Byzantine Music

Author(s): Egon Wellesz

Source: Proceedings of the Musical Association, 59th Sess. (1932 - 1933), pp. 1-22
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Musical Association
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22 NOVEMBER, 1932.

PROF.E. J. DENT, M.A., D.Mus.,

PRESIDENT,
IN THE CHAIR.

BYZANTINE MUSIC.
BY EGON WELLESZ, D.MUS. (OXON.),

Professor of Music in the University of Vienna.

UNTILrecently the study of Byzantine history and civilisation
has had to fight against an almost insuperable prejudice.
The whole Byzantine world was considered as petrified,
bloodless and decadent both in its life and in its artistic
creation, and gifted scholars refused to waste their energy on
a study which seemed unimportant. Although a large
number of Byzantine manuscripts were brought to Europe in
the seventeenth century and, in spite of the publication of
Allacci's Studies in the Liturgical Books of the Greek Church,
Goar's Commentary on the Euchologium and Montfaucon's
Palcographia Groeca, yet knowledge of these works and the
study of Byzantine art were confined to a small number of
people and aroused no regular interest. Sixty years ago a
famous German scholar-Professor W. Christ, of the University of Munich-in his Preface to the Anthologia Grceca
Carminum Christianorum apologised for deserting the
"elegance and fine freedom of the poets of Greece and
Rome for the thorny bypaths of medizval Christian verse."
The prefaces, too, of later works dealing with Byzantium all
contain the same apology, the author wishing to make it
clear that he has undertaken his task in a spirit of scientific
enquiry rather than out of conviction or enthusiasm.
The attitude of Gibbon and his whole account of
Byzantium are largely to blame for this prejudice: the very
title, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,is significant. To
the admirer of Roman civilisation the transition from the
old freedom of life and thought to the strict ceremonial of
the Byzantine court with its interminable political and
religious squabbles must seem a decline. To Gibbon these
were the striking things about Byzantium, and, his attention
all centred on the disappearance of the characteristics of the

ByzantineMusic

old Rome, he failed to see the birth of the new which took
its place.
In answerto Gibbon'sdeprecatingremarkswe have only
to considerwhatvigourthe ByzantineEmpiremust havehad.
Its so-called "decline" lasted a thousand years and yet
duringthis periodit was of such importancethat the capital
of the Empirewon the name of " New Rome." It is only
from this standpointthat we can obtaina full understanding
of the task the ByzantineEmpirehad beforeit.
As the furthestoutpostof Europe,Byzantiumhad to face
various waves of invasion from the East. This was only
possible for a governmentin which the Emperorcombined
almostabsolutetemporalandspiritualpowerandcentralisation
was carriedto its extremestpoint. The character,too, of her
enemies made it often necessaryfor treacheryand doubledealingto play a partin Byzantinepolitics; only thus could
the Empirebe preserved. In the fourth centurythe attacks
of the Ostrogothsbegan,in the fifth those of the Huns, and
in the sixth centurythe Slavs attackedfrom the North and
reached almost as far as the city itself. In the seventh
centurythe Persianinvasionsand the strugglewith the Arabs
began, and in the following centuriesBulgarian,Hungarian
and Russian attacksfrom the North and North-East kept
the Empirein a state of perpetualdanger. It remainedfor
the Crusaders,promptedby the commercialpolicy of Venice,
to preparethe final downfall of Byzantium. When, after
the end of the Latin Empire, the Palaeologicame to the
throne, all the strengthof the Empirewas spent, and in I453
the Turks were able to takethe city, her last Emperordying
on the walls. Yet these struggleswhich often threatened
the very existenceof the Empireand the metropolisdid not
prevent the developmentof an astonishingcivilisationand
the attainmentof an artistic perfectionwhich we can now
for the first time appreciate.
There is something insidious in the old clichds of
Byzantium's " treacherousdiplomacy," the "stiffness of
Byzantine art," and in the anecdotes of the theological
disputes which continued even when the Turks were
alreadyencampedbefore the city walls. For a long time
these clichdsand anecdotesmanagedto obscurethe glory of
Byzantium'sgreat achievements; consequentlyin the words
of Charles Diehl, one of the most learned students of
Byzantine art and history: "Voila comment, sous une
anecdotebanaleet une epithetecourante,on 6crasedix siecles
d'une civilisation, qui fut peut-etre la plus brillante et la plus
raffinee du moyen age."

