Lct·
avaAi\T]Aov·Lavaxaxa aAATJXTJVctAATJAou·La' .88
Marked by the application techniques of musical and textual extension
on a grand scale to produce longer examples of kalophonia, the second style
was employed by Koukouzeles and his colleagues in Stasis One only when
composing settings of selected verses from Psalm 2. These vast compositions,
which functioned as ad libitum substitutes for ordinary semi-florid settings of
the same psalmic text, would in some sense have stood outside the normal
liturgical order as constituted in both unnotated service books and the minds
of congregants. This is in part due to their sheer length. With the performance
of each kalophonic composition lasting, if one assumes a similar tempo,
87
In the 'Musical Supplement' appended to 'John Koukouzeles' Reform', Williams
offers staff-notation transcriptions of all of the semi-florid verses for Psalm 103 and the First
Stasis attributed to Koukouzeles, as well as of a pair of highly kalophonic compositions
for Psalm 2. A mensura! transcription by Ioannis Arvanitis of the anonymous traditional
verses and five Koukouzelean Anoixantaria of Psalm 103 has been recorded on the CD Voices
of Byzantium - Medieval Byzantine Chant from Mt Sinai, Cappella Romana, dir. A. Lingas
(Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012).
88 Transcribed as 'Koukouzeles melody 5' in Williams, 'Musical Supplement' to
Williams, 'John Koukouzeles' Reform', p. 9.
approximately six to seven times as long as even the most expansive semi-
florid verse, even a single substitution would ha ve altered significantly the
temporal flow of worship established during the singing of Psalm 1. The
composers of kalophonic settings for Psalm 2 also extended or violated
traditional techniques for setting texts to music that continued to prevail
elsewh ere in the service in order to create vast structures governed to a large
extent by the formal logic of their music. 89 Not only did they regularly dissolve
words into teretismata, but they also manipulated the psalmic text in startling
ways. Williams has identified their use of the following techniqu es:
1. Repetition of syllables
2. Repetition of words and p hrases
3. Inversion of words
4. Juxtaposition of successive lines (in their regular or inverted order)
5. Interpolation of fragments from different lines. ~ 0
Koukouzeles and other late Byzantine composers employed essentially

the same techniques of musical construction and textual alteration in their
kalophonic stichera, some of w hich they based on traditional chants from
the Sticherarion whilst others set new texts, including a significant number
in fifteen-syllable verse?1 Those based on traditional chants often divide the
hymn into two or more sections, giving the choirmaster freedom to make
partial or total kalophonic substitutions . Here, for example, is the complete
text of a stich eron in honour of St Katherine sung at the vespers on the eve of
25 November after the Trinitarian Doxology of the Lam plighting Psalms:
XC<Q ~l o vuc(;Jc; ·n] nC<VllYlJQI::l, Tlic; Gcom)cpou MC.:QTUQoc; AlKaTEQLVllc;,

auvbQcX ~tc,J~lEV c~J cptAopaQTUQEc;, Kn l Tetl!Tll" TOLc; i'ncxivmc;, c~)(; civ8un
Ket T cWTt<j!c,J ~tEv, XcxiQmc; f3owvT Ec; auT~, ~ ccov cpAqvaqJC,Jv 'PqT6Qcuv, T~v
8QC<CYl!CJTOflLC<V i'My;<;mm, coc; itnmbcuaiac; c\vani\ccuv, KetL TOUTOuc; ITQOc;
n[a nv Odav x< LQet yt.JYllCYmm, ,. XC<iQo tc; ll TO CYWflC< noAunA6Kotc; f3cxaavou;
l!xbo0aa, bt' ity6mqv To0 IlonFOV aou, KcxL fllllWTcxf3Aq 8Eiacx, c:0c; ciK~lCJV
civiiAcu'l:Oc;, XcxiQmc; ll 1:cxic; civcu povcx'ic;, itvTaE, tcx 1:wv n6vcvv Elaoucta8 E'iocx,
l(C:Xl b6blc; cxlwviou KCXTCXTQt! cp~acxacx, llc; Ecpll' flcVOl ol upvc-}JOOL aou, Tlic;
£Aniboc; ~lll EKTr£cm tp cv.
89
E. V. Williams, 'The Treatment of Text in the Kalophonic Ch anti ng of Psalm 2', in
M.M. Velimirov ic (ed.), Studies in Eas tem Chant, Vol. 2 (Oxford, 1971), pp. 173- 93.
90
Ibid., p. 180.
91
The repertories of kalophonic stichcra are surveyed in G.T. Stathis, Oi
avaypct/!!!IXTWp oi Kai Ta pa81)paTa uj~ f3u~aVTlV1/c; p ouauojc; (Athens, 1979); and G.T.
Stathis, 'H OEKancvTaa vt\t\af3oc; V!!VO)'(JctqJia [v Tlj Bv~aVT/vl) !!Et\onot'i'cr (Athens, 1977).
Lovers of martyrs, let us joyfully run together for the festival of the Martyr
Katherine, wise in God, and let us garland her with praises as with flowers,
as we shout, 'Hail, you that confounded the insolence of the chattering
Rhetors, as infected with stupidity, and led by the hand to divine faith. *
Hail, you that surrendered your body to countless torments through love of
your Maker, and like an unassailable anvil you were not cast down. Hail, you
that dwell in the dwelling places on high, worthy of your pains, and enjoy
eternal glory. Would that we, who long for it and sing your praise, might not
fail in our hope.
A kalophonic setting of this hymn composed by the fifteenth-century theorist

and scribe Manuel Chrysaphes, who served as Larnpadarios in the chapel of
the last two Paleologan emperors, divides its text into two 'feet' at the point
marked above by an asterisk. Here is the text as set by Chrysaphes in the
second 'foot':
b.EV1:EQOs novs· Ilo[T]f.la KUQoD MCI:vou~i\ f.laTamQos mu XQumi<j:JT]: ' Hxos

