Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: Is Byzantine Octoechos a musical system?
Oktōēchos (here transcribed "Octoechos"; Greek: ὁ Ὀκτώηχος Greek pronunciation:[okˈtóixos];[1] from ὀκτώ "eight" and ἦχος "sound, mode" called echos; Slavonic: Осмогласие, Osmoglasie from о́смь "eight" and гласъ, Glagolitic: ⰳⰾⰰⱄⱏ, "voice, sound") is the eight-mode system used for the composition of religious chant in Byzantine, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Latin and Slavic churches since the Middle Ages. In a modified form the octoechos is still regarded as the foundation of the tradition of monodic chant in the Byzantine Rite today.
Concerning the octoechos, the Hagiopolitan system is characterised as a system of eight diatonic echoi with two additional phthorai (nenano and nana) which were used by John of Damascus and Cosmas, but not by Joseph the Confessor who obviously preferred the diatonic mele of plagios devteros and plagios tetartos.
In the history of the Byzantine rite the Hagiopolitan reform was described as a synthesis of the cathedral rite and the monastic rite. Nevertheless, the Hagiopolitan octoechos did not come into use at the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople before the Papadic reform during the late 13th and the 14th century, after the patriarchate and the court had returned from exile in Nicaea. The reform of John Koukouzeles can be studied by a new type of treatise called "Papadike" (ἡ παπαδικὴ). It included a list of all neume signs which were taken from various chant books and their different notation systems. In the school of John Glykys this list had been organized as a didactic chant called "Mega Ison" which passed through all the eight echoi of the octoechos, while the singers memorize the signs and studied their effect in chant composition. This chant or exercise (μάθημα) had been invented by John Glykys, but most papadikai also add a second version in the redaction of John Koukouzeles who was probably his student. These lists prefer the use of Byzantine round notation, which had developed during the late 12th century from the late diastematic Coislin type. The modal signatures were referred to the Hagiopolitan octoechos. Because the repertoire of signs was expanded under the influence of John Glykys' school, there was a scholarly discussion to make a distinction between Middle and Late Byzantine notation. The discussion decided more or less against this distinction, because the Papadic school did not invent new neume signs, it rather integrated signs known from other chant books and their local traditions, including the books of the Constantinopolitan cathedral rite as they had been used until the Western conquest of Constantinople.
Oktōēchos (here transcribed "Octoechos"; Greek: ; from ὀκτώ "eight" and ἦχος "sound, mode" called echos; Slavonic: Осмогласие, "Osmoglasie" from о́смь "eight" and гласъ "voice, sound") is the name of the eight mode system used for the composition of religious chant in Byzantine, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Latin and Slavic churches since the Middle Ages. In a modified form the octoechos is still regarded as the foundation of the tradition of monodic Orthodox chant today.
The introduction of the eight mode system in Western chant traditions was part of the Carolingian reform. Officially, it was motivated by Pope Adrian I's confirmation of an earlier Eastern chant reform during the synode in 787, during which he accepted the reform for the Western traditions as well. Nevertheless, a Carolingian interest for the Byzantine octoechos can already be dated back to a visit some years earlier, when a Byzantine legacy introduced a series of antiphons sung during a procession for Epiphany. These antiphons served as a model for the eight modes according to the Hagiopolitan system.
The difference between the "diapason" and the "trochos system" corresponded somehow with the oral melos transmission of the 18th century, documented by the manuscripts and the printed editions of the "New Music School of the Patriarchate", and the written transmission of the 14th-century chant manuscripts (revised heirmologia, sticheraria, Akolouthiai, and Kontakaria) which fit rather to the Octoechos disposition of the "trochos system". Chrysanthos' theory aimed to bridge these discrepancies and the "exegetic transcription" or translation of late Byzantine notation into his notation system. This way the "exegesis" had become an important tool to justify the innovations of the 18th century within the background of the Papadic tradition of psaltic art.
Students of Orthodox chant today often memorize the history of Byzantine chant in three periods, identified by the names John of Damascus (675/676-749) as the "beginning", John Koukouzeles (c. 1280-1360) as the "flower" (Papadic Octoechos), and Chrysanthos of Madytos (c. 1770-c. 1840) as the master of the living tradition today (Neobyzantine Octoechos). The latter has the reputation, that he once connected in his time the current tradition with the past of Byzantine chant, which was in fact the work of at least four generations of teachers at the New Music School of the Patriarchate.
The book which contains the hymns which constitute the substance of the musical system of Armenian liturgical chant is the "Sharagnots" (see Armenian Octoechos), a collection of hymns known as "Sharakan". Originally, these hymns were Psalms and biblical Canticles that were chanted during the services, similar to the Byzantine Canon. In addition, the eight modes are applied to the psalms of the Night office, called "ganonaklookh" (Canon head).
