iss. 4, conomos the significance

8/13/2019 Iss. 4, Conomos the Significance...

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The Significance of the Moldavian Monastic Contribution

to the Tradition of Post-Byzantine Psalmody

Dimitri Conomos

All of the known Moldavian composers of Church music in the 16 thcentury applied themselves notonly to the composition of new chants for Orthodox hymnographical texts, but also to the writing ofmelodious psalmody, that is to say, selections from the Book of Psalms (the Psalter) as required for Orthodoxservices. In particular, they set the psalmodic texts of Great Vespers and Matins especially verses from theProoimiakos (Psalm 103), the Kathismata, and the Polyeleos as well as psalm selections for the DivineLiturgy, such as the Prokeimena and Koinonika.

The chief centre of musical activity in Moldavia for over 100 years was the celebrated monastery ofPutna, which was founded in 1466 by St. Stefan the Great (1457-1504) as a thank-offering for his defeat ofthe Tartars. This monastery, like its great predecessors of the 11th century: the Great Lavra, Vatopedi andIviron on Mount Athos, and the 13th-century Italo-Greek Monastery of S. Salvatore in Southern Italy, wasdestined from the outset to play an influential role in shaping the musical tradition of Moldavia. In each of

these monasteries, the writing and copying of music books was an important part of their artistic life.For a long time, the tradition of music manuscript copying at Putna was developed and in factcontrolled by the highly talented scribe, singer and composer, Evstatie, the monk, domestikos1 andprotopsaltes2. He was preceded by the scribe Paisie who copied a March Menaion in 1504 (MS 547 in theLibrary of the Romanian Academy, Bucarest). This Menaion is not notated, but Paisie calls himself a singer:Ryakoya mnogogrieshna Paisia tah i pievtsa(fol. 214v). There is also a later scribe, the hieromonk Antonie(1545), who describes himself asp!vec. Putna produced a substantial number of anthologies of chant, calledakolouthiai, which bear witness to a rich heritage, embracing foreign and local elements. They single out theMonastery of Putna as a major producer of Church music in the late-Byzantine tradition.

Of considerable interest to both musicologists and philologists is the fact that Church music in 16thcentury Moldavia was written and sung in both Greek and Slavonic. It is certainly evident from our sourcesthat the monks of Putna were conversant with both languages. The music manuscripts preserve both familiaritems from the traditional repertories by well-known late-Byzantine and post-Byzantine composers (such as

Koukouzeles, Kladas, Glykes and Chrysaphes), Serbian composers (such as Stefan the domestikos and themonk Joakeim the domestikos) and Moldavian composers (not only Evstatie, but also Dometian the Vlahand Theodosie Zotika). The Moldavians are obviously equally at home in liturgical Greek and Old ChurchSlavonic; occasionally they even mix the two languages or create bi-lingual chants. Frequently, in workswhere Greek is used predominantly or exclusively for the text, Slavonic regularly appears for marginal notesand rubrics.

Nine Moldavian anthologies, all from the 16 thcentury, survive in ten manuscripts, two of which areparts of the same book, written and autographed by Evstatie himself, probably in the year 1511: MS !ukin350 in Moscows State Historical Museum (Gosudarstvenno Istorischekago Muzei), comprising 158 folios,and MS 13.3.16 in St Petersburgs Library of the Academy of Sciences (Biblioteka Akademii Nauk), with 14folios. Evstaties akolouthia is a clearly written, comprehensive collection which follows the format of theByzantine Papadikai of the 14th-16th centuries that is to say, music by early and more recent Greekcomposers, as well as compositions of his own. Unless an earlier anthology of Evstatie comes to light, this

one can be considered a kind of archetype from which the format of the remaining eight books has beenderived. In principle, these collections contain the same pieces, often in an identical but arbitrary order; theybelong to the same melodic traditions; and what is most conspicuous, they comprise an ample number ofsettings in both Greek and in Slavonic and preserve many bilingual chants. The only other source forbilingual chants from this period is MS 928 in the National Library, Athens, written in part by a monk whosigned himself Isaiah the Serb from the Monastery of Matej!e in Macedonia.

1Demesnik = Precentor

2The lead singer in the right-hand choir of the Church.


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Dimitri Conomos The Significance of the Moldavian Monastic Contribution 39

Some years ago I made a study of the music for the psalm verses (with their alleluia refrains) of theByzantine and Slavonic Communion3 cycle. These chants first appear with musical notation in the 12th-century Slavonic Kondakaria and the 13th-century South-Italian asmatika. The idiom in these collections,while florid and melismatic, is meant to be sung by a choir not a soloist. In the new Akolouthiai of theKoukouzelian tradition (14thcentury and later), this psalmody becomes even more elaborate. Occasionallythe music for the alleluia refrain is longer and more complex than that for the psalm verse itself. It is thisstyle which has been adopted by the Moldavians for the liturgical chants in their monasteries. However, this

was by no means a matter of slavish copying, the Moldavian musical genius added elements that were newand original giving the repertory a fresh, local colour.By looking at Evstaties Koinonika, it is possible to establish certain hallmarks of his psalmodic

style. Once known, these hallmarks can be used as a fingerprint to establish his authorship of unattributed oreven wrongly-attributed works in the Moldavian chant books. Two lesser-known Moldavians, Dometian theVlah and Theodosie Zotika, also made original, though small, contributions to the Koinonikon repertory;both preferred Greek texts only while Evstatie used both Greek and Slavonic4. Representation from Serbiacomes in the form of melodies by the well-known Stefan and Joakeim both of whose compositions can befound in Greek akolouthiai of the 15thcentury.

