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The medieval Russian Kondakar and the choirbook from Kastoria: a palaeographic study in Byzantine and Slavic musical relations*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Gregory Myers
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The Byzantine choirbook or Asmatikon was a musical anthology of melismatic chants for the Office and Liturgy of the fixed and movable parts of the Church year. With its counterpart for the soloist, the Psaltikon, the Asmatikon flourished in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and was then superseded in the fourteenth and fifteenth by a new manuscript type known as the Akolouthia, which absorbed much of the material from the older sources and added collections of new chants. The older manuscript types were distinguished not only by their repertory of chants, but by separate modal and melodic traditions and stock of characteristic melodic formulae.1

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Plainsong & Medieval Music , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , April 1998 , pp. 21 - 46
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

1 ‘Asmatikon’ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, (London, 1980), 1, 657.Google Scholar

2 ‘Die Entzifferung der Kondakarien-Notation’, Musik des Ostens (hereafter MdO), 3 (1965), 17–24.Google Scholar

3 The Prokeimena and Dochai correspond to the Western graduals. See Gisa Hintze, Das byzantinische Prokeimena-Repertoire, Hamburger Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 9 (Hamburg, 1973).Google Scholar

4 Strunk, Oliver ‘S. Salvatore of Messina and the Musical Tradition of Magna Graecia’, in Essays on Music in the Byzantine World (New York, 1977), 48.Google Scholar

5 Moran, Neil K.The Ordinary Chants of the Byzantine Mass, 2 vols., Hamburger Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 12 (Hamburg, 1975), I, 35.Google Scholar

6 Strunk, Oliver, ‘S. Salvatore of Messina’, 47. See Bartolomeo Di Salvo, ‘Gli asmata nella musica bizantina’, Bollettino della Badia greca di Grottaferrata, 13 (1959), 45–50, 127–45; 14 (1960), 145–78.Google Scholar

7 Politis, Linos, Δύo χειϱóγϱαφα ὰπò τὴν Kαστoϱιά Hellenika, 20 (Thessaloniki, 1967), 29–41.Google Scholar

8 Conomos, D. ‘The Late Byzantine and Slavonic Communion Cycles: Liturgy and Music’, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 21 (Washington, 1985), 57. Conomos, along with Simon Harris (cited in Conomos, 57), contends that K8 represents a third melodic tradition of the Asmatikon, the Italo-Greek being the first and the Constantinopolitan Lγ3 the second. I have certain reservations about accepting this theory. An examination of the melodic transmission of its chants, notwithstanding certain idiosyncratic notational peculiarities attributable to scribal carelessness, reveals only slight variations of those chant melodies preserved in the Italo-Greek codices.Google Scholar

9 Only five fully notated kondakars survive, whose dates span the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries: (1) the ‘Tipografsky Ustav’ (eleventh century); (2) the ‘Blagoveshchensky Kondakar’ early twelfth century, published in facsimile as Der altrussische Kondakar: Auf der Grundlage desGoogle Scholar

10 Levy, Kenneth, ‘The Byzantine Communion Cycle and its Slavic Counterpart’, Actes du XIIe Congrès Internationale des Etudes Byzantines, 1, Ochride, 1961 (Belgrade, 1963), 571–4Google Scholar; idem, ‘The Slavic Kontakia and Their Byzantine Originals’, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Festschrift (1937–62) Department of Music, Queens College (Flushing, New York, 1964), 79–87; idem, ‘The Earliest Slavic Melismatic Chants’, Fundamental Problems of Early Slavic Music and Poetry, ed. Christian Hannick, MMB, Subsidia 6 (Copenhagen, 1978), 197–210. Constantin Floros, ‘Die Entzifferung’, 7–71.

11 The oldest surviving neume-catalogue is a folio from a late tenth-century Triodion, Lγ67, f. 53, which provides a list of the so-called Chartres notation. This has been reproduced by Oliver Strunk in Specimina Notationum Antiquiorum, MMB, 7, Main Series (Copenhagen, 1966), plate 12. Another valuable catalogue includes the codex St Blasien, a sixteenth-century source reproduced by Martin Gerbert in his De Cantu et Musica Sacra, II (St Blasien, 1774), Plates XII-XVII. The ‘Azbuki’ or ‘alphabets’ were catalogues of neumes for the Russian Znamenny Chant, the oldest of which dates from the fifteenth century. The Koukouzelean Didactic Song is found in numerous Greek and Slavonic musical manuscripts dating from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries. The oldest codices were consulted for this study: the fourteenth-century Athens manuscripts 2458 and A2444. It has been the topic of important studies by Gabor Devai, Floros, Edward Williams and Elena Toncheva, among others. Essentially, it is a long song whose text comprises the names of melodic formulae, while the melody is composed of their functions.Google Scholar