7ti\. ~
XC!:LQOLs, XCI:LQOLs 1'] 1:6 awf.la Tioi\vni\oKOLs, noAuTIAoKOLs ~aaavms

EKbovaa, OL' ciycinT]V 'IOU IlOLT]'IOU aou, Kat f.llllca'Iaf3ATJ8Eiaa, Ws aKf.lWV
!Xw:XAW'IOs, Xa[QOLc; 1'] 'Iais avw, 1'] 1:CI:ls avw f.lOVais, av'Ial;La 'IWV 7tOVWV
ElaoLKLa8Eiaa, Kat Ml;'ls alwv[ou Ka'l:a'IQV<j:J~aaaa· AtyE· ~s t<j:JLEf.lEVOL·
IlciALV· ~s t<j:JLEf.lEVOL ol Uf.lVctJbo[ aov, 'Iijs tATI[bos f.lTJ tKTIEaOLf.lEV· f.lTJ
tKTiiaOLf.lEV 'Iijs tATiibos· m'Io'Io1:0'I01:01:0'IO ... ['IEQtnaf.la] ... 'IOEetv£· 1:ijs
tATiibos f.lTJ t1mtamf-1Ev. 92
Second foot, by Manuel Chrysaphes the Larnpadarios: Mode Plagal 2
Hail, hail you that surrendered your body to countless, countless torments
through love of your Maker, and like an unassailable anvil you were not
cast down. Hail, you that dwell in the dwelling places on high, worthy of
your pains, and enjoy eternal glory. Would that we, who long for it and sing
your praise, may not fail in our hope; may not fail in our hope: toto to toto ...
[teretism] ... toeane: may not fail in our hope.
Here the textual alterations made to the original hymn are relatively minor:
Chrysaphes chooses to repeat only selected words or phrases, doing so always
with a clear sense of musical and rhetorical purpose that only becomes fully
evident during a performance of this approximately eight-minute work. 93
92
MS Sinai 1234, fols 125r-v.
93
As edited by Ioannis Arvanitis, this Second Foot lasts for eight minutes and twenty-
four seconds in a performance Cappella Romana on Voices of Byzantium.
Each repetition brings with it a sense of increasing emotional intensity that

builds gradually until reaching a climax with the teretisms that emerge out of
the reiterated prayer that we 'may not fail in our hope'.
More radical manipulations of texts are found in kalophonic stichera labelled
anagrammatismos or anapodismos. Composed as optional codas to hymns in
traditional styles, these musical anagrams recapitulate the texts and, in some
cases, elements of the melodies of the sticheron to which they may be attached.
How this worked in practice may be seen from Table 17.5, which presents the
texts of two versions of a hymn for the Blessing of the Waters on Theophany
(6 January): (1) the original sticheron for the occasion by Sophronios of
Jerusalem; and (2) the anagrammatismos written some seven centuries later by
Koukouzeles to be performed at its conclusion. 9' The latter begins by proceeding
backwards through the text of Sophronios, making it also an anapodismos. The
remainder of its text features several repetitions as its music follows a trajectory
similar to that of the Chrysaphes setting discussed above. In this case, however,
the teretismata are followed not only by a return of the text, but also the
recapitulation of the final phrase of its traditional setting.
94
Both versions- the traditional hymn from the Sticherarion MS Ambrosianus ]39 A
sup. (14th cent.) and the mwgrammntismos from the Kalophonic Stichermion MS Sinai 1234 (an
autograph of John Plousiadenos, dated '1469')- have been recorded 011 Cappella Romana,
Epiphany: Medieval Byzantine Chant, dir. I. Arvanitis (Gothic G 49237, 2004) .
Table 17.5 The texts of a sticheron by Sophronios of Jerusalem and the

