www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship The Kliros Variations in Chant question

I know the difference in general between the sound of Byzantine chant and Russian chant but understand very little of that difference. Could others explain the differences please. Who uses which? What are the origins? Can musical instruments be rightly be used with either? What are their technical names? Are there other types of chant?

That is a very broad subject, and one several musicologists have made their life work studying. A good place to start are Von Gardner's two volumes on "Russian Church Singing".

Also there is a doctoral dissertation by Jopi Harri that discusses the evolution of St Petersburg Court Chant. This link will take you to the abstract, and there is a link to the dissertation itself at the bottom: http://www.ortodoksi.net/index.php/...adition_of_Eastern_Slavic_Church_Singing

The short of it is that a form of byzantine chant (i think from Thessaloniki, but there is no direct proof) was brought north through Bulgaria ca. 1000, and the systems grew a part over time (though there would be re-injections from time to time). The late medieval version is called Znamenny chant, and is still used by Old Rite Russians to this day. This type of chant uses nuemes similar and based on Greek notation, though the meanings don't are no longer the same. There is a version of this chant in square note notation for Nikonian texts, last published in the early 20th century. Most Russian choir music is based on a local variant of Small Znamenny chant (generic melodies that were easy to remember, and put to text at sight).

I hope this helps somewhat. Of course the full story is more complex, and much of it is still being learned. A lot of history was lost in the Mongol invasions, and that muddies the waters a bit, too. Little, by little, the pieces are being put together. I wish my Russian was better (i.e., would that it existed), as there is a big flourishing of liturgical and musical studying going on in the last few years.

In Christ,
Adam

Carson,

You are probably already aware of much of this, but this link gives a good introduction to prostopinje:

http://metropolitancantorinstitute.org/prostopinije/Prostopinije.html

Prostopinje is unique to the Ruthenians, the champions of congregational singing.

Christ is risen!

Christ is risen!

Carson,

Last year, the Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh offered an 8-week distance learning course on the history of Prostopinije - but going back to its roots in Byzantine chant and early Slavic chant.

If you send me a PM, I can try to hook you up with some of the materials from the course that might answer quite a few of your questions.

In Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

That depends on your definition of "Ruthenian". The liturgical connotation (i.e. "Ruthenian Rescension") also includes the UGCC and its chant usages. One would also have to include Samoylka (Galician), Bulharski, Kyivan, particular Znamenny chants and many other melodic families if speaking of all the peoples of Rus' in the area of the Carpathian Mountains.

I'm sure there are some other Eastern Christians who would also debate the title "champions of congregational singing". I've seen and heard amazing things amongst the Ethiopians with hardly anyone having a hard copy of the text.

There are others who could share the title.

For Ruthenians the boast is justifiable in that it is based on the (oft-quoted) comment of the noted musicologist Johann A. von Gardner; see Full Congregational Participation [patronagechurch.com].

Two experiences of mine to illustrate the present. Some years ago when my sons were grade-school age a friend of theirs went with us to a Sunday Divine Liturgy. After returning home with us he phoned to touch-base with his parents and his first words were, with genuine enthusiasm: We went to church, you should have heard it, they sing everything. More recently a young (conservative) Catholic traveling-ministry group while en route elsewhere just happened on us and came to our Sunday evening Liturgy at our mission community. After liturgy one of the members asked me if we had confession and I offered to get the priest but he said no, he didn't want to go, just wanted to ask if we also sang our sins. (I think he was kidding, just giving his favorable impression).

I hope and pray that we do not let this heritage erode; sometimes I get concerned.

It is justifiable as "champions" but "the champions" is a bit pretentious. Certainly as it extends to the larger "Ruthenian" world liturgically it is a heritage to be very proud of identifying with. I also could relate many examples in our own particular tradition. I teach a primer class on the Eastern Churches at our local Catholic college (Benedictine) and as part of the class I celebrate the Divine Liturgy as deacon along with our UGCC priest. The participation by the students, almost all Latins having no prior experience not just in Samoylka (Galician) chant but in Eastern liturgy at all, was full, active, and enthusiastic and I still get correspondence from students since the first class nearly a decade ago.

Yes, I had hoped to convey that "There are others who could share the title"; like the "breakfast of champions" the intent is inclusion by participation. The "Full Congregational Participation" link supplies such an expanded context:

On the subject of Ruthenian prostopinije: Recent revisions to the liturgy, chant, and English renderings have provoked criticisms, a lot of them voiced in the forum, a number of them by me. Despite those criticism, I want to point to the Metropolitan Cantor Institute [metropolitancantorinstitute.org]. I think it is doing an extraordinary and exemplary job of making our chant available to all in a thorough and, shall I say, un-mercinary manner. And this is just a question: Is there anything else like it on the internet?

Yeah, Ruthenian Chant isn't the most "Championistic" as it were, but I can admit that it is perhaps the easiest form of Chant to follow of most of the Eastern Rite forms, and easiest to learn.

Several of the Kievan Chant settings of "Lord, have mercy" are only two notes. It doesn't get much 'easier' than that.

There are two aspects of this topic that can become conflated: 1. full congregational participation in the singing; and 2. the chant repertoire. They are related but also separate considerations.

Also, while I much appreciate the "pure" Ruthenian chant repertoire, a criticism of the RDL chant reform was its imposition of a restrictive and sometimes arbitrary interpretation of the chant tradition (embodied -- as a pew book --- in what I called the Teal-Tyrant but others more critically the Teal-Terror). And even there some of the most-liked "Ruthenian" chants were actually appropriated from the Ukrainians.

For me the ideal is to be dedicated to congregational singing of Prostopinije / Plainchant in the broadest sense. That sense honors in a special way the oral and manuscript chant traditions of the Subcarpathian Rus’ while also noting the evolution of that living tradition into a chant form proper to the liturgy celebrated in modern English. As such it admits adaptations of the received chant. It also admits contributions and borrowings and adaptations from other appropriate chant traditions that aid in communal sung prayer.

I don't understand why a larger inclusion from the regional chant tradition that are in common use in some BCCA parishes wasn't included. I understand the authority and ability of hierarchs to promulgate liturgical texts, but the letter of promulgation of Metropolitan +Basil also specifically mentions "music" in the promulgation. With such a rich tradition that has developed organically through generations of parochial singing, it seems odd to do something like that.

In our UGCC English Anthology the typical Galician chant settings are included, but regional variants including Kyivan, popular local particular Ukrainian chants such as Pochaiv, Ternopil, Cherkassy, "Carpathian Chant" (essentially Prostopinje) and music from the Slavonic Irmologion are also included as alternate settings.

Yes, exactly.

Some of the Ukrainian and Russian melodies are beautiful. I think the bishops should allow them. I'd also like to see the pre-RDL settings used again. They were far better. Why Rome approved and mandated only the RDL settings of Ruthenian music is a good question.