ByzantineMusic

To-day we can see how this prejudice against Byzantium

has complicated the work of all those who have hitherto
dealt with her art and civilisation. Thanks to the untiring
work of the last generation this prejudice has been broken
down; but there still exists a feeling, especially common
amongst scholars and connoisseurs of classical art, that
Byzantine civilisation represents a decay, because it can no
longer boast the spirit of the ancient world in its full splendour.
We have only to think, however, of the contempt which,
fifty years ago, the admirers of the Renaissance professed
for Gothic and Baroque, to realise how false all judgments
are which praise one era at the expense of another.
The purpose of history, according to one great scholar, is
to show " what really took place "; and all efforts are worthless if they do not serve in the end to bring to light the real
nature of Byzantine art, contemporary reaction towards it,
and the meaning it may still have for us, both as a historical
possession and as a living force.
Twenty years ago I set myself this task in the department
of Byzantine music. It has given me great pleasure that an
English scholar, Professor Tillyard, has undertaken the
same work, viewed from a slightly different angle. We have
worked separately at the solution of our problems, but in the
last few years we have joined with Professor Hoeg, of
Copenhagen, in a plan to publish an edition of the most
important manuscripts, in which the treasures of Byzantine
church music are contained.
Let us first consider the question of the place of
Byzantine, and indeed of all oriental church music in the
musical world and then go on to a description of the
characteristics of this music and its meaning for us.
I should like to say first, that it is only in the last few years
that the science of musical research has reached a level which
justifies our placing it on an equal footing with the research
carried out in literature and painting. Large tracts of musical
history, however, remain still untouched. In the eighteenth
century an attempt had already been made to cover the
whole field of music from its first beginnings-an attempt
which remained unfinished owing to lack of sufficient detail.
The regular study of musical origins began later; and
gradually there came to light, at any rate for certain
periods, such a mass of detail that a real danger arose of
intensive study of one period obscuring a general view of
the whole.

Byzantine Music

During the nineteenth century and at the beginning of

the twentieth, musical research was chiefly concerned with
European music from the beginning of the middle ages. It
is true that a large number of books on Greek music appeared:
but it is in these books that the great difference between
accounts of the music and the music itself is most noticeable. And so, although these studies are interesting landmarks in the history of musical scholarship, they remain
comparatively unimportant in the history of music.
As far as Eastern music is concerned, a short introductory
section dealing with mediaeval music was usually considered
enough, Greek and Oriental music being included under
this heading. Byzantine music was not mentioned at all.
Labels such as "primitive" and "exotic" were attached
to Oriental music and there is no trace of any attempt to
regard it from a serious historical point of view. In the
second half of the nineteenth century the scientific and technical achievements of Europe had reached a point till then
untouched: Europeansall over the East came to regardthemselves as the masters and natural superiors and Oriental
art as something which, though worthy of their interest and
their collections, was in no way comparable with the great
artistic masterpieces of the West. We have only to think
of the collections and exhibitions of Oriental art durirg the
nineteenth century, in which objects of purely folk-lore
interest were placed next to real works of art and cheap
export goods lay next to masterpieces.
In this period of indifference, Fox-Strangways' Music of
Hindustanand Courant's Essay on ChineseClassical Music are
brilliant exceptions and form the starting point for a completely new attitude of mind-the first condition necessary
before it was possible to understand the characterof Oriental
music in general and the relationship between the music of
Europe and that of the Near East from antiquity to the
present day. This relationship, which has been long
recognised by students of history, art and liturgiology, must
be carefully borne in mind by students of Byzantine church
music, if they are to avoid false premises and faulty
conclusions. Once again we must try, from another standpoint, to be clear in our minds as to the exact significance of
"Byzantium" and "Byzantine."
In 324 A.D., Constantine made Byzantion, a small Greek
town, the capital of the Eastern Empire, giving it the rights
and privileges of Rome. From this time on the town took
the name of Constantinople or New Rome and the name
Byzantium disappeared. The inhabitants of the Empire were

ByzantineMusic

called Romans; for, with Julian the Apostate's championship

of Hellenism, the name " Hellenes" and the conception of
Hellenism had come into disrepute. Only isolated instances
of the use of the name Byzantion or Byzantis occur, and these
only in writers with an archaising tendency. It was not until
the fourteenth century and the return of the Palaeologithat a
new classical movement began and we find once again
Byzantium for Constantinople and Hellenes instead of
Romans, chiefly in Western writers who saw in Byzantine
literature a continuation of the classical tradition.
It was these pioneers of Byzantine scholarship who
managed to convince the rest of the learned world that
Byzantine civilisation was nothing else but a continuation
of the old, and that the language, though it had lost its old
vigour, was still the same. Thus it came about that from a
linguistic point of view Byzantium came to be regarded as
an annexe of the ancient and of the Hellenistic worlds. This
undue emphasis laid on the character of the language led
people to see in it the significant characteristicof Byzantium,
instead of considering her relationship with the civilisation
of the Mediterranean, and further, of the Near and Middle
East, as history, art and liturgiology all demand.
It is nowadays a matter of common knowledge that we are
indebted to the East for many elements in our religious
consciousness and philosophical thought, a debt which we
can trace back to the Persian and Egyptian elements in the
earliest Greek civilisation. After the penetration of the East
by Alexander the Great-a penetration which reached beyond
Gandhara as far as India, Central Asia and the Far Eastmilitary stations were established in the conquered areas and
all the higher positions of government were entrusted to
Greek officials: the whole Near East, in fact, was subjected
to a process of Hellenisation. This process, however, was
only rigorously and successfully pursued along the Mediterranean coast and where roads or rivers led inland. But
away from the main roads and far inland the native Eastern
civilisation could hold its own against that of the ruling
class. Not long after Alexander's death a reaction set in which
was both stronger and more fruitful than the Hellenising
movement. This reaction made possible an anti-Seleucid
union between the newly-formed Parthian Empire and
Bactria, the furthest outpost of Hellenism in the East,
whose influence extended over an area beyond the HinduKush and the Pamir plateau right into the steppes of Mongolia.
This union prepared the death-blow for Hellenic ascendancy