Unlike Western tonality and music theory the universal theory of the Phanariotes does not distinguish between major and minor scales, even if they transcribed Western polyphony into Byzantine neumes, and in fact, the majority of the models of the Byzantine Octoechos, as they are performed in Mediterranean churches by traditional singers, would lose their proper intonation and expression, if they were played on a conventionally tuned piano. Exactly the familiarity with microtonal intervals was an advantage, which made the Chrysanthine or Neobyzantine notation as a medium of transmission more universal than any Western notation system. Among others even Western staff notation and Eastern neume notation had been used for transcriptions of Ottoman classical music, despite their specific traditional background.
Byzantine music (Greek: Βυζαντινή Μουσική) is associated with the medieval sacred chant of Christian Churches following the Constantinopolitan rite. Its modal system is based on the ancient Greek models. The development of large scale hymnographic forms begins in the fifth century with the rise of the kontakion, a long and elaborate metrical sermon, which finds its acme in the work of Romanos the Melodist (sixth century). Heirmoi in syllabic style are gathered in the "Irmologion", a bulky volume which first appeared in the middle of the tenth century and contains over a thousand model troparia arranged into an octoechos (the eight-mode musical system) and the whole system of Byzantine music which is closely related to the music of ancient Greece.
The concept of "mode" in Western music theory has three successive stages: in Gregorian chant theory, in Renaissance polyphonic theory, and in tonal harmonic music of the common practice period. In all three contexts, "mode" incorporates the idea of the diatonic scale, but differs from it by also involving an element of melody type. This concerns particular repertories of short musical figures or groups of tones within a certain scale so that, depending on the point of view, mode takes on the meaning of either a "particularized scale" or a "generalized tune". Modern musicological practice has extended the concept of mode to earlier musical systems, such as those of Ancient Greek music, Jewish cantillation, and the Byzantine system of "octoechos", as well as to other non-Western types of music (; ).
The Cetinje Octoechos ( or "Cetinjski oktoih") is an Orthodox liturgical book printed in 1494 in Cetinje, the capital of the Principality of Zeta (present-day Montenegro). It is the first incunabulum written in the Serbian recension of Church Slavonic, as well as the first book printed in Cyrillic in Southeast Europe. The octoechos was produced under the direction of Hieromonk Makarije at the Crnojević printing house, which was founded in 1493 by Đurađ Crnojević, the ruler of Zeta. Printed in two instalments, its first volume contains the hymns to be sung to the first four tones of the Octoechos system of musical modes, and the hymns for the remaining four tones are included in the second volume. The two volumes are called Octoechos of the First Tone ("Oktoih prvoglasnik") and Octoechos of the Fifth Tone ("Oktoih petoglasnik"), respectively.
From a Phanariot point of view, the re-formulation of the Octoechos and its melodic models according to the New Method was neither a simplification of the Byzantine tradition nor an adaption to Western tonality and its method of an heptaphonic solfeggio, just based on one tone system (σύστημα κατὰ ἑπταφωνίαν). Quite the opposite, as a universal approach to music traditions of the Mediterranean it was rather based on the integrative power of the psaltic art and the Papadike, which can be traced back to the Hagiopolitan Octoechos and its exchange with Oriental music traditions since more than thousand years.
The Byzantine book Octoechos has originally been part of the sticherarion. It was one of the first hymn books with musical notation and its earliest copies survived from the 10th century. Its redaction follows the Studites reform, during which the sticherarion has been invented.
Oktōēchos (here transcribed "Octoechos"; Greek: , pronounced in Constantinopolitan: ; from ὀκτώ "eight" and ἦχος "sound, mode" called echos; Slavonic: Осмогласие, "Osmoglasie" from о́смь "eight" and гласъ "voice, sound") is the name of the eight mode system used for the composition of religious chant in Byzantine, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Latin and Slavic churches since the Middle Ages. In a modified form the octoechos is still regarded as the foundation of the tradition of monodic Orthodox chant today.
It also mentions an alternative system of the Asma (the cathedral rite was called ἀκολουθία ᾀσματική) that consisted of 4 kyrioi echoi, 4 plagioi, 4 mesoi, and 4 phthorai. It seems that until the time, when the Hagiopolites was written, the octoechos reform did not work out for the cathedral rite, because singers at the court and at the Patriarchate still used a tonal system of 16 echoi, which was obviously part of the particular notation of their books: the asmatikon and the kontakarion or psaltikon.
According to Eckhard Neubauer, there is another Persian system of seven "advār" ("cycles"), outside the Arabic reception of the Byzantine octoechos, which was possibly a cultural transfer from Sanskrit treatises. Persian and Ancient Greek sources had been the main reference for the transfer of knowledge in Arabian-Islamic science.