Anagrammatismos based on it by John Koukouzeles
1. !:'tLXTJQOV 1. Sticheron
ITQoc; 'tTJV cj:>wvi]v wu ~owv'toc; f.v At the voice of the one crying in the
'tlj EQrli-!4! 'E'tOLf.!CWetH 'tTJV 6Mv 'tOU desert, 'Prepare the way of the Lord',
KvQlov· T]i\8 Ec; KVQLE, f.!OQcj:>i]v boVi\ov you came, Lord, having taken the
i\a~wv, Banna11a ai-rwv, 6 1-!TJ yvouc; form of a servant, asking for Baptism,
cXf.!CtQ'tlaV. Elboaav aE Ubet'tet, KCtl though you did not know sin. The
EcpO~tl8TJOCtV" OVV'tQOf.!Oc; y£yOVEV waters saw you and were afraid. The
6 ITQ6bQOf.!Oc;, xai £~6T]aE Mywv· Forerunner trembled and cried out,
ITwc; cj:>W'tlOEl 6 i\uxvoc; 'tO cj:>wc;; nwc; saying, 'How will the lamp enlighten
XELQ08E'trlaEL boi.!i\oc; 'tOV Man6'tY]Vi the Light? The servant place his hand
ay[aaov Ef.!E Keti '[(X vba'ta I'.W'trlQ, 6 on the Master? Saviour, who take away
etLQWV 'tOU K6af.!OU -ri]v cXf.!CtQ'tiav. the sin of the world, make me and the
waters holy'.
2. Anagrammatismos
'0 a[Qwv 'tTJV cXf.!CtQ'tiav 'tOU KOOf.!OU, You Lord, who take away the sin of the
Tji\Scc; KvQtE, f.!OQcp11v bovi\ov world, came in the form of a servant
i\a~wv, Bamtaf.!a ai'rwv, 6 1-!TJ yvouc; asking for baptism, though you did
cXf.!CtQ'tLCtV. Elboaav aE ubet'tet, Ketl not know sin. The waters saw you and
EcpO~tl8TJOCtV" mxi\tv· dboaav OE were afraid; again: the waters saw you,
ubet'tet, KVQLE, Keti £cj:>o~r181laav, Lord, and were afraid, were afraid. The
£cj:>o~t18TJaav· avv'tQOf.!Oc; y£yovEv Forerunner trembled and cried out,
6 I1Q6bQOf.!Oc;, Keti £~611aE Mywv· saying, 'How will the lamp enlighten
ITwc; cj:>W'tlOEl 6 i\uxvoc; 'tO cj:>wc;; nwc; the Light? The servant place his hand
XELQ08E'ttlOEl boi.!i\oc; 'tOV Man6'tllVi on the Master? Make me and the
aylaaov Ef.!E Keti 'r:Ct vba'ta, Keti 'r:Ct waters holy, and the waters, 0 Saviour;
ubet'ICt I'.W'ttlQ" nn ... ['tEQE'tlOf.!Ct'Iet]· titi. .. [teretismata]; make me holy, 0
aylaaov Ef.!E, I'.W'trlQ, Keti'ta vba'ta ... Saviour, and the waters,
[retuming to the original hymn by

[... 6 CtlQWV 'tOU KOOf.!OU 'tTJV Sophronios:
cXf.!CtQ'ILetv.J ... who take away the sin of the world'.]
Conclusion
We have seen how the nearly constant performance of song in Byzantine

