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Romanian Ochtoechoi and Similarities to Middle Eastern Modes and Practices: a Case Study (Part I)

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Romanian Ochtoechoi and Similarities to Middle Eastern Modes and Practices: a Case Study (Part I) Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Bra şov Series VIII: Art • Sport • Vol. 4 (53) No. 1 - 2011 ROMANIAN OCHTOECHOI AND SIMILARITIES TO MIDDLE EASTERN MODES AND PRACTICES: A CASE STUDY (PART I) B. SCURTU 1 C. ŢUŢU2 Abstract: This two-part article will try to capture, trace and analyze the Byzantine musical modes, as they appeared at a brief moment, some nineteen hundred years later, in a specific geographical place, a former part of the Byzantium Empire. We will try to compare the Church modes, as they appear in two Romanian Seminary textbooks, published one in 1900 and the other one in 1939 to other modal structures developed in the heartland of Eastern Christianity, the Middle East. Key words: Ochtoechoi, Maqamat, Makamlar, diatonic, chromatic, enharmonic 1. Introduction elements were there when the religion started, in the times of Jesus, as it is the Orthodox Christians proud themselves case with music. Tight rules and practices and distinguish themselves from other kept the tradition intact from generation to Christian denominations by the direct generation, with minimal changes and unbroken lineage from Jesus and His adaptation. But did indeed this Art go Apostles, with unchanged doctrine and the unchanged for two thousand years? original practices of worship. It is also said that Eastern Orthodox Christianity is the 2. Diachronic perspective on Middle only Christian denomination that has a Eastern musical system complete philosophical system. Although it claims to be profoundly a-political, it The Byzantine system of modes is called was at the center of an Empire, by which Ochtoechoi and it is comprised of eight name it is known today: Byzantium. The modes called Echoi . The system was vast areas the Empire comprised helped thought to have originated from the Greek crystallize and develop a unique style of modes (due to the Eastern Orthodox post Painting, a unique style of Architecture, Byzantine center, in Greece). After the religious poetry and music system, which conquest of Constantinople, Greece today are known as Byzantine Art. Some established itself as the main center of 1 Stony Brook University, New York. 2 Faculty of Music, Transilvania University, Bra şov. 70 Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Bra şov. Series VIII • Vol. 4 (53) No. 1 - 2011 Eastern Orthodoxy especially due to the the Echoi lost some of the tradition is the center of Orthodox monasticism of Mount Russian Orthodox Church, were cultural Athos where other Eastern European imports brought in by Peter the Great countries (besides Greece, of course), such determined a Westernization of the modal as Romania, Serbia, Georgia and Russia structures, simplifying the chants and have monasteries; however the Patriarch of eliminating the un-tempered scale degrees. Constantinople (modern Istanbul) is still Due to these facts, we will limit our considered today the “First Among research to Romanian Ochtoechoi as they Equals” in between the Patriarchs of appear in treatises at the beginning of the different National Churches. 20th century. Today it’s widely accepted in Byzantine In the realm of creativity and the music scholarship that the Ochtoechoi relationship between composer – have originated from the old Temple performer – listener, the Middle Eastern Jewish Chant and were later influenced by music and the Byzantine one differ (pre-Islamic) Syriac Music. radically one from another and from the Byzantine music has only one purpose, Western classical ideal. While writing and that is to serve the religious texts, to music, the Middle Eastern composers mold to the syllables, without interfering merely suggest a line; it is then for the and at the most to emphasize certain words performer to perfect and adjust it in each or phrases. Islamic music and in particular performance, based on the input from the that of certain Sufi orders, work exactly in audience. The audience is an active the same way, where music will support participant, they approve or disapprove and enhance the meaning of the religious phrases, they can request repetition of poems. favourite phrases, and the performer can Due to the modern organization of the accommodate some of the request. Eastern Orthodoxy in National In the Byzantine modal system, the autocephalous and autonomous Churches composers are usually anonymous, and I in communion with each other, and to the would draw a comparison with another Art functionality of Byzantine music that is (I’m using this word in this context only applied to the text, each National Church for convention) in the Eastern Church – the developed a tradition of slightly different Ikon painting. Just like the music, the Ikon chants but in the same system of modes. serves a specific purpose and function in The continuity, development and the Eastern Church: Ikons are to be perfection of Byzantine