So the question is not only, how they transcribed the traditional repertory into a more or less modified notation, but also, how they used this medium of written transmission for their own compositions within Orthodox chant. During the 17th century Panagiotes the New Chrysaphes and Germanos of New Patras represent more traditional protopsaltes of the Patriarchate, who cared about the proper understanding of the Byzantine tradition, while others like Petros Bereketis had never been directly associated with the Patriarchate, but their "psaltic art" became very appreciated, because it combined a very refined knowledge of the traditions with experiments of transition that were inspired by their intimate knowledge of "makamlar" which he had got thanks to a permanent exchange with other musicians. Already Gregorios Bounes Alyates (Γρηγόριος Μπούνης ὁ Ἀλυάτης), Protopsaltes of the Hagia Sophia before and after the conquest of Constantinople, was recognised by the Sultan for the power that he gained over other musicians, because of his competences to write down and to memorize chant from other traditions and to adapt them according to the own Octoechos style. This thief aspect, as it had been discussed by Petros Peloponnesios' career as "Hirsiz Petros", is also connected to the activities, as they had been documented since the 18th century, to transcribe and collect systematically chants from other traditions. This intensive exchange with the music of the Ottoman Empire, which could be occasions or coffee-houses where musicians met together and exchanged their music by performing it, the transcription and memorisation by the medium of Byzantine Octoechos notation, or even music lessons which several Greek musicians asked and got from traditional composers of the whirling dervishes, also inspired certain compositions that they contributed to the traditional genres of Byzantine chant.
Nevertheless, Byzantine music is modal and entirely dependent on the Ancient Greek concept of harmonics. Its tonal system is based on a synthesis with ancient Greek models, but we have no sources left that explain to us how this synthesis was done. Carolingian cantors could mix the science of harmonics with a discussion of church tones, named after the ethnic names of the octave species and their transposition tropes, because they invented their own octoechos on the basis of the Byzantine one. But they made no use of earlier Pythagorean concepts that had been fundamental for Byzantine music, including:
Oktōēchos (here transcribed "Octoechos"; Greek: pronounced in koine: ; from ὀκτώ "eight" and ἦχος "sound, mode" called echos; Slavonic: Осмогласие, "Osmoglasie" from о́смь "eight" and гласъ "voice, sound") is the name of the eight mode system used for the composition of religious chant in Byzantine, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Latin and Slavic churches since the Middle Ages. In a modified form the octoechos is still regarded as the foundation of the tradition of monodic Orthodox chant today (Neobyzantine Octoechos).
In Byzantine music most of the modes of the octoechos are based on the diatonic genus, apart from the "second mode (both authentic and plagal)" which is based on the chromatic genus. Byzantine music theory distinguishes between two tunings of the diatonic genus, the so-called "hard diatonic" on which the "third mode" and two of the "grave modes" are based, and the "soft diatonic" on which the "first mode (both authentic and plagal)" and the "fourth mode (both authentic and plagal)" are based. The hard tuning of the diatonic genus in Byzantine music may also be referred to as the "enharmonic genus"; an unfortunate name that persisted, since it can be confused with the ancient enharmonic genus.
Although the phthora nenano is already known as one of two additional phthorai used within the Hagiopolitan octoechos, its chromaticism was often misunderstood as a late corruption of Byzantine chant during the Ottoman Empire, but recent comparisons with medieval Arabic treatises proved that this exchange can dated back to a much earlier period, when Arab music was created as a synthesis of Persian music and Byzantine chant of Damascus.
The Chrysanthine notation and the New Method, which were also used in the field of "exoteric music" in "makam" publications like "Pandora", "Evterpe", "Kaliphonos Seiren", and "Apanthisma e Mecmue", and the redefinition of the Byzantine tradition adapted to the common tone system of the tambur frets, had been a great temptation to fill the gaps of the four Octoechos cycles with new melodies and intervals which had been imported from other music traditions of the Levantic community of musicians. "Makam" compositions were not always identified as "makam", and especially related genres, like compositions of the "heirmologic melos" in kalophonic elaboration, rather defined as papadic melos and sung during the Divine Liturgies for instance as "koinonikon" (while the heirmologion was a traditional part of the daily morning service), became the favorite genre for these experiments. The "heirmos kalophonikos" was made popular by Petros Bereketis during the 17th century, despite the fact that it already existed since the rise of "psaltic art" in the last 150 years of the Byzantine Empire.
Southern Slavs use the Byzantine musical system and, nonetheless, use the variant numbering that is always found in Church Slavonic texts.[3]
The older Byzantine system still retains eight tones (ἦχοι – echoi), each consisting of a small family of closely related modes that, if rounded to their diatonic equivalents, would be the eight modes of Gregorian chant. However, they are numbered differently, the authentic modes being 1, 2, 3, 4 . Other Eastern Christian rites use similar systems of eight modes; see Syriac usage of Octoechos and Armenian usage of Octoechos.