12 Universale Neumenkunde, 3 vols. (Kassel, 1970), II, 266–72.Google Scholar

13 During the period in question the town of Kastoria with its many churches and bishopric lay within a zone of conflict and at a veritable cultural crossroads. While the town itself remained Greek, the demographics of its environs was and is predominantly Slavic – Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian. It is therefore possible, although the evidence is highly circumstantial, that the Kastoria 8 Asmatikon was a Greek manuscript created by and for the non-Greek-speaking contingent of the population. Some bases for this suggestion are: (1) the peculiar feature of Great Hypostases overtop small signs is found only in the Slavonic kondakaria; it is true that hypostases are common in musical manuscripts of the late Empire – they are found below the intervallic and rhythmic signs; (2) the manuscript is replete with scribal errors, as if the scribe or compiler was not a native speaker of Greek – this in itself is not significant since most surviving manuscripts are full of errors, spelling, syntax and grammar, thus raising the question of general literacy among scribes; (3) although a minor point, the K8 chant settings lack the traditional double-gamma rise (γγα γγα) of the Italo-Greek sources and Lγ3, that ‘horning in’ of the precentor before phrase ends; this is another feature which it shares with the kondakars. See Nicholas Uspensky, Evening Worship in the Orthodox Church (Crestwood, NY, 1985), 56–7.Google Scholar

14 I prefer this designation for distinguishing the two different types of Byzantine Asmatikon over the somewhat confusing classification of other mixed-type Asmatika, such as Messina 129, Grottaferrata Γγ5, and Vaticanus graecus 1606, as Psaltika, as proposed by Simon Harris, ‘The Communion Chants in Thirteenth-Century Byzantine Musical MSS’, Studies in Eastern Chant II, ed. Egon Wellesz and Milos Velimirovic (Oxford, 1974), 55.Google Scholar

15 The Hexapsalmos is the set of six psalms that opens the Byzantine Matins service: nos. 3, 37, 62, 87, 102 and 142 (Septuagint numbering).

16 One possible theory for the appearance of the large signs in this late copy of the Asmatikon is that, in spite of the fact that cheironomic gestures had long disappeared from Byzantine musical manuscripts with the advent of diastemy, this manuscript could have been written for pedagogical purposes, i.e. for the training of domestiki in the art of cheironomy.

17 The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom is the most common of the four principal liturgies celebrated in the Eastern Church and is celebrated throughout the Church year. The others are those of St Basil the Great, celebrated on Sundays during the Christmas and pre-Paschal Lenten periods, on Holy Thursday, Holy Saturday, the eves of Christmas and Epiphany, as well as on his feast day, 1 January. The Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts (or Mass of St Gregory) is used on the Wednesdays and Fridays of the pre-Paschal Lenten Fast, and on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Passion Week. The fourth and apparently oldest liturgy is that of St James, which is celebrated on that saint's feast day, 23 October.

18 Psalm 64:5 and Proverbs 101:13: ‘Blessed are they, O Lord, who are chosen and brought near; and their memory will endure unto generations and generations’. Psalm 101:13 and Proverbs 10:7: ‘The righteous will be remembered with praises and their memory will endure unto generations and generations’. See D. Conomos, ‘The Late Byzantine and Slavonic Communion Cycles’, 48–9.

19 From what is visible on this folio, the neumes seem to be the next stage in the development of kondakarian musical notation.

20 The chant is also found in a number of other sources including Grottaferrata Γγ5 (f. 199r), Messina 129 (M129 – f. 169r) and Lγ3 (ff. 22v-23v).

21 It is perhaps no coincidence that the K8 transmission of the Koinonikon for the Dead is incomplete, lacking the alleluia, and that the apparent second koinonikon in the BK codex is also truncated. That a corollary exists between these two sources is strongly suggested by the fact that they share the same melody and that the musical and textual material can be interchanged. This is particularly clear in the case of the BK chant fragment whose first lines have a neumation identical with the preceding number; the continuation of this second chant is borrowed one from the other. Moreover, the K8 chant breaks off at almost the same spot as its BK counterpart. The behaviour of the individual numbers is generally the same. As only the first lines differ, it seems that the truncation of the second BK chant was intentional, thus implying that textual uniformity assured the use of the same melody. The curious second transmission of the communion chant in Mode IV Plagal in the K8 codex borrows or transposes similar melodic figuration from its Mode II Plagal setting into the new modal area. This is particularly evident in the alleluia, which could act as an akroteleuteon, an autonomous musical phrase like a refrain. (This is a distinguishing feature of the cycle of Great Troparia and Stichoi performed at the Vespers of Christmas and Epiphany.)