Art tradition over venerated and the Ikon Are the Holy the ages occurred in the monastic Person they depict; the painters of Ikons environment. In the case of music, the are trained anonymous monks free and National languages influenced the actual devoid of any artistic individuality. The chants, as the focus would switch to music Ikon is not Art and should not be instead of the words, if hymns would be comprehended in terms of Art. The music translated on the same melody from one for the service and for other religious language to another. The functions of the poems is composed in the same way, with Echoi, their astral correspondent and their a few exceptions of recent (from the late rotation into the Orthodox service based on 1800s) classical trained composers. calendar days could be the subject of an Traditionally, performing Byzantine and entire paper, although enough research has Middle Eastern music is done mainly in a already been done on the topic. The only heterophonical style, the most with some exception, the only National Church were sustaining pedal tones. While Makamlar B. SCURTU et al .: Romanian Ochtoechoi and similarities to Middle Eastern modes and … 71 can be performed in laic environments Unfortunately, the equal temperament of with instruments as well, Byzantine music the Ochtoechoi is a reality in today’s is sung traditionally almost exclusively by Romanian Orthodox Music. A modern male voices. textbook published in 1997 [4] to be used But the most important issue is the in seminaries across the country compares tuning of these systems of modes. While the modes with the neumatic notation with there has been some scholarship in this modern linear notation in equal field in Byzantine music, it’s been temperament. Indeed, while listening to a surpassed by far by the amount of research recording over the Internet of the chant performed in the Middle Eastern modes, Ceea ce e şti bucuria (Romanian for “The which doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing in One that are the Joy”) by the Choir of the itself after all. The multitude of research Bucharest Seminary, everything is sung in into Maqamat (the system of Middle equal temperament. Eastern Modes) and Makamlar (the system of Ottoman Modes) established an 3. Romanian Byzantine music textbooks conventional nomenclature in describing the modes in quarter tones, although most As we wrote before, the two earlier Treatises in the field acknowledge that Romanian textbooks for seminaries, theory is different from practice and that Popescu-Pas ărea (1939) [2] and Severeanu there are finer tunings than that: “pitches in (1900) [5] describe the modes in performance vary from the theoretical microtonal tuning. pitches (…) in makam saba, for example, Before going into more details, we feel the fourth degree consistently measures an obliged to draw attention to the title average of 29 cents higher in practice than employed by these two older treatises, of in theory” [1]; parts of it had to do with the Oriental Psaltic Church Music . Both of desire and search of explaining the them use the term Oriental , which might Maqamat and Makamlar with Greek be an indicator showing the belonging of Pythagorean theory; one of the approaches the Romanian Orthodox Music practice to in explaining intervals in Ottoman and the Middle Eastern style as opposed to the Middle Eastern music has been by giving Russian (Westernized) style; it might as fractions of string vibrations using a long well be an indicator opposing the Greek necked fretted lute such as the Ottoman origin of the modes (in the late 1800s and tanbur , and event that method in itself is early 1900s it had just been proven that the debatable. Byzantine modes are traced from the But in the case of Byzantine Music Middle East Jewish chants from the theory, where there are no instruments Temple and the Syriac chant, as we allowed (although in the distant past, the mentioned before, and not from the Greek organ was used in the Orthodox Church; modes). the organ was also used in the Jewish The interesting aspect in both of these temple and in the early Syriac Christian treatises is that although their authors show Church) [2], it is even harder to determine the structure of the Echoi while using the the exact pitches for each individual modal word “quarter tone”, when summed up, the structure, and we will have to rely on the quarter tones of each Byzantine scale sum tradition: “Fetis shows us on Western up to only 22 units to an octave. Did they notation these formulas; but they don’t just forget to add one half tone (or two correspond with those that were more quarters) or was there a different transmitted to us through tradition.” [3] division employed by the practice of 72 Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Bra şov. Series VIII • Vol. 4 (53) No. 1 - 2011 singing the Orthodox hymns? Or does it structure, for which we are using our own really matter, are the results still the same or linear notation using neutral pitches and no about the same? To allow our reader to take finer tuning than the standard quartertone.
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