BYZANTIUM AFTER BYZANTIUM MULTILATERAL PROJECT ( ) Realized with financial support of “Socrates Comenius Programme" “Virgil Madgearu” High School (coordinator) Iasi, Romania “Stenio” High School (partner) Termini Imerese, Italy “Fevzi Cakmak” High School (partner) Adiyaman, Turkey

THE INFLUENCE OF BYZANTINE MUSIC IN ITALY

The acknowledgement of Christianity as established religion from Constantine had important consequences on the historical, political and religious level. People from different ethnic groups, religions and cultures influenced the Byzantine music. The two main trends of the early Christian chants – the Greek musical theory and the Jewish psalmody – were flanked by elements coming from the East, especially from Hebrew, Armenian and early Syrian Christian liturgies. Initially music was handed on orally so there are no collections of proper hymns; about this period we know only the literary part as it is testified in the Ossirinco Papyrus.

Many texts of the early Byzantine hymnography disappeared during the iconoclastic period and the loss of sources is a dramatic circumstance for scholars. In the 10 th century Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus took care personally of the choice of chantors (choristers) and the performance of chants. The figure of melodo (melodist), poet and musician, imposed itself. The main forms of Byzantine hymns were the troparion, the kontakion and the kanon. The tones ( modes) were eight, like in the Gregorian chant, the first four authentic, the other ones plagal. The Byzantine chant influenced the Mozarabic music in Spain, the Beneventan, the Roman and the Ambrosian in Italy. One of the earliest centres of the church music was in Southern Italy, where some Basilian monasteries had been founded during the Byzantine rule. In the 10 th century Saint Nilus of Rossano Calabro founded some monasteries and planned Grottaferrata Abbey, where he was buried and where many liturgical- musical codes are kept. The musical production in Southern Italy expressed itself through the sacred music which reached very high levels under the rule of the Normans, that started the process of transformation of the musical culture.

The Gregorian Chant The Gregorian chant is a monophonic or unison music genre of the Roman Catholic Church, used to accompany the texts of the Mass and the canonical hours or divine office. Its name comes from Saint Gregory I the Great, Pope from 590 to 604, who collected the sacred chants in a volume called Antiphonary.

Two types of chants are distinguished: the accentus and the concentus. The accentus, or syllabic singing, consists in the expressive and rhythmic recitation of prayers, typical of psalmody. The concentus, instead, started hymnody, that is the singing of hymns, which were about Biblical texts, too. The origin of Christian hymnography goes back to Saint Ephraem of Edessa, a 4 th - century Mesopotamian deacon, poet and hymnist called the “father of Christian hymnody”.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus, 4 th -century Church Father and Patriarch of Constantinople, takes the credit for having introduced it into Asia Minor; St.Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, introduced the Greek doctrine and the practice of hymns into the Western Christendom and composed a book of hymn texts in about 360; not much later St. Ambrose of Milan used it, along with the old psalmody, in the rite which was named Ambrosian after him. The main Gregorian chants are: the Chants of the Office or Liturgy of the Hours and the Chants of the Mass.

Among the Chants of the Office are: the Antiphons ( or Refrains), the Psalmody, the Responsories and the Hymns. Among theChants of the Mass are: -The Chants of the Ordinarium Missae ( the Ordinary of the Mass), including texts that remain the same for each mass: the Kyrie eleison, the Gloria in excelsis Deo, the Credo in unum Deum, the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei. -The chants of the Proprium Missae ( the Proper of theMass), which are texts that vary for each mass according to the liturgical calendar, in order to bring out the significance of each feast or season.

They are: the Introit, the Gradual, the Alleluia, the Offertory, the Communion. For many aspects the melodies are like the Byzantine repertory, but they are richer and varied as for the singing style and the manner of performance. The Gregorian chant uses the eight psalm tones or modes, four authentic ( or original) and four plagal ( or derived); each melody is tied to a mode which presents a dominant note, a peculiar range and a typical finale.

The hymns are sung by the officiant and the believers (the congregation), but also by scholae (choirs) and their soloists. The execution of chants originates from the Judaic tradition and the ways of performing them are three: responsorial psalmody, alleluia psalmody and antiphonal psalmody. At first the Gregorian chant was transmitted orally, then it was codified with the beginning of music-writing.

The Ambrosian Chant In Lombardy the Ambrosian chant survived the liturgical reformation carried out by Pope Gregory I the Great at the end of the 6 th century. In 386 Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397, introduced the use of chants not derived from psalms and composed texts and music of his hymns, made innovations in the style and chose the jambic dimeter. The most notable and beautiful hymns attributed to St. Ambrose are: Deus creator omnium; Aeterne rerum conditor; Iam surgit hora tertia; Veni redemptor gentium.

The melodic structure of the Ambrosian chant is simple but rich in mystical and contemplative charge and in expressive power. There are several traits native to Ambrosian chants and not typically Gregorian. Unlike the Gregorian chants, the Ambrosian ones are not stylistically uniform for any liturgical category. The Ambrosian chants are not written in any mode whereas a given Gregorian chant is in one of the eight church modes. The Ambrosian psalm tones ( formulas for intoning psalms) differ from the Gregorian psalm tones in that the former has no middle cadence ( stopping point) and have a greater choice of reciting tones and terminations.

Conclusion After the fall of Constantinople into the Turks’ hands in 1453, the Byzantine melodies were influenced by Arabian and Turkish music. The Byzantine tradition survived in the Basilian monasteries of Southern Italy and Sicily, and now Grottaferrata Abbey is a prominent centre for the study of the old Greek- Byzantine chants. In Sicily Piana degli Albanesi is the centre where the Byzantine culture is still alive and vital. The chants of the Albanians of Sicily have their roots in the Byzantine liturgical music, in particular in the koukouzelis’ s chant, name derived from the protopsaltist( earliest psalmist) John Koukouzelis, a great historical figure in the Bulgarian musical culture, composer of beautiful things. The liturgical chants observe the musical rules of the Byzantine chant and always accompany the liturgical action, reflecting its harmony and its mystical and spiritual significance.