The K8 transmissions are not reliable because of their notational peculiarities and therefore two transcriptions from Γγ7 have been included as the control. The large intervallic leaps in the melodic line of the second chant, which stretches the limits of both vocal range and mode have, however, been confirmed by the Γγ7 setting. Like the alleluia, the first lines of a version display a remarkable concordance and consistency with a gradual divergence of melody as the chant progresses, only to return to common figuration in the final phrases of the alleluia melisma. The appearance of figuration common to two different modal areas has been noted by Conomos (‘The Late Byzantine and Slavonic Communion Cycles’, 65).

22 In one of the oldest surviving Slavonic typika, the late twelfth-century manuscript 330/380, mention of this chant comprises the single rubric for this feast, stating that it is sung at Matins, after the Amomos Psalm (Ps. 118) and the alleluia. This source indicates the chant as a katavasia; see Gorski, A. and Nevostruev, K., Opisanie Slavianskikh Rukopisei Moskovskoi Sinodalnoi Biblioteki, otdel tretii, knigi bogosluzhebnie, chast' pervaia (Moscow, 1869)Google Scholar; reprinted as Monumenta Linguae Slavicae Dialecti Veteris (Wiesbaden, 1964), II, 253.

23 According to Blessed Symeon of Thessaloniki, the All-Chanted Office was celebrated only on the feasts of the Exaltation of the Cross (14 September), St John Chrysostom (13 November) and the Dormition of the Theotokos (15 August); see Strunk, Oliver, ‘The Byzantine Office at Hagia Sofia’, in Essays on Music in the Byzantine World (New York, 1977), 113, n.5.Google Scholar

24 Jugie, Martin, La Mort et l'assomption de la Sainte Vierge: Etude Historico-Doctrinale, Studi e Testi 114 (Rome, 1944), 353.Google Scholar

25 For an account of the consecration of this monastery, which took place in 1073, see Muriel Heppell, The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery, Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, I (Cambridge, MA, 1989), Discourse 5, 15–17. See also Myers, Gregory, ‘Slavonic Witnesses to Evergetine Liturgy and Music: the Order of the Washing of Feet on Great and Holy Thursday’, in Work and Worship at the Theotokos Evergetis 1050–1200, ed. Mullett, Margaretand Kirby, Anthony, Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations 6.2 (Belfast, 1997), 367–85.Google Scholar

26 The Typikon of San Salvatore of Messina, as well as the modern edition of the Festal Menaion (see below) labels the same hymn 'Hypakoe'. Miguel Arranz, Le Typicon du monastère du Saint-Sauveur à Messine: Codex Messinensis Gr. 115, A. D. 1131(Rome, 1969), 180. The translation of the hymn is as follows: ‘From all generations we call thee blessed, O Virgin Theotokos: for Christ our God who cannot be contained was pleased to be contained in thee. Blessed also are we in having thee as our succour: for day and night thou didst intercede for us, and the sceptres of kings are strengthened by thy supplications. Therefore, singing thy praises we cry aloud to thee: Hail, thou who art full of grace, the Lord is with thee’. Mother Mary and Kallistos Ware, trans., The Festal Menaion(London, 1969), 516.Google Scholar

27 This should read ‘descend’.

28 Mateos, JuanLe Typicon de la Grande Eglise, Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 165–6, I, 368–73Google Scholar; Taft, Robertand Carr, A. W., The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, I, ed. Alexander Kazhdan(New York, 1991), 651–3.Google Scholar

29 Uspensky, Nicholas‘Vizantiiskoe Penie v Kievskoi Rusi’, Akten des IX Internationalen Byzantinischen Kongresses, München 1958(Munich, 1960), 644. This folio is not included in the excerpts published by Gorski and Nevostruev, cited above, and was unfortunately unavailable for examination.Google Scholar

30 These include the above-mentioned Asmatika, Γγl, Γγ5, Γγ7, Lγ3, and Vaticanus graecus 1606, from which the transcription was prepared, and K8.

31 Only lines 2 and 5 provide an exact match.

32 Using the more stable Γγl transmission of this chant, Constantin Floros, in his ‘Die Entzifferung’ article, has indexed no less than ten points for the identification of the kondakarian notation. Floros, however, does not take into consideration overall chant construction, with interconnections between lines and melodic formulae used in the attainment of musical unity.