traditions of urban and monastic worship formed soundscapes consisting
of a number of elements. Fundamental to the aural qualities of any given
service or rite were its singing personnel, whose identity, training and number
determined its sonic palette of vocal timbre, register and volume. The cathedral
rites of Late Antiquity possessed rich and varied vocal resources: soloists
chosen from among the higher and lower clergy chanted in alternation with
men, eunuchs, children and women who sang either together as congregations
or were deployed in ensembles of various sizes and competencies. At the
opposite end of the spectrum of sonic variety wer the dwellings of ascetics
living alone or in small sketes, whose inhabitants were repeatedly discouraged
by spiritual authorities fr m partaking in the sorts of singing cultivated in
cathedrals. Falling som where in between were pru·odtia1 churche , about
which we know very little, and coenobitic monasteries, about which we know
a great deal.
Foundational and liturgical typika reveal that the musical establishments
of monastic communities waxed and waned according to their economic
resources, contemporary piTitual trends, and th litmgical preferences of
their found r or admini trator .95 The performance of Stoudite worship in
strict accordance with liturgical rubrics would have required the presence of
musical pers n.nel roughly qui valent in skill and organisation to the ensembl
of spedalist cantors at the Great Churd1, whose lectionaries and call ctions f
florid solo and choral psalmody the Stoudites had borrowed. A Neo-Sabai:tic
vigil celebrated according to the Diataxis attributed to Philotheos Kokkinos
requir d a musical foundation resembling that of a Stoudite house, consisting
of a priest, a deacon, a canona.rch, two reader , and a pair of choirs led by
soloists.96 oticeably missing in both monastic traditions, however, were the
opportunities for sonic contrast afforded by the multiplicity of choirs that were
permanent or seasonal fixtures of a cathedral soundscape, although one might
catch echoes of Hagia Sophia's large ensemble of readers in the chanting of
psalms by an entire Stoudite community.
If singers provided the range of colours available for acoustic design
in Byzantine worship, the sonic contours and temporal dimensions of
individual services were determined largely by their texts, rubrics and music.
The ConstantinopoHtan Sung Office remaii1ed throughout its long history
textually and musically con ervative at heart, with the melodically chanted
portions of its services f vespers and orthros consisting almost exclusively
f antiphonal and responsorial biblical psalmody.97 Sonic variety witltin these
archaic p almodicforms was created chiefly through the carefully eo rdinated
alt rnation f multiple soloists and groups of i.ngers, ach of which was
95
Dubowchik, 'Singing with the Angels', pp. 278-96.
96
Migne, Pntrologia Graeca 154, cols 745-66.
97
Arranz, 'Les grandes etapes', p. 45 has observed that the Divine Offices of
Constantinople and Palestine, d espite copious borrowing from each other, were ultimately
irreducible. For exa mples of such borrowings in the rite of the Great Church, see Parenti, 'TI1e
athedral Rite', pp. 454-66; and A. Lingas, 'Late Byzantine Cathedral Liturgy and the Service
of the Fumacc', in R.S. Nelson and S.E.J. Gerstel (eds), Approaching the Holy Mountain: Art nnd
Liturgy a/ SI Calheriue's Mounstery in the Sinai (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 183-230.
allotted music suited to their vocal gifts and hierarchical rank. Aural contrast
between units of psalmody relied in part on differences of modal assignment,
textual form, choice of vocal personnel, and prevailing melodic idiom.
Melodic styles could be distinguished from one another by a host of means,
including extensions or contractions of ambitus, changes to the pr valenc f
conjunct or disjunct intervals, and modificati n to the relative prominence of
text or music. In some instances, especially imp rtant. or solemn points within
individual services or liturgical cycles of the Great Chmch were marked by
the singing of chants that were, as is the case with the Pentecost Teleutaion,
extraordinary in their vocal demands, musical form, and length.
The cathedral rite of the Anastasis in Jerusalem initially shared patterns
of musical organisation with its Constantinopolitan cow1terpart that were,
for urban churches throughout the Roman world, the common legacy of the
Late Antique 'psalmodic movement': a hierarchically arranged multiplicity of
musical ministries, the singing of biblical texts with congregational participation
facilitated through the addition of refrains, and the involvement of urban
monastics. 98 In the Holy City and its surrounding monasteries, however, this
inheritance underwent profound musical and textual development marked
by the introduction of the Octoechos and the gradual replacement of fixed
refrains with successive layers of extra-scriptural hymnody. Modal variety
and textual variability having already become well established in the urban
and monastic rites of Palestine, at the turn of the ninth century St Theodore
the Stoudite initiated the further musical enrichment of the Sabai:te Divine
Office at his monastery in Constantinople by fusing to it elaborate chants from
the Great Church and continuing with renewed vigour the process of filling
out its liturgical cycles of hymnody. As the Palestinian morning and evening
offices were approaching total saturation with kanons, stichera, and other
hymns, important new currents emerged in Byzantine worship and chant:
the consolidation of Neo-Sabai:tic liturgy, the perfection of Middle Byzantine
Notation, and the rise of kalophonia. On the basis of these developments,
Koukouzeles and his colleagues renewed the soundscape of Paleologan
worship by re-working established repertories and, more importantly,
creating new ones of unprecedented melodic and formal complexity. Their
suites of eponymous compositions for the festal psalms of the all-night vigil
created new centres of musical gravity within the Neo-Sabai"tic Divine Office,
whilst their vast repertories of optional kalophonic substitutes and codas
for traditional chants introduced significant contingencies to late Byzantine
liturgy. Each kalophonic hymn was invested with latent potential to suspend
and restructure the customary musical, textual and temporal orders of
worship, but this would only be actualised when a choirmaster, ecclesiarch or
celebrant authorised its performance.
98
About which, see McKinnon, 'Desert Monasticism' .
There were, of course, other variable factor that help d to shape the sonic
landscape in particular bmes and places. The urban rites of Constantinople
and Jerusalem, as we briefly noted abov , were closely wedded to their
re pectiv native physical envh·onments through the meditun f stational
litLLrgy. That of Jerusalem was closely integrated with the Holy City's network
of shrines commemorating vents in th life of 01rist and his followers, whilst
worship in the capita l acqt1ired distinctive characteristics in tandem with th
development of its own acred topography and churcl1 arch itecture.
Transpo ition of ither dte to a new environment inevitably altered th
ound cape of worship, affecting it perhaps throt1gh the us of other singers
or by b ing situated within the acoustics of a differ nt cl1urcl1. Compromises
f variou sorts were also inescapable, particularly when local resource fai led
to match those required for the celebration of a rite in its native environment.
In the case of the Stoudites, their transplantation of usages from Palestine and
Constantinopl to their urban mona tery proved to b a fruitful synthesis,
eventually yielding offices richly adorn d hynmody and cath dral psalmody
that were perform d in d1.urches that wer physically and, with their
iconographic programmes, visually matched to their eel bration.99 Other such
adaptations accompanied the consolidation of N!:!o-Saba'itic liturgy, including
the building of monastic cl1urches without an ambo, which had been the
traditional location of the singers in Hagia Sophia and in arller Stoudite
worship. Thu displaced from their former cenh·al location, the two choirs
normally stood apart in N o-Saba"itic se1·vices, facing ach other across tl1e
nave from new positions along opp sing walls. 100
There would, of course, have been other sorts of discrepancies betw en
the ideal presentati.on of Byzantine wor hip in service books and its sonic
r ali ations. Temporary ones wou ld have arisen from such vagaries of life
as singers who fell ill and were therefore either absent or vocally impaired
on a particular day. Although we know very Littl about Byzantine parochial
w r b.ip prior to the influx of Palestinian hymn dy, it is probably safe to
a sum that in smaller churd1 s the elaborate antiphonal and r spons rial
formats of Late Antique cathed1·aJ p almody would have been adapted to
local resources, perhaps even to the lowest common musical denominator
of syllabic call-and-response I d by a single cantor (a occu rs today in some
village or mission churches celebrating the m dern Byzantine dte). AJong the
ame lines, it wa probably no more likely in th middle age than it is today
that very chLLrch performing Stoud.ite or Neo-Saba!tic vespers ()r orthros
po ses ed the .full complement of musically trained personnel presuppo ed
99
Taft, 'The Liturgy of the Great Church', pp. 67-74, ha ident-ified a 'Middle Byzantine
Synthesis' embracing iconography, church architecture, and post-Iconoclast- liturgical piety.
I address the theological links between this 'Middle Byzantine Synthesis' nnd Stoudite
hymnody in 'Sunday Matins', pp. 151-4.
100
Spyrakou, Oi ;ropoi V'C1';1Tui v, pp. 432-43.
by their rubrics and n tated hantbooks. We find confirmation of thi fr m