ByzantineMusic

in the Near East, though Bactria, through this very union,

came into a position of isolation and had to face the attack of
the Nomad tribes which poured through the country into the
Parthian Empire.
In the struggles which developed between Rome, as heirs
of the Seleucids, and Parthia, the influence of Iran became
increasingly important. This influence reached its height
when the Arsacid dynasty was replaced by the Sassanids,
who consciously modelledtheir policy on the old Persian
tradition of the time of the Achaemenids. The religious ideas
of Iran spread over the whole Mediterranean basin and
influenced the west, with the result that a mutual impregnation of Hellenism with Eastern ideas and vice versa took
place, whence arose the mixture of different cults characteristic
of the Near East.
Christianity started in one of the border provinces of the
Roman Empire whose sphere of influence came to an end
immediately behind the Lebanon. This province was administered by a Graeco-Roman governing class, the population
consisting of a mixture of Aramaeans, Cappadocians and
Armenians, as well as the Jews. Since Christianity was at
first a popular faith in direct opposition to the authorities, it
was natural that the art which developed with the new ritual
should be to a large extent the product of native artists.
The future study ot music will have to reckon with this fact,
if a clear idea of the method and first growth of ecclesiastical
melody is to be obtained. Studies of this kind will have to
be closely connected with liturgiology. Up till now we have
had to content ourselves with conjectures and conclusions
drawn by analogy from developments in kindred spheres.
With one exception no written record of the earliest Christian
music has been preserved: this one exception is formed by
the fragment of a Hellenistic hymn found at Oxyrrynchus.
The rest are either lost, or, as seems more probable, the music
was never committed to writing in the earliest times, but
transmitted orally. The Coptic Church of the present day
has preserved something of this tradition; its cantors and
choir-singers are mostly blind, it being thought that only
such people can be expected to have the seriousness and
other-worldliness necessary for the correct singing of
ecclesiastical melodies.
Were these songs original productions?
Yes, at any rate in part. It is hardly conceivable that the
members of the new religion which was in opposition to the
official cult should compose their own melodies. At a time,
when religious gatherings could only be hald in secret, and

ByzantineMusic

every kind of loud singing must be avoided, there can have

been very little more than a kind of "cantillation" of the
Psalms. As Christianity spread these conditions naturally
changed. It is most likely, therefore, that the new songs
were sung to familiar tunes, just as already existing heathen
hymns were adapted to the new faith. A period of real
creative musical activity cannot have begun until still later,
when Christianity had gained strength and Christian ritual
had begun to develop. This activity first showed itself in
Syria and Armenia.
Although nothing of this music is extant in the direct form
of manuscripts, we should regard it as having travelled Westwards with the Christian faith, rather than as lost, and look
for it in the treasures of Byzantine and Latin melodies.
Liturgiology would support this hypothesis; but detailed
investigations are only possible when we have manuscripts
with some kind of notation to which we can assign a date.
From the ninth century onwards there exists a complete
system of notation common to Byzantium, Armenia, Georgia
and Ethiopia; and traces of a notation are found in Syrian
and Coptic Manuscripts. The Slavonic and South Russian
notations come directly from the Byzantine. Parallel, however, to these systems of notation, which serve the purpose
of fixing the melody, there exists an early, simpler system
for the correct reading of the Lections. All systems of musical
notation originated with the system of lection-notations which
continued everywhere unchanged until the thirteenth
century.
The appearance of these lection-signs had been considered only in Byzantine and Armenian Manuscripts of the
Old and New Testaments, until I was able to point to the
appearance of a similar system in fragments of Evangelaria
and Nestorian hymns from the caves of Turkestan. Similar
signs are also to be found in manuscripts of religious writings
from Cambodia, while polychrome signs exist in Tibetan
prayer-rolls. It is clear, therefore, that the system of lectionsigns is not confined to Christian texts, but appears in the
holy books of other religions as well. The object is always
to stress particular words or phrases and to give directions
for the cantillations. A further principle was established in
the case of Byzantine Evangelaria. The lections-or
Pericopes-for each day are so arrangedthat the last sentence
of each section always has one of three or four variations
of sign-order. At the end of the section the most emphatic
signs appear, indeed each sign is generally doubled. From
this we gather that the priest who read the lection was

Byzantine Music

expected to read the last sentence of the Pericope with the

greatest emphasis, almost singing it, in order that the congregation might be prepared for the end and ready to join
in with an "Amen." As every sentence in Byzantine prose
had to end with a rhythmic cadence, the feeling for the
rhetorical period being very strong, the reading of each
Pericope was so arranged that the final sentence formed a
crescendowhich closed with the reading.
The ecphonetic signs are an aid to the reading of the Old
and New Testaments, while Byzantine notation not only
served to fix the hymn tunes, but also as a notation for the
secular acclamations composed by court poets and composers
for the Emperor.
The individual systems of notation are so distinct from
each other that the peculiarities of each are visible at the
first glance. On this point no differences of opinion among
scholars have arisen. Fundamental differences exist, however, with regard to the dating and naming of certain periods.
The widest divergence is found between the dates given in
the Greek catalogue and those assigned by Western scholars.
A certain rivalry between the various monasteries must be
taken into account, each monastery trying to make out that
the manuscripts in its possession are older than they really
are. Another difficulty arises from the deliberate archaising
script of the liturgical books which baffles even the most
expert palaeographers and leads to differences of several
centuries in the assigning of dates. For instances, in the
Pericopes of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, the
scribes try to imitate the older uncial script of the fifth and
sixth; and only in a few places, where in a hasty moment
they forget to archaise, can one see that the whole process is
one of imitation. An archaistic style is found in the hymn
books also, for the scribes were instructed to copy already
existing manuscripts and to preserve the exact spacing of the
originals. Hence the text came to be regarded as a pattern
to be pedantically copied. The musical signs were often
added later in the space left for the purpose: they are
generally in another hand-presumably that of a musicianand though they are often ill formed, they are always legible.
Examples of the earliest period of Byzantine notation have
been preserved in manuscripts dating from the ninth to the
twelfth centuries; no manuscript with musical notation is
known earlier than the ninth century. But the developed
state of the signs, which resemble Latin "Neumes" of the
same period, suggests that it is only owing to external circumstances, particularly to the Iconoclastic controversy, that we