Out of a possible twenty-two psalm verses, only seven Communion chants are actually attributed toEvstatie by the scribes of the Moldavian musical sources. However, because of the appearance of certainfeatures, which are characteristic of his compositional technique, it is my belief that he is the creator of themajority of unidentified pieces in his autograph chant book. The Communion psalms directly attributed to

him are:1. the Koinonikon for the feast of the Apostles in Mode I: V vse zemlya izide(Ps. 18:5) in MS !ukin350 fol. 103r-103v and MS Putna 56 fol. 71v;

2. three settings of the Koinonikon sung at Memorial liturgies: Blazheni yazhe izbra gospod(Pss 64:5& 101:3) one in Mode I (MS Putna 56 fol. 72v-73r) and two in Mode I Plagal (Ms St PetersburgBAN 13.3.16 fol. 12r-12v and MS Putna 56 fol. 74r-74v; MS !ukin 350 fol. 104r and MS Putna 56fol.);

3. the Koinonikon for Holy Thursday in Mode III: Tou deipnou sou tou mystikouin MS Putna 56 fol.68r-69v. This is Evstaties only Greek setting;

4. two settings in Mode I Plagal of the Koinonikon for ferial Saturdays: Raduitese pravedni(Ps. 32:1)in MS Putna 56 fol. 73r-74v; MS !ukin 350 fol. 109r and 104v.Evstaties compositions betray a strong allegiance to Greek musical practices. Indeed, the wholesale

appropriation of Byzantine melodic devices and liturgical conventions and their deployment in a Moldavian

monastic milieu point to a dependence which bears favourable comparison with the late medieval Churchmusic productions of Serbia and Russia. Without exception, Evstatie, Antonie, Makarie and the otherMoldavian scribes write the alleluia refrain to their Slavonic Koinonika in Greek letters (alpha and lambdaare always in Greek script, while the scribes usually write the Slavonic ! for eta) and, for purposes ofrepetition, the scribes use the sung instructionpalin(=again) untranslated5. The appearance of this term andof lege (=say) in Evstaties alleluias is so common that they become an identifiable characteristic of hissettings veritable clichs (they are only occasionally found in contemporary Greek compositions). This iscurious because it seems clear that the meaning ofpalinwas not really understood by the chanters at Putna;for this reason Evstatie invented a symbol, ", which directed the performers to repeat a section of the refrain.

The alleluia refrain to Evstaties Saturday Koinonikon in Mode I Plagal, Raduitese pravedni (MS!ukin 350 fol 104v and MS Putna 56 fol. 73r-73v) is instructive in that it exhibits a number of featureswhich can be used as fingerprints of Evstaties style:

The opening syllable, na, is very common within Byzantine alleluia melodies that follow the

Communion psalm verses. It has a practical function: to separate the last syllable of one alleluia from thefirst syllable of the following one. It is obvious that Evstatie imitates this practice in the subsequentrepetitions of the word, as shown in the example. It is uncommon, however, to find this consonant, as itappears here with the first utterance of the word, and even more surprising is Evstaties use of Cyrillic lettersfor the first syllable of an otherwise entirely Greek refrain. Secondly, the small five-note figure under thebracket marked P, known as a parakalesma (one of the standard cheironomic melodic devices of late

3Koinonikon[Gk] orprichasten [Sl]

4Dometian the Vlah is the composer of a Wednesday koinonikon (Potirion sotiriou) in Mode IV Plagal which was transcribed andpublished by G. Pan"iru in 1970. Theodosie Zotika is the composer of a Sunday Koinonikon,Aineite ton kyrion.

5Palin= da capo.


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40 Acta Musicae Bizantinae IV

Byzantine music), is almost always used by Evstatie at the beginning of his alleluias regardless of the piecesmodality. Thirdly, Evstaties treatment of the sung instructionpalinis also informative. Here, as elsewhere,he sets the first syllable to a two-note repercussive pattern (which may comprise from four to six notes) andgives the last syllable a long note. This figure, marked Ounder the bracket, with its characteristic accents onthe upper note (the oxeia, marked by >) and the gorgon(marked by #, directing a rapid execution), stronglyresembles the cheironomic formula known as the omalon. Occasionally, Byzantine composers use theomalonwithpalin, but more often when the term isused, no particular melodic formula is preferred. This is

also true of the instruction lege, to which Evstatie invariably gives an epegerma(not shown here); but whenused by the Greeks, the term can be given any one of a number of motives. Fourthly, Evstaties unique repeatsign afterpalin($) directs the chanters back to the same sign at the beginning of the alleluia refrain. With thefinal alleluia the term would presumably not be repeated, and the singers would either by-pass the omalonand continue with the cadence on the final letter, or they would use the omalonfigure, without the palin, tocreate an extended melismatic ending. The final fingerprint, the post-cadential rising phrase (after the brokenbar-line), a feature of Greek settings from the 13thcentury, is included somewhat mechanically by Evstatie invirtually all of his compositions. Its function of notifying the clergy that the hymn has ended identifies aMoldavian adaptation of Greek liturgical practices. This is hardly surprising, since it is well known thatRomanian monks travelled to and entered Greek monastic communities.