Symeon of Thessaloni.ca, who, in the preface to a defence of the Sung Office,
observed somewhat sarca tically that one advantage the Palestinian Divine
Office po sessed over that of Hagia Sophia wa that it could be performed by
a single person:
In the monasteries here, and in almost all of the churches, the order followed
is that of the Jerusalem Typikon of Saint Sabas. For this can be performed by
one person, having been compiled by monks, and is often celebrated without
chants [xwQlc; 4aflcnwv] in the cenobitic monasteries. 101
Given what we have already learnt ab ut the music of a eo-Saba'itic all-

night vigil, these remarks shouLd not read as being universally applicable to
the sound cape of late Byzantine monastic liturgy. The absence of chanting,
however, d es correspond well to what we know of ascetic devotions. Gregory
of Sinai, for example, advises,
When you stand and psalmodiz by yourself, recite the Trisagion and then
pray in your sotd or your i.ntellect, making your intellect pay attention to
your heart; and recite two or three psalms and a few penitential troparia but
without chanting them [rivw fltAovc;]: as St John Klimakos confirms, people
at this stage of spiritual develop m nt do not chant. 102
Since the devoti nal per:fonnance of hym11S, psalms, and ev n entireoffic s with
little or no singing was also facilitat d in 'Byzantium, as Parpulov has shown,
by the production of Psalt rs and Horologia for private use, we should not
assume that chants were always rendered melodically, let alone in sh·ict accord
with their notated exemplars. 103 0n the other hand, thei'e would have been Uttle
point in devoting so mud1 effort towards the d.ocum ntation of worshjp if their
texts, rubl'ics and chants fmmd in Byzantin litlll'gical manu cript were not
performed with di ligence in at least some Byzantin chlll'ches.
The potential for the existence of significant gaps between acoustic design
and actual practice that we have just identified can perhaps be .most profitably
viewed as another variabl for the student of Byzantine litw-gical soun.dscapes
to consider alongside th ign.ificant changes ovel· time we have alxeady noted
101
Symeon of Thessalonike, Treatise on Prayer, p. 22, Migne, Patrologia Graeca 155, col.
556. I examine the claims that Symeon makes in his comparison of the two rites in Lingas,
'How Musical was the "Sung Office"?'
102
Gregory of Sinai, 'Different Ways of Psalmodizing', tr. in Palmer, Sherrard and
Ware, The Philokalia, p. 267.
103
G.R. Parpulov, 'Psalters and Personal Piety in Byzantium', in P. Magdalino and
R.S. Nelson (eds), The Old Testament in Byzantium, Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposia and
Colloquia (Washington, D.C., 2010), pp. 81-93.
in musical forms and styles, vocal resources, and physical settings for worship.
Due in part to the wide geographic and chronological span of this information,
in this study we have been able to engage only in passing with the question
of how particular soundscapes might have been perceived as promoting
or manifesting particular theologies. To do so more fully, we would need
first to consider the interpretive frameworks that shaped the experiences of
participants in Byzantine worship, which ranged from the notion, inherited
from Ancient Greek philosophy and science, that music possesses important
ethical and cosmic properties to theological traditions of interpreting earthly
worship anagogically as a living icon of the perpetual heavenly liturgy served
by angels. 1 0 ~
I have argued elsewhere that the proliferation of Palestinian hymnody
and kalophonia are, for their resp cl:ive eras, developments that reflected
contemporary th ological under tandings, best known to modern readers
from writings on icons, of how the material world might serve as an agent of
theopbany. 105 The vast repertorie of Hagiopolite a.nct Stoudite hymns did thi
by rendering Cod and his aints incarnate in exegetical songs sung by human
voice , the t xts of which supplemented or replaced Old Testament psalm dy
in which events relating to Christ's new dispensation could be evoked only
indirectly throt1gh typology. The transformations of th usual temporal,
musical and textual orders of Byzantine liturgy effected by kalophonia, on the
other hand, offered a musical analogue both to hesychast theology's vigorous
reassertion of divine immanence and to the tendency in late Byzantine
iconography to collapse the boundaries between human and angelic worship,
most strikingly when singers transcended human speech in the performance
of teretis1nata. 106 Despite employing different musical and textual means, the
soundscapes of Stoudite and Neo-Saba"itic liturgy shared a common goal of
leading worshippers from earth to heaven.
104
Starting points for considering these frameworks an~ : A.T, Vourles, 'H iEpct
we; pt aov ct)'(<J)' Ij<; (l-IGLKOflOV(]£1(();\oytK1) J.IEMTI)! (Athens, 1995); A.T. Vourles,
l{JcrilfLWbia
LloypcrTLJW!]OLJmi iit/JEL;;; Tlj<; 'OpBob6/:;ov l{Jcri\III!Jr'Sica; (Athens, 1994); E. Ferguson, 'Toward
a Patristic Theology of Music', Stud in Patristica 24 (J 993), pp. 266-83; E.A. Moutsopoulos,
'Modal " Ethos" in Byzantine Music: Ethical Tradition and Aesthetical Problematic', Jnhrlmch
der Osterreichiscl!en Byzantinistik 32 (1982), pp. 3-6; C. Stapert, A New Song for 1111 Old World:
Musical Thought in the Early Clwrc/1 (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge, 2007), pp. 42-59, 105-
8 and 203-9; and J. Begbie, Resou11ding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (Grand
Rapids, MI, 2007), pp. 77-95.
105
Lingas, 'Hesychasm', pp. 167-8; and Lingas, 'Sunday Matins', pp. 137-54.
106
The connection between teretismata and angelic praise is finally made explicit in
a post-Byzantine treatise by the Cretan Hieromonk Gerasimos Vlachos. 'D1e theological and
pastoral history of kratemata is summarised in G. Anastasiou, T1r IC(Jil:T1J/111'Tcr. cn1)v tfm;\TtKI)
TEXV1], Institute of Byzantine Mu i ology Studies 12 (Athens, 2005), pp. 98-119.
Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies EXPERIENCING
Publications BYZANTIUM
18
Papers from the 44th Spring Symposium of