Byzantine Music

have no earlier document. This notation has this in common

with the Latin Neumes, that it does not provide for an exact
statement of intervals. Gradually this was seen to be
unpractical; but whereas the West adopted lines to show
the pitch of each note, the East entirely reformed its
notation. In the middle period there appeared, in place of
the old approximate system, an exact notation of intervals,
and, more than this, an exact system to show the rhythmical
value of each note. Professor Fleischer, of Berlin, has been
able, by means of a theoretical treatise-one of the many
Papadike-to decipher the melodic line. But there still
remains a great deal unexplained with regard to the signs.
Why, for example, were there six different signs for a rise
of the interval of a second ? In the theoretical treatises I
found the following solution, giving the key for a satisfactory
transcription. These six signs for the interval of the second
represent six different shades of rhythm. If these different
rhythmic nuances are to be observed in the case of another
interval-a third, fourth, or fifth, each of which is represented
by its own special single sign, then the following rule was
observed. The rhythmic sign in question, which had
previously also represented the interval of a second, was
added to this new interval-sign, but merely in its rhythmic
capacity. By this means the so-called "round" notation
of the middle period has become legible. In my publication
of 1918 I selected corresponding signs, taken from our modem
notation, for these rhythmic nuances. I am pleased to say
that, when Professors Tillyard, H6eg and myself discussed
the question, my choice was accepted, with a few modifications. Our transcriptions, therefore, of the music will
agree to the last detail.
The middle period of Byzantine notation began, as my
latest investigations show, a great deal earlier than was
formerly supposed-namely, at the end of the eleventh century.
The old Neume-notation existed parallel to the new for some
time, while the improved notation of intervals was being
introduced. The middle period lasted into the fifteenth
century and was followed by the late Byzantine period
during which the complementary red notes were introduced.
This period lasted until the beginning of the nineteenth
century. The signs had by then become so numerous that
the singers could no longer understandthem and the reformed
Greek notation was therefore introduced which is still used
in the printed choir-books.
The question of the part played by the changing of the
notation now arises: that is to say, whether we can hope to
3 Vol. 59

IO

Byzantine Music

penetrate the secret of the early Byzantine notation and

whether the melodies in this notation are any other than those
we already know in the middle period notation. Before I
answer these questions, I must say something of the nature
of the poems to which these melodies were sung-namely:
the Kontakionand the Kanon.
Defined according to its contents, the Kontakion may be
called a poetical sermon. It consists normally of from eighteen
to twenty-four strophes, all structurally alike. At the
beginning stands a strophe in another metre, the Kukulion:
the individual strophes are connected alphabetically. Recent
investigations have shown that the Kontakion is Syrian in
origin and all its essential features are preserved in the chief
forms of Syrian poetry-Memra, Madrascha and Sugitha.
But how did Syrian ecclesiastical poetry come to
influence Byzantine ? Syria was spared the waste of energy
caused in Greek-speaking countries by the hostility of the
educated, on the one hand, towards Christian ideas, and on
the other, by the Christian refusal to accept heathen artistic
forms. In Syria the new civilisation was a Christian one,
and so the influence of the great Syrian poets-Ephrem,
Narses, Kirillonas and Jacob of Sarug-on the new Byzantine
ecclesiastical poetry is easy to understand.
The connection with Syria first became really important
with Romanos, the greatest of the Byzantine poets. Romanos
was born in Aleppo, at the end of the fifth century, of Jewish
parents, and grew up in Beiruth, coming to Constantinople
under the Emperor Anastasios. The decisive impression of
his youth must have been the Syrian poet Ephrem. Many
of Romanos's Kontakionsare translations from Ephrem and
the rest are written entirely under his inspiration. This
influence of Syrian poetry is not confined to Romanos, but is
noticeable in other Kontakionwriters.
This form of poetry reached its first bloom at the beginning
of the sixth century. From then on the Kontakionplayed a
large part in the liturgy, until in the eighth century it was
replaced by a new form of poetry, the Kanon. The Kanon
is composed of nine odes, each of which consists of
several (generally four) rhythmically similar strophes. The
odes are modelled on the nine Canticles of the Old and
New Testaments. From the fifth century onwards the
recitation of the canticles played an important part in the
liturgy, in company with the chanting of psalms, prayer and
preaching.
Nothing definite is known of the origin of this new form,
which reduced the Kontakion to a few strophes: recent