33 Flier, Michael S.‘Breaking the Code: the Image of the Tsar in the Muscovite Palm Sunday Ritual’, in Medieval Russian Culture, ed. Flier, Michael S.and Rowland, Daniel(Berkeley, 1994), II, 218–19.Google Scholar

34 Petras, David M., The Typicon of the Patriarch Alexis the Studite: Novgorod – St. Sophia 1136(Cleveland, 1991), 60–2. The oldest surviving copy of this typikon is the first twenty-four folios of the Tipografsky Ustav, Moscow Tretiakov Gallery, MS K5349. Unfortunately, the rubrics for the feast of Palm Sunday are lacking in detail.Google Scholar

35 Petras, , The Typicon, 61. The Slavonic term sidalen, also translates as Kathisma, but refers more to a general class of texts read while sitting rather than the division of the Psalter.Google Scholar

36 See Levy, Kenneth, ‘The Slavic Kontakia’, 83–4. The other two include the Hypakoe/Kontakion for the Sunday of Orthodoxy (first Sunday of the Great Lenten Fast), and the Kontakion for the Dedication of a Church. See also Gregory Myers, ‘A Tale of Bygone Years: the Kontakion for the Dedication of a Church in Medieval Rus’: a Source Study and a Reconstruction’, Canadian Institute of Balkan Studies(Toronto, 1997), 1–43.Google Scholar

37 The codex M129 has what appears to be both Asmatic and Psaltic/soloistic settings of this Hypakoe on folios 94r/v and 95r.

38 MMB, 6, Main Series (Copenhagen, 1960).Google Scholar

39 Dostal, A., Rothe, H., Trapp, E., eds., Der altrussische Kondakar.Google Scholar

40 In the Byzantine Morning Office, the katavasia is sung between the eighth and ninth Odes of the kanon. According to Velimirovic, ‘Emulating the division of a kathisma into three staseis, the Kanon is never performed in its entirety without interruptions but is divided into three segments with interpolations after the third and sixth Odes. Thus for instance, after Ode 3 the singing of one stanza of the now drastically reduced Kontakion takes place together with the readings from the synaxar and another collect. Furthermore, after Ode 8 and Ode 9 there is a requirement that the choirs leave their places on the sides of the nave and join in the middle of the church to sing together the ‘katabasia’ hymn…' Milos Velimirovic, ‘The Byzantine Heirmos and Heirmologion’, Gattungen der Musik in Einzeldarstellungen: Gedenkschrift Leo Schrade(Bern, 1973), 203. Wellesz adds that, ‘the katavasia is the liturgical term for the Heirmos repeated at the end of the Ode and rendered in a highly melismatic style’ (A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1980), 240).

41 In the original study, three different types of comparative analysis were undertaken: (1) comparisons among the five kondakarian versions; (2) comparisons of the two different traditions represented by the transcriptions; and (3) the manner in which the anomalous transmission found in the K8 codex relates both to the kondakarian settings and to those found in the conventional copies of the Asmatikon. This type of study immediately raises certain important questions: which is the oldest or most traditional rendering of the refrain, and more importantly, which Byzantine and Kondakarian versions have the closest correspondence, if they have any at all? How do the kondakarian versions differ among themselves? An examination of the two Byzantine settings shows in addition to the expected points of contact some interesting variations in the transmission of the Greek melodic tradition. Both sources record basically the same melody, although in line 2, the Lγ3 setting has an extended melisma which recurs in line 3. (See Ex. 4a.) This internal structural parallelism is apparently absent in all the kondakarian versions.

42 Karastoianov imparted this information to me in a conversation at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in May 1991.

43 The oldest neume-tables show the graphically related sign, the Kylisma, whose function is similar to the Lygisma.

44 Note that only those examples featuring the two Koinonika for the Dead include transcriptions from the K8 source. The K8 line featured a strikingly different melody than Γγ1 and Γγ7 Asmatika.

45 See Floros, MdO3, for the various classifications, all of which are recognizable by the distinguishing interval of a third.

46 Each hypostasis that has been identified in the ensuing analysis has been checked against the surviving neume charts, particularly the tenth-century Lγ67, and the corresponding melodic formulae of the transcription matched to those in the oldest transmissions (Athens MSS 2458 and 2444, fourteenth century) of the Koukouzelean Didactic Song. It must be said that many of the identifications, owing to the complexity and the cultural and chronological distance from the Byzantine sources of the kondakarian notation are, at best, approximations.

47 The chain of Echadin/Gronthismata, which make up about two-thirds of this line, is also found at the end of line 4 of this chant.

48 Levy, Kenneth‘The Italian Neophytes Chant’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 23(1970), 211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar