Neobyzantine Octoechos

Semi-Autonomous: Oktōēchos (here transcribed "Octoechos"; Greek: ὁ Ὀκτώηχος Ancient Greek pronunciation: [okˈtóixos];[1] 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.

The first is a discussion of the current solfeggio method based on seven syllables in combination with the invention of a universal notation system which transcribed the melos in the very detail (Chrysanthos' Theoretikon mega).

1, book 3), Chrysanthos did not only discuss the difference to European concepts of the diatonic genus, but also the other genera (chromatic and enharmonic), which had been refused in the treatises of Western music theory.

In the last column of his table, he listed the new modal signatures or matyriai of the phthongoi (μαρτυρίαι "witnesses"), as he introduced them for the use of his reform notation as a kind of pitch class system.

It found its most odd definition in Chrysanthos' Mega Theoretikon, because he diminished the whole octave about 4 divisions in order to describe echos devteros as a mode which has developed its own diphonic tone system (7+12=19).

Τὴν δὲ Β κλίμακα πα [βου ὕφεσις] [γα δίεσις] δι κε [ζω ὕφεσις] [νη δίεσις] Πα, μὲ τοὺς αὐτοὺς μὲν φθόγγους ψάλλομεν, καὶ ἡ μελῳδία τοῦτων μὲ τοὺς αὐτοὺς χαρακτῆρας γράφεται· ὅμως οἱ φθόγγοι φυλάττουσι τὰ διαστήματα, ἅτινα διωρίσθησαν (§.

This means that the interval D πα—E βου [ὕφεσις] is unisono with the small tone (ἐλάχιστος τόνος), Ε βου [ὕφεσις]—F sharp γα [δίεσις] with the trihemitone, and F sharp γα [δίεσις]—G δι with the hemitone: 3:12—a quarter of the great tone (μείζων τόνος) [7+18+3=28].The shift of phthora nenano from the devteros to the protos parallage was explained by Chrysanthos through the exegesis of the Papadic plagios devteros intonation.

Please note the hard chromatic phthorai, the second in the text line had been taken from the papadic phthora nenano: Despite this pure chromatic form, the plagios devteros in the sticheraric and papadic melos is the only echos of the Octoechos which combines as well and in a temporary change of genus (μεταβολή κατὰ γένος) two different genera within the two tetrachords of the protos octave, while the diatonic tetrachord lies between δ' and γ' (a triphonic construction πλα'—δ'—γ'), and has the melos of echos tetartos (as shown in the mixed example of its parallage).

The more characteristic change was less those of the genus (μεταβολή κατὰ γένος) than the one from the tetraphonic to the triphonic tone system (μεταβολή κατὰ σύστημα): Διὰ τοῦτο ὅταν τὸ μέλος τοῦ ἐναρμονίου γένους ἄρχηται ἀπὸ τοῦ γα, θέλει νὰ συμφωνῇ μὲ τὸν γα ἡ ζω ὕφεσις, καὶ ὄχι ὁ νη φθόγγος.

This innovation had been already proposed by the Phanariot Simon Karas, but it was his student Lykourgos Angelopoulos who used this dieseis and hypheseis in a systematic way to transcribe a certain local tradition of melodic attraction.

[21] In the last chapter of his third book "Plenty possible chroai" (Πόσαι αἱ δυναταὶ Χρόαι), Chrysanthos used with the adjective δυνατή a term which was connected with the Aristotelian philosophy of δύναμις (translated into Latin as "contingentia"), i.e. the potential of being outside the cause (ἐνέργεια) of the Octoechos, something has been modified there and it becomes something completely different within the context of another tradition.

The question of rhythm is the most controversial and most difficult one and an important part of the Octoechos, because the method of how to do the thesis of the melos included not only melodic features like opening, transitional, or cadential formulas, but also their rhythmic structure.

[28] In the third chapter about the performance concept of Byzantine chant ("Aufführungssinn"), Maria Alexandru discussed in her doctoral thesis rhythm already as an aspect of the cheironomia of the cathedral rite (a gestic notation which had been originally used in the Kontakaria, Asmatika, and Psaltika, before the Papadic synthesis).

While the ethos of the echoi were characterised very generally (since Plato), the "three tropes of rhythm" (book 2, chapter 12) were distincted as systaltic (συσταλτικὴ, λυπηρὸς "sad"), diastaltic (διασταλτικὴ, θυμὸς "rage"), and hesychastic (ἡσυχαστικὴ, ἡσυχία "peace, silence" was connected with an Athonite mystic movement).

The fourth and most important step was a reform of the notation as the medium of written transmission, in order to adapt it to the scales and the tone system which was the common reference for all musicians of the Ottoman Empire.

The fifth step was the systematic transcription of the written transmission of makamlar into modern Byzantine neumes, the Mecmuase, a form of Anthology which was used by Court and Sephardic musicians as well, but usually as text books.

The use of notation as a medium of written transmission had never had such an important role within most of the Ottoman music traditions, but in case of "Hırsız Petros" a lot of musicians preferred to ask him for his permission, before they had published their own compositions.

One important innovation of the reformed neume notation and its "New Method" of transcription was the heptaphonic solfeggio, which was not based on the Western equal temperature but on the frets of the tambur—a long-necked lute which had replaced the oud at the Ottoman court (mehterhane) by the end of the 17th century and which also took its place in the representation of the tone system.

[43] In 1881 the transcription of makam compositions was nothing new, because several printed anthologies had been published by Phanariotes: Pandora and Evterpe by Theodoros Phokaeos and Chourmouzios the Archivist in 1830, Harmonia by Vlachopoulos in 1848, Kaliphonos Seiren by Panagiotes Georgiades in 1859, Apanthisma by Ioannis Keïvelis in 1856 and in 1872, and Lesvia Sappho by Nikolaos Vlahakis in 1870 in another reform notation invented in Lesbos.

Their melodic patterns were created by four generations of teachers at the "New Music School of the Patriarchate" (Constantinople/Istanbul), which redefined the Ottoman tradition of Byzantine chant between 1750 and 1830 and transcribed it into the notation of the New Method since 1814.

[44]The church musicians sang and wrote the different forms of psalmody, they created the rhythm, and over those they performed the cheironomies [hand signs] and invented the mele according to their needs.

Μελίζονται λοιπὸν μὲ τοιοῦτον μέλος, Δοξαστικὰ, στιχηρὰ, ἀναστάσιμα, ἐξαποστειλάρια, αἶνοι, προσόμοια, ἰδιόμελα, ἑωθινὰ, καθίσματα, ἀντίφωνα, εἰσοδικά.

It seems that his opinion had a great influence on the fourth generation of teachers, who were responsible for the reform notation and the preparation of the printed edition—especially, because Iakovos' Doxastarion argon was called by Chrysanthos the "old sticheraric method."

One kolon καὶ τόκῳ ζῶσα πρέσβευε διηνεκῶς·, taken from the eighth section of the Doxastikon oktaechon Θεαρχίῳ νεύματι (Dormition of the Theotokos on 15 August), might illustrate the motivation of the New Method to abbreviate the traditional method of doing the thesis of the sticheraric melos: This composition, one of three of the sticheraric repertory which pass through all the 8 echoi, had never been a subject of a kalophonic composition, because it could not be subdivided into two or three sections like most of the stichera of the 14th-century sticherarion which did pass through one or two other echoi close to the one indicated by the main signature.

This transposition (μεταβολή κατὰ τόνον) causes a shift of the ambitus about two pentachords higher, which is the interval of a major ninth, and prepares the melos within the tetartos octave G—d—g with the upper tetrachord (δ' d—α' e—β' f sharp—γ' g).

It is not enough to reduce the work of several generations at the "New Music School of the Patriarchate" to a more or less selective translation of "Byzantine Chant", based on a certain redaction of Panagiotes the New Chrysaphes and other Protopsaltes of the 17th century, who tried to save the inherited tradition.

Since the fall of Constantinople protopsaltes, including the leading protagonists later at the New Music School, were present as the creators of an own tradition—in the territory of the Ottoman Empire as well as in the Boyar Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia.

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.

Thrasyvoulos Stanitsas' cycle allows psaltes to perform the cherouvika in even a shorter time without abandoning solistic features like a wide ambitus and frequent changes (μεταβολαὶ) of any kind.

During the last years, it was especially Ioannis Arvanitis, like Lykourgos Angelopoulos once student of Simon Karas, who made concrete propositions for performers concerning the thesis of the melos of selected examples taken from medieval chant manuscripts.