Byzantine Music

II

investigations show that, as in the case of the Kontakion,

Eastern, particularly Syrian and Armenian, influences were
strong. In any case the Kanon exemplifies one principle
which seems to me to be of ever growing importance for the
whole of Eastern art-namely the principle of reiteration and
variation, whether it be of a thought, of a pictorial representation, or of a musical idea.
I will try to explain this in a few words.
A wall painting in an Egyptian temple or a Buddha figure
in an Indian temple are both repeated countless times in
order to print the picture, as it were magically, on the
memory, and, on the same principle, we find wearisome
repetitions in the Buddhist writings, the hour-long performances
or Arabian song-cycles and the reiterated melodic phrases of
Egyptian witches.
The European creates a work of art with a view to one
single, short, intensely passionate moment of aesthetic
appreciation: the Oriental repeats the representation, or
provides it with almost unnoticeable variations, so that the
appreciation of it becomes a form of meditation. This
principle of variation may have worked its way into the
Byzantine liturgy and the Kanon poetry under the influence
of the new ideas made current by the development of the
power of Islam, but the tendency was already there, and was
merely accentuated.
It is generally said that the Kontakionsare finer than the
Kanons, but if so, how is it that the Kanons superseded the
Kontakions? The only explanation is that the Kanons
expressed the ideas and atmosphere of the eighth -century
better than the poems of earlier generations. These highly
elaborate variations on one idea clearly affected the faithful
to such an extent that the individual words were lost and the
many invocations and ejaculations of praise combined to
form a mystical atmosphere in which the spoken word became
merely a means to a state of ecstasy. (Some of these Kanons
have been known for a long time in England, in the translation of John Mason Neale, entitled Hymns of the Eastern
Church, but it would require all the skill of a great poet to
give a rendering of them which would reproduce the force
of the original language and the boldness of the original
images.)
In the eighth and ninth centuries a large number of new
poems appeared, the most famous of them connected with
the names of Andrew of Crete, John Damascene, Cosmas,
Theodore, and Joseph of the Studion Monastery. The

12

Byzantine Music

production was so great that by the end of the ninth century

hardly any new poems were admitted but these Kanonswere
regularly taken over into the liturgy.
What was this liturgy then ?
Before all else it had the characteristic, at once Oriental
and mystical, of binding its hearers as by a spell. In this it
is in direct contrast with the gravitas and majestas of the
Roman liturgy. The congregation experienced the action
of the sacred office, as the action of a mystery play, with
Protagonist, Deutero- and Tritagonists. Exactly as in ancient
mysteries, there was one moment of illumination when the
presence of the Godhead was felt. The singers felt themselves as " symbols of the angels," as one church writer says,
" who guided the congregation to the song of the cherubim."
They sang We who in secretset forth the Cherubim,and at the
Communion in the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, they
passed to eschatological mood and broke into the triumphant
hymn Appear, appear, thou New Jerusalem.
As has been said before, for a long time the Canticles played
a large part in this liturgy. These odes from the Old and New
Testament were considered as divine hymns. But when the
odes of the Kanonstook the place of the Canticles, they were
considered as earthly symbols of the heavenly hymns, in the
same way as the singers symbolised the angels. Therefore,
although these odes were composed for particular festivals
and saints, they had still to be variations of the old Canticles.
There was no question of a free, individualistic handling of
a theme. But it would be a great mistake to see in this repeated
treatment of the same narrow circle of subjects a poverty of
invention. It should be regarded rather as something much
deeper, as an example of the Oriental conception of the art
permissible in an act of worship. There is no trace here of
the Western conception of man's relation to the Deity: every
detail of the cult, every ornament of the church was a transposition of a divine appearance or power into something
which earthly eyes and ears could seize.
The same is true of the music. The hymn tunes show
different patterns on which a number of other melodies are
modelled. The explanation must be that the composer did
not have to compose an entirely different tune for a new
Kanon: his task was rather that of a modest artisan who
wished to add to an admired model something which seemed
to him permissible as an intensification, a beautifying, or a
small variation. The melodies sung in church were, to the
composer and the congregation, imitations of the hymns

Byzantine Music

13

sung in God's praise by inspired saints and martyrs; these

hymns in their turns imitating the divine canticles sung
unceasingly by the angels in heaven. The composer's task
was, therefore, not to compose as many original melodies as
possible, but to write variations on a given melody in which
some new feature appeared, despite a close connection with
the original. The artist's expression must adapt itself to the
liturgy and is never allowed to break the iron laws of the
hierarchy by adopting a personal accent in its relations with
the object of worship. The artist felt himself, in company
with all other artists, as a link in a chain, with his place in the
ranks of the faithful, his position determined by the measure
of his piety. This ordering of the faithful passes over into
the ranks of the celestial hierarchy, which one of the Fathers
of the Byzantine church, Dionysius the Areopagite, explained
so wonderfully. This art developed rather than evolved, its
growth was directed inwards not outwards, and only a proper
understandingof this principle can give a proper understanding
of Byzantine Church music.
This leads us back to the question whether there is a real
continuity in the Byzantine melodies preserved in manuscript, or whether the different notations correspond to
contemporary groups of melodies which replaced each other
as one notation replaced another.
As long as we were compelled to suppose that the round
notation did not exist before the fourteenth century-a
supposition based on the fact that our first manuscripts dated
from between I250 and x300-it was impossible to know the
relationship between the melodies in this notation and those
of the early Byzantine. The early Byzantine was not a notation of intervals and was therefore only legible to someone
who already knew the melodies and used the notation as an
aid to his memory, exactly as in the case of the Latin Neumes.
Now, however, manuscripts have been found dating from the
end of the twelfth century and I have managed to obtain a
photograph of a Hirmologionfrom the Iviron Monastery on
Mount Athos which must date at latest from the beginning
of the twelfth century, probably from the end of the eleventh.
A comparison of the same poem set to music written in
early and then in middle-Byzantine notation shows, by the
similarity of the signs and their grouping, that in each case
the melody is the same. I then inspected the manuscripts
of the early Byzantine period more closely in order to see
whether the same melodies appear in the early manuscripts
I was able to establish their identity as early as a ninth