Byzantine Studies, Newcastle and Durham,
April2011
edited by
Claire Nesbitt
Durham University, UK
and
Mark Jackson
Newcastle University, UK
ASH GATE
© Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Contents
Claire Nesbitt and Mark Jackson have asserted their moral right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company List of Illustrations and Tables vii
Wey Court East 110 Cherry Street List of Contributors xi
Union Road Suite 3-1 Editors' Preface xiii
Farnham Burlington, VT 05401-3818
Surrey, GU9 7PT USA
England 1. Claire Nesbitt & Mark Jackson Experiencing Byzantium 1
www.ashgate.com Section I: Experiencing Art

The British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
2. Liz James Things: Art and Experience
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
in Byzantium 17
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies (44th : 2011 : Newcastle upon Tyne, England ; 3. Warren T. Woodfin Repetition and Replication:
Durham, England) Sacred and Secular Patterned
Experiencing Byzantium: Papers from the 44th Spring Symposium of Byzantine
Textiles 35
Studies, Newcastle and Durham, April2011 /edited by Claire Nesbitt and Mark
Jackson.
pages cm. - (Publications of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies) Section II: Experiencing Faith
1. Byzantine Empire -Civilization- Congresses. 2. Byzantine Empire- Religion-
Congresses. 3. Byzantine Empire- Social life and customs- Congresses. 4. Art, 4. Beatrice Caseau Experiencing the Sacred 59
Byzantine -Congresses. 5. Cultural landscapes -Byzantine Empire -Congresses.
6. Identity (Pyschology) -Byzantine Empire -Congresses. I. Nesbitt, Claire, editor of
compilation. II. Jackson, Mark, 1973- editor of compilation. Ill. Title. 5. Andrew Louth Experiencing the Liturgy
DF52l.S67 2013 in Byzantium 79
949.5'013- dc23 2013010549
6. Nikolaos Karydis Different Approaches to
ISBN 9781472412294(hbk)
an Early Byzantine
ISBN 9781472416704 (ebk-PDF) Monument: Procopius and
ISBN 9781472416711 (ebk-ePUB) lbn Battuta on the Church
of St John at Ephesos 89
Section III: Experiencing Landscape

SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF BYZANTINE STUDIES- PUBLICATION 18 7. Nikolas Bakirtzis Locating Byzantine
Monasteries: Spatial
MIX Considerations and
Paper from
responsible sources Printed and bound in Great Britain by Strategies in the Rural
~~s FSC® C013056
TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall.
Landscape 113
From Experiencing Byzantium Copyright© 2013 by the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine
V
F
vi CONTENTS CONTENTS vii
8. Katie Green Experiencing Politiko: 16. Georgia Frank Sensing Ascension in

New Methodologies Early Byzantium 293
for Analysing the
Landscape of a Rural 17. Alexander Lingas From Earth to Heaven:
Byzantine Society 133 The Changing Musical
Soundscape of Byzantine
9. Vicky Manolopoulou Processing Emotion: Liturgy 311
Litanies in Byzantine
Constantinople 153 Index 359
Section IV: Experiencing Ritual
10. Heather Hunter-Crawley The Cross of

Light: Experiencing
Divine Presence in
Byzantine Syria 175
11. Sophie V Moore Experiencing

Mid-Byzantine Mortuary
Practice: Shrouding
the Dead 195
Section V: Experiencing Self
12. Scott Ashley How Icelanders

Experienced Byzantium,
Real and Imagined 213
13. Myrto Hatzaki Experiencing Physical

Beauty in Byzantium: The
Body and the Ideal 233
14. Oion C. Smythe Experiencing Self: How

Mid-Byzantine Historians
Presented their
Experience 251
Section VI: Experiencing Stories
15. Margaret Mullett Experiencing the Byzantine

Text, Experiencing the
Byzantine Tent 269
..
List of Illustrations and Tables
Figures
2.1 A demonstration of the difficulty in carrying