Having isolated these features of Evstaties compositional style, I would now like to suggest that, byusing them as a guide, we may identify as his creations a number of anonymous compositions in theMoldavian sources:

1. A setting ofRaduitese pravedni in Mode I Plagal (MS Putna 56 fol. 72r-72v) strongly resembles, inits opening phrases, the two compositions for this text attributed to Evstatie, also in this mode6.Moreover, as in the above example, use is made of Evstaties special repeat sign which functionswith the palin; the alleluia opens with a parakalesma formula on the syllable na, and the motiveabovepalinis a modified omalon. Finally, the post-cadential phrase is identical to that in Example 1.

2. A second setting of the same text, also in Mode I Plagal (MS Sofia 816 fol 107v-108v and Bucarest283 fol 139r-139v), but with the Slavonic words written in Greek characters. Again the alleluiacarries aparakalesmaopening with the intercalation non its first syllable, and the omalonfigure onpalin. Possibly this chant was composed for Greek monks visiting Putna.

3. A setting of Tvorei angeli svoya (the Koinonikon for feasts of the Angels, Ps. 103:4) in Mode I (MS!ukin 350 fol. 98v). Once again the alleluia uses the parakalesmaopening, the special repeat sign,and the omalonfigure onpalin.

4. A setting of Chasha spaseniye(The Koinonikon for feasts of the Mother of God, Ps 115:4) in ModeI Plagal (MS St Petersburg BAN 13.3.16 fol 12v) uses much of the material from Evstaties otherPlagal I Koinonikon settings and is clearly the work of the same hand. Moreover, the fact that it isrecorded only in his autograph and that it is a condensed version of other compositions by himargues favourably to this end.If my judgments, based as they are on the sheer strength of the musical evidence, are correct, eleven

Koinonikon settings can now be ascribed to Evstatie of Putna: ten Slavonic and one Greek. This is indeed aremarkably high number by late medieval standards, ranking favourably with the compositions of Kladas,Korones and Chrysaphes, and it bears witness to a highly prolific and ingenious composer. It should beunderstood, however, that of the ten Slavonic settings, several share a considerable amount of material.

Evstaties psalmodic style clearly comprises a common vocabulary of melodic idioms familiar fromByzantine musical practices. It is fairly elaborate and is varied by a deployment of irregular phrases. There isusually some correlation between textual accents and musical inflections, which evokes a primitiverecitative-like simplicity with very moderate embellishment. Its semi-ornate character rarely interferes with

the intention of the composer to focus attention onto the text. This is more than merely a question ofunoriginal copying; rather, I believe that it is the conservation of a strong and authentic melodic traditionwhich dates from early Christian times and which entered Moldavia in Byzantine musical dress. We shouldappreciate Evstaties oeuvre as a challenging and influential extension of a rich musical heritage. Thedelightful and telling touches that we have encountered allow us to acknowledge his highly imaginative andsophisticated musical mind. Indeed, Evstatie of Putna must have been one of the most remarkable figures inthe cultural life of Moldavia of his time. Aside from being a prolific composer of Church music, he was avery competent scribe, with a taste for decorative effects, the inventor of ciphers, and a choral master andsolo singer. His works were evidently sung at Putna and beyond at least to the mid-sixteenth century.

6No. 4, above.


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Dimitri Conomos The Significance of the Moldavian Monastic Contribution 41

It is now evident that the musical tradition of Putna was neither simply local nor wholly limited to abrief period. The adoption of bi-lingual chants in other Moldavian religious houses and the use of Greek,Serbian and Romanian chants say much about the nature of this international tradition in the post-Byzantineera. In particular, the contribution of Evstatie was obviously a significant one. His own compositions, andthose of Dometian and Theodosie, offer concrete proof of the early dependence of Romanian psalmody uponByzantine models. At the same time, Evstaties flair for inventiveness and his bold editorial skills indicate anacute awareness of the need for modification appropriate to local conditions. It is evident that the hegemony

of Greek as a liturgical language and consequently of Greek chants for use in Moldavian monasteries wasbeing contested. But the new trends of Evstaties school were far from radical departures. Rather, theevidence reveals an impressive and remarkably conservative allegiance to traditional practices. Thanks to theindustry of the Romanian scribes, we know that the fine products of late Byzantine composers survived in agenuine and authentic Moldavian musical tradition in the 16thcentury.

iss. 4, conomos the significance

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