14

Byzantine Music

century fragment. This means that from the manuscripts

which are preserved we can establish the continuity of a
melodic tradition from the ninth to the fifteenth century.
The old Neume notation of intervals was partly preserved
in the twelfth century, while the new interval-notation was
already coming into use. It is noticeable, too, that between
the ninth and the fifteenth centuries not only did signs
appearwhich regulatedthe rhythm and the manner of singing
and make the grouping of the notes clear, but the melodies
themselves became rather richer.
Let us take it then as an established fact that from the
ninth to the fifteenth century we have a continuous tradition
of melodies sung to the Kanons-that is, over a period beginning
after the Iconoclastic controversy when a new intensive
religious movement began, and extending over the full flower
of the Empire in the tenth century, the Latin Empire and the
rule of the Palaeologi, right to the fall of the city in I453.
From all that we know of Byzantine religious art we have no
reason to suppose that the Kanonwriters of the eighth century
set their odes to any other melodies than those which were
used fifty and a hundred years later. We have every reason
to believe that melodies existing in the ninth and tenth
centuries were the same ones as those used by the Kanon
poets. It is now known that the Hymnographers did not
compose new melodies, but used already existing ones; that
is to say, they took the Kontakionmelodies and set them to
new texts. But these Kontakionmelodies date from the sixth
century, even if some of them were not perhaps taken over
from older times and were not originally Syrian. Therefore
we see that a part of the melodies-before all else those of the
model strophes, the Hirmi-go back to the sixth century
and remained in use almost unchanged until the fifteenth.
After the fifteenth century Byzantine music changed its
character under the influence of the Turkish domination.
The church-singers were forced to earn their living by
playing Turkish music in the houses and palaces of the Pashas.
Their own style was thus corrupted and the old Diatonic
character of the music changed. At this time new, highlyornamented melodies began to replace the simple old ones,
with the result that a reformof Byzantinemusic in the countries
where the Greek church predominates was possible only
by a return to the manuscripts, and only thus could new
life come to the old music.
Let us now take a melody from the beginning of the
Triodium, the book which contains the offices for the

Byzantine Music

15

Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee to Holy Saturday

inclusive:---~

#a * ps -

_I.___L_Z_~__A

E-p~-~_
K - V -o

os

-a

K
Ke

pit

Tc

- A

rpo,

-.A

Karl

-v

, u-

rp

'

ll

fjutvos

-a. vo-

>
-

wc

/u

orrv

6 f O
y a-os8wi d

0r-fv

Kav-iXc

- /Ao7s

Xo'

TrV &w - pf

arc-pl

^^.

E-I vo0

d.

JY

ro_ ro.

rt

/AYos,

off-

._t-

-o_8bwr-

oL

&AA'

Yd

av

,(s, Xp-oT- r

9tyd

OlE

- VOS

4V

Tro - rotS To7S

f sE

^-

S^FS
t)
&s

T77
.

& .-d

Op - wos

This is a highly developed melody in the 1st Tone. If we

compare it with the Introit of the Missa de ConfessorePontifice
of the Latin church, we find a noticeable similarity which
cannot be overlooked.

ByzantineMusic

i6

STATUIT EI DOMINUS
A

.EfEK,______.
Sta

te

:........
-

e - i Do

-tu-it

pa

sta-men-tum

mi

cis

nus

prin

.
tJ
ci-pem

fe

;_

_F

4
cit

I i
um ut

. _
sit

_
-

il

li

+K2

_+-E+___

$-^^"'^^'^^jE^^^^7
i
?
^aK-^^-M-^-m-m~~^"m\?
-w"
<a^^<

\ \-^^^"^H-_
,

-^
^

die - ni

sa - cer do - ti - i
X
;tI

--DO

........

tas in
__R

..TT

1=-

J ae

ter

num.