Projecta's Casket (author's photograph) 20
2.2 Interior view of Projecta's Casket (author's photograph) 21
3.1 Diptych portrait of Stilicho with his wife Serena and
son Eucherios, c. 400, Cathedral Treasury, Monza (Alinari I
Art Resource, NY) 40
3.2 Green Chasuble of St Ulrich, tenth century, Augsburg,
Parish of SS. Ulrich and Afra (Pfarramt St Ulrich und
Afra, Augsburg) 45
3.3a Silk with scenes from the Infancy of the Virgin, late fourth
or early fifth century, Riggisberg, Abegg-Stiftung (© Abegg-
Stiftung, CH-3132 Riggisberg, 1988; photograph: Christoph
von Vidtg) 48
3.3b Reconstruction drawing of silk with scenes from the Infancy
of the Virgin, late fourth or early fifth century, Riggisberg,
Abegg-Stiftung (©Abegg-Stiftung, CH-3132; Riggisberg
drawing: Barbara Matuella) 48
3.4 Epitrachelion of Photios, late fourteenth- or early fifteenth
century, Moscow, Kremlin Armoury (© State Historical and
Cultural Museum-Preserve, 'The Moscow Kremlin',
photograph by V. V. Blagov, 2009) 51
3.5 Fragments of embroidery from the Chungul Kurgan burial,
early thirteenth century, Kiev, Archaeological Museum
(photograph courtesy of Yuriy Rassamakin, Kiev) 52
3.6 Christ as High Priest, silk and metallic textile, sixteenth
century, Washington D.C., Dumbarton Oaks(© Dumbarton
Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington D.C.) 53
4.1a Curtain pushed by the hand, Mosaic of the Visitation,
Basilica Euphrasiana, Porec, Ravenna (author's photograph) 65
4.1b Curtain pushed by the hand, at San Vitale, Ravenna
(author's photograph) 65
ix
X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES xi
4.2 Curtain hook in situ at the Basilica Euphrasiana, Porec 7.4 General view of the monastic complex from the East
(author's photograph) 66 (author's photograph) 129
4.3 Doorway of the narthex at Hagia Sophia, Istanbul 8.1 Retrogressive landscape analysis of Politiko
(author's photograph) 68 results(© author) 145
4.4 Curtains shown in the mosaic panel at Sant' Apollinare 8.2 Historic Landscape Characterization (HLC) of Politiko
in Classe (author's photograph) 68 (©author) 147
4.5 A bread stamp showing a cross and a blessing for a 9.1 Anamnesis of the great earthquake: Commemorative litany
family reading: 'Eulogia eu ef hmas ke epi ta tekna hmvn' illuminated in the Menologion, Vat.gr. 1613, fol. 142 (© 2012
translated 'Blessing of the Lord on us and our children' Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana) 161
(author's photograph) 75 9.2 Anamnesis of the fears of the great and unexpected
6.1 Church of St John, Ephesos, reconstructed plan of earthquake: Illumination of the historic litany that is
'Justinian's church' at ground level, showing main described in the text of the same folio. Vat.gr. 1613,
phases (author's copyright) 92 fol. 350 (© 2012 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana) 161
6.2 Church of St John, Ephesos, west cross arm, north aisle, 9.3 Litanic use of sites in Constantinople related to
view of mid-twentieth-century restorations (author's civic events, according to the Typicon of Hagia Sophia
photograph) 94 (author's copyright) 166
6.3 The main vault fragments of the church of St John at Ephesos 10.1 Sion paten, 58 cm diameter, sixth century, Dumbarton
(author's photograph) 94 Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC BZ.1963.36.2
6.4 Church of St John, Ephesos, axonometric reconstruction (author's photograph) 180
(author's copyright) 96 10.2 Processional Cross, 154 x 102.9 x 5.1 cm, sixth century,
6.5 Church of St John, Ephesos, plan of the fifth-century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1950
'pre-Justinianic' church according to H. Hormann (left), (50.5.3) (author's photograph) 182
and cut-away axonometric of the initial Mausoleum that 10.3 Bronze open-work standing lamp with cruciform handle
was later incorporated in the fabric of the cruciform, from Egypt, 32.1 cm high, sixth-seventh century,
timber-roofed basilica (author's copyright) 96 Benaki Museum, Athens, fE 11509 (© 2006 Benaki
6.6 Church of St John, Ephesos, detail of the south colonnade Museum Athens) 185
of the nave; the Imperial monograms of Justinian and 10.4 Cruciform window, monastery at southern Dana,
Theodora can be distinguished on the faces of the Ionic Jabal Zawiyye, Dead Cities (©Department of Art &
impost block capitals (author's photograph) 103 Archaeology, Princeton University) 186
6.7 Church of St John, Ephesos, detail of the passage between 13.1 Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Empress Zoe
the southwest pier of the crossing and the southeast pier before Christ, mosaic, Church of St Sophia, Constantinople
of the nave (author's photograph) 105 (1042-1055) (photographed by Flavia Nessi) 235
6.8 Church of St John, Ephesos, first phase of the vaulted 13.2 Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Empress Zoe
church and Baptistery (author's reconstruction of plan) 106 (detail) (photographed by Flavia Nessi) 247
6.9 San Marco, Venice, view of the nave looking east
(author's photograph) 109
7.1 Map of the region of Paphos noting the location of the Tables
monastery of St Neophytos (© Nikolas Bakirtzis and
Woody Hanson) 118 17.1 Musical styles in the chants of festal vespers celebrated
7.2 The site of the old encleistra of Neophytos according to the rite of the Great Church of Hagia Sophia
(author's photograph) 120 (the 'sung' or 'asmatic' office) 324
7.3 General view of the Skete Prodromou with Aliakmon river 17.2 Outline of the Invariable opening psalm of asmatic vespers 326
in the background (author's photograph) 125
xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES
17.3 The final Antiphon ('Teleutaion') prior to the Lamplighting

Psalms as sung at the asmatic 'kneeling' vespers of Pentecost
according to the Psaltikon MS Florence Ashburnhamensis 64.
With additional rubrics from the Euchologion MS Grottaferrata
f.~. 35 (GROT) and the Typikon of San Salvatore di Messina List of Contributors
MS Mess. gr. 115 (MES) 330
17.4 Musical styles in festal vespers celebrated
according to the Palestinian Horologion; musical styles
in brackets have been inferred from rubrics and/or later
notated sources. 346 Scott Ashley, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle
17.5 The texts of a sticheron by Sophronios of Jerusalem University
and the Anagrammatismos based on it by
John Koukouzeles 353 Nikolas Bakirtzis, Assistant Professor and Marie Curie Fellow, The Cyprus
Institute
Musical Examples Beatrice Caseau, Universite de Paris-Sorbonne
17.1 Choral refrains for Psalm 85 from MS Athens EBE 2061 329 Georgia Frank, Colgate University, USA
17.1a For the Feasts of Saints (fol. 50r) 329
17.1b For Easter Sunday (fol. 48r) 329 Katie Green, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle
17.1c For the Saturday Evenings (and Feasts of the University
Holy Cross) (fol. 21 r) 329
Myrto Hatzaki, The A. G. Leventis Foundation, Athens
Heather Hunter-Crawley, University of Bristol
Mark P.C. Jackson, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle

University
Liz James, Professor of Art History, University of Sussex
Nikolaos D. Karydis, Lecturer in Architecture, University of Kent
Alexander Lingas, Centre for Music Studies, City University London
Andrew Louth FBA, Professor Emeritus of Patristic and Byzantine Studies,

Durham University, Visiting Professor of Eastern Orthodox Theology, Vrije
Universiteit, Amsterdam
Vicky Manolopoulou, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle

University
xiii

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Lingas From Earth To Heaven - The Changing Musical Soundscape of Byzantine Liturgy-Small PDF

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17.

From Earth to Heaven:

public worship in Byzantium. Celebrations in cathedrals, parochial churches

themselves. 5 Deacons chanted litanies, the Gospel, and such commands as

314 FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN

Studies of these sorts of soundscapes in ethnomusicology, for example,

late Byz<~ntium: a ystem of -called 'ekphonetic' sign (n umes) employed by

about the musical rendering of text from Byzantine lectionaries. 18 Manuscripts

examinations of text-music relationships. 22 Somewhat more broadly based are

Mediterranean a common basis in the antiphonal and responsorial chanting

The Sung Office of the Great Church

Distinctive features of the liturgical soundscape of Late Antique Constantinople

production, which included the propagation of sound in particular acoustical

Sung Item Lesser Feasts Saturdays and Comments

Sung Item Lesser Feasts Saturdays and Comments

2. Antiphon Solo Intonation #1

3. Conclusion of the Litany, Prayer and Ecphonesis

'0 Aa6c;. L:ol, KuQLL

4. Antiphon Solo Intonation #2

6. Antiphon Solo Coda

Fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Byzantine manuscripts with music for

Example 17.1a For the Feasts of Saints (fol. 50r)

Example 17.1b For Easter Sunday (fol. 48r)

God'), the final variable antiphon (Teleutaion antipltono11) of Penteco t vespers,

e-d' D(ab) Avayyaa aovavavaova·

'0 LlOflECJTLKO~ . ['Aflr'JV.]

e-d' D(a'b')' Avaova avavaoua avavaoua

g-e' avaAA£XCOUc EVEXEVCOUE XCOU£

In this festal Teleutaion the standard format for Constantinopolitan antiphonal

The Palestinian Divine Office in Middle and Late Byzantium

Whilst a detailed account of the dissemination of Hagiopolite liturgical forms

synth i of these deveJ pment is pr served in the 'An ient Iadgari', a

The cumulative effect of these developments in hymnody was a

after 799, when Abbot Theodore of Sakkoudion in Bithynia moved his

that governed the selection of proper chants and readings by establishing

The turn towards more rigorous forms of monasticism evident in some

restored agrypnia became in late Byzantium a showcase for sonic variety. 79 As

Mediiivistik (1-lildesheim, 1995), pp. 261-77.

expanded versions of the Akolouthiai, but al o to the appearance of specialised

Most chants in the Stoudite office were rendered in syllabic or neumatic

Table 17.4 Musical styles in festal vespers celebrated according to the

Sung Item Stoudite Neo-Sabai:tic Comments

Invitatoriun1 [Neumaticj Neumatic

Psalm 103 [Psalm-tone with florid A psa lm-tone is Most psalmody

Sung Item Stoudite Neo-Saba'itic Comments

Stasis 1 of the [Psalm-tone, in some Through-composed

Opening 2 [Semi-florid settings with Semi-florid settings

Stichologia [Psalm-tone in the mode Psalm-tone in the mode

Up to 10 Syllabic (most prosomoia) As in the Stoudite Melodies for

Introit ('Phos [Neumatic] [Neumatic] Notnotated

Prokeimenon As in th rite of Hagia Melismatic with TI1e traditional

OT Readings Cantillation from [Cantillation?] Borrowed from the

Stichera of the Neumatic idiomela As in the Stoudite Melodies from

Sung Item Stoudite Neo-Sabaltic Comments

Apostic/w Syllabic (most prosomoia) As in the Stoudite ldiomela are

Apolytikin [Syllabic, with some Syllabic, with som e

A substantial portion of the music for Neo-Saba'itic vespers contained in

V. 29b- Av'l:avcAc:Lc; n) nvcuf-la a-Lnwv, KaL £KA£(ljloum. !'.6E,a aoL Ila'rEQ,

V.35a- 'EKAE(nmcv Ctf-lctQ'rWAoL a no 1:fjc; yfjc;. !'.6E,a am TQLCt<; avaQXE· b6E,a

Koukouzeles and other late Byzantine composers employed essentially

XC<Q ~l o vuc(;Jc; ·n] nC<VllYlJQI::l, Tlic; Gcom)cpou MC.:QTUQoc; AlKaTEQLVllc;,

A kalophonic setting of this hymn composed by the fifteenth-century theorist

b.EV1:EQOs novs· Ilo[T]f.la KUQoD MCI:vou~i\ f.laTamQos mu XQumi<j:JT]: ' Hxos