It is impossible to suppose that this or other melodies which

seem to be related, travelled from Byzantium to Rome: that
would contradict every principle of liturgical development.
But, as we have seen, the archetype of the Byzantine melody
may well have come from Syria, which may also be the original
home of the earliest Gregorian melodies. Both may, in fact,
have a common source.
The majority of the Byzantine melodies are preserved in
two collections, the Hirmologion and the Sticherarion. In
the great period from the ninth to the fifteenth century these
were the chief music-books. The word hirmos is related
etymologically to the Latin series or concatenatio; it means
the relation of a model strophe to others which correspond
to it rhythmically and melodically. The arrangementof the
Hirmologion is based on the eight tones of the Oktoechos.
The Sticherarion is composed chiefly of the Stichera
Idiomela-that is, strophes for the festivals of the ecclesiastical
year, each with its own melody. In addition to this it contained

Byzantine Music

17

the Stichera for Lent and Eastertide, the Resurrection

hymns from the Oktoechos and the Lenten Prosomoia,
that is, strophes on a previous model-the Eothima or
morning hymns of the Emperor Leo, the Exaposteilariaof
Constantine Porphyrogenetes, and the Theotokia of John
Damascene. It is very seldom, however, that such complete
Sticheraria are found: one or more of the groups is generally
wanting.
As we have already said, the Hirmi are the models on which
others are composed. They are the oldest and most simple
melodies.
Here is the first strophe of a Hirmos of the ist Tone taken
from a morning-office for Low Sunday at the beginning of
the Hirmologion.
>

cr -

'A-

Tdv

ev,

A-

frs

hao2,

7ry

K fvi

I----^ ^-

*a-pa

?
rbv

____>

Kal

---____>

Y ,flu - 9(i
>*

?
'I

pa- -A

ar- a

.. ---

&h ._ tVKt-o,

>*

iro-

- fpd-X

tav

nL

__

- - -- j

d-6

|___---

Ad

y_-_________

9a - Adr-<r's

- as

So-Xou

*^gE^^^^ES^^

- Kpss

av -

--_

-r

-8J

-t.-

The melodies of the Sticheraria represent a richer type of

music, more developed and with greater melismatic
ornamentation. This type of melody gradually replaced the
original simple ones and lead to the compositions of the
fifteenth century which superseded the genuine melody
exactly as early mosaics were replaced by later and
poorer ones. The old melodies were spun out with
coloratura, so that the words became unintelligible and new
melodies of this same highly ornamented kind were

x8

Byzantine Music

composed. In the nineteenth century a wave of European

influence led, in Greece, to the harmonisation of the old
melodies, and consequently to a complete destruction of their
original character. The same process will have to take place
with the melodies of the Greek church as has already taken
place with Gregorianmusic,-liberation from false harmonisation and a restorationto their early simplicity. The position
of Greek church music is much more favourable than was
that of the Gregorian, since the Byzantine notation is much
dearer in its rhythmical and dynamic signs. But one thing
is necessary above all: the most important manuscripts
must be published in facsimile and the melodies then
published in their best versions, on the basis of a comparison
of manuscripts. Hoeg, Tillyard and I have made every
preparationfor the work of publication; we are only waiting
for the deciding impulse for the work to begin.
Let us now turn to secular music to see what part it played
in the public life of Byzantium.
When a victorious Emperor returned to the capital at the
end of the war he was hailed with acclamations in which his
exploits were sung. These acclamations were written and
composed by court poets and musicians. At Nikephoros's
processional entry after the defeat of the Saracens the people
sang:
Behold the morningstar whose beamsdarken the sun:
The Saracens'doom, Nikephorosthe Ruler appears.
Then there followed a second acclamation called Polychronion
since it contained wishes for a long life for the Emperor:Long life to Nikephorosthe Ruler !
Honour him, all ye nationsand bow low beforethe
mightyprince !
When an Emperor entered the Hippodrome he was
greeted by choirs of the Greens and the Blues singing antiphonally and the same happened at church festivals. The
most ceremonious were the Christmas celebrations when the
Emperor came from his apartments into the full assembly.
While he prostratedhimself before the Ikons, a choir sang:May God protect thy majesty,divinely ordained,crownedand
protected,mighty and holy for many years !
These acclamations were not exclusively confined to
Emperors; princes of the church were also greeted. In this
case the acclamations were included in the liturgy under the
name of Euphemesis,and in this form they survive to the

Byzantine Music

I9

present day. The ritual-books and the descriptions of foreign

ambassadors give a picture of these festivals and show what
a large part music played in the public life of Byzantium.
On Christmas Eve the Emperor came to the church to pray
and receive communion. The court and clergy were
assembled beforehand, the princes of the Empire and the
Church with their flags behind them. The Emperor's
chaplains then entered, fully robed, and behind them again
the Imperial musicians (flutes, horns, trombones and cymbals).
The Emperor with his suite then mounted the Tribune which
was hung with curtains. He changed his robes and, when the
curtains were drawn, he was fully visible, alone. The singers
then started the Imperial hymn, the instruments joined them
and continued after the end of the hymn, until the Emperor
gave with a cloth the sign to cease. The singers then started
the Christmas hymn, Christ Who crowned thee Emperor is
born. Several strophes followed, with acclamations for the
Emperor and the Empress. While the curtains were drawn
the Imperial hymn was sung again and with another fanfare
the ceremony closed.
This one example may serve to show how magnificent the
many other festivals were. Their year was full of themthe Christmas festival at which the prisoners of war were fed;
the performance of the Christmas play; Palm Sunday
ceremonies; the Washing of the Feet on Maundy Thursday;
the Good Friday procession; the Easter festival; the
Blessing of the Grapes; and the races to commemorate the
founding of the city.
Nothing of all this music remains, except ecclesiastical
fragments. Only the spirit of the music lives on in the
festivals which the West took over from Byzantium and still
celebrates.
What I have tried to say in a few words here will have
shown you, I hope, that the problem of Byzantine Music is
the problem of the art of a peculiar civilisation. You may
perhaps feel as I did when I first realised the beauty and
strength of these melodies, that this music enlarges our view
of the world. The Byzantine Empire united East and West.
In the same way an understanding of her music brings us to
an understanding of the East and its music. What we need
to-day is not merely to assimilate new kinds of knowledge,
but rather to make every truly great and significant creation
a part of ourselves. The purpose of this lecture will have
been fulfilled if it has aroused in you a feeling that in Byzantine
music a great art speaks to you.

20

Byzantine Music
DISCUSSION.

THE CHAIRMAN:It is a great privilege for us to listen to-day

to a most distinguished foreign scholar, one distinguished not

only in research in various fields, but distinguished also as a
composer for the theatre.
Byzantine music has for a long time been a very obscure
subject, and the interpretation of it was confused and indeed
erratic. Thanks to the work of Professor Wellesz and his
collaborators, among whom I am glad to find our eminent
Cambridge scholar, Prof. H. J. W. Tillyard, we are now on
the way to a clear understanding of this difficult problem,
based on sound historical and palaeographicalresearch.
The importance of this research is twofold: in the first
place it throws light on the history of Byzantine culture, and
secondly, it points onward to a further musical problem which
future generations will have to resolve. If we could obtain a
really comprehensive view of all the earliest music of the
Eastern churches, we should then be able to find out how much
of our Western plainsong was derived from Oriental sources.
Mr. ROYLESHORE: I recently met the Archimandrite

of

the Greek Cathedral in Bayswater who was naturally very

interested in the subject of this lecture and would have liked
to have come to it. But unfortunately, although an invitation
had been sent to him, he had been prevented at the last
moment from coming.
The music sung by the Clergy officiating in this Cathedral
is the Byzantine form of plain-chant which obviously has
affinities with the more familiar Western plain-chant, as one
of this afternoon's examples plainly shows. This is inevitable.
The singers, always unaccompanied, sing ancient melodies
harmonised for voices in a modern diatonic form, and not
with the modal restrictions used in harmonising Western
plain-chant.
The West is like the East in that they have no written
records of the use of notation in early days. Instruction was
entirely oral. It is said that it took ten years to make a singer
in the West.
I am very glad to hear the lecturer say that the music is
being published: it is most desirable that it should be.
It is important to distinguish between the
The LECTURER:
practice of the present day and that of the " Golden Age"
of Byzantine music. During the decay of the Byzantine
Empire and particularly after the capture of Constantinople,
Byzantine church music underwent important modifications,
as I have already pointed out. At the present day traces of

Byzantine Music

21

Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Slavonic influences are all

noticeable, influences which had a great effect on the rhythm
as well as the melody. We cannot therefore be too careful
to avoid making our conclusions, drawn from the present
state of formality, apply to the middle ages.
Dr. FROGGATT: I understand that there are eighteen
different scales in Byzantine music formed from seventeen
tetrachords. Is that so ?
The LECTURER: In answer to the question of scales,
theoretical treatises of modern Greek music speak of eight
scales. Modern harmonisation naturally changed entirely
the character of Byzantine melodies. The same is true of
Gregorian music and the present tendency is to make all
organ accompaniments as simple as possible; they should be
merely a support to the voices. Nowadays attempts are often
made in Catholic churches to sing Gregorian music with no
accompaniment whatever.
In this connection I should like to refer to the collections
of gramophone records (His Master's Voice), which were
made two years ago in Solesmes.
Dr. COLLES: The lecturer has already answered to Mr.
Royle Shore the question I was going to ask about the scale
system in Byzantine music, but I should like to put a
supplementary question. Was there any period at which the
scale system was organised on a theoretical basis for this music,
comparable to the Gregorian system of Latin plainsong ?
The LECTURER: I am more and more convinced that the
question of scales was treated independently from the teaching
of music. There exists a description from Mesante of the
Church of the Holy Apostles where we read that directions
such as nite, paranete, etc. " which nobody nowadays understands " were taught by mathematicians, but that " singing
was taught by masters who conducted with their hand the
course of melody" (Xffpovocia). The scales were gradually
evolved from the melodies by a process of grouping certain
melodic formulae (maqam) on which all melodies were built.
I have studied the section " echoi" and have found that there
the mode is not absolutely connected with a certainfinalis, but
with the occurrence of a group of maqamswhich form the
melody of each mode. The question of the scales and the
maqamshas not been approached from this angle until quite
recently. It is a very important subject which should receive
more attention. But it can only be studied successfully when
the Byzantine melodies are better known, that is when they
are published in a collected edition.

22

Byzantine Music

Mr. ROYLE
SHORE:Has not the Byzantinemodal system
much in commonwith the Westernsystem?
The LECTURER: Yes, it has.
Mr. ROYLESHORE:Some early Western music, as it has

come down to us, appearsto have been composedwithout

regardto any modal system. This may have been the case
with Byzantinemusic. Practiceinvariablyprecedestheory.
The LECTURER: Yes, that is true.

The meetingclosedwith a vote of thanksto the Lecturer: