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Musicology Today Journal of the National University of Music Bucharest Issue 4 (28) October-December 2016 Title: Byzantium, Folklore, Race: National Church Music in Interwar Romania Author: Costin Moisil E-mail: Source: Musicology Today: Journal of the National University of Music Bucharest / Volume 7 Issue 4 (28) / October-December 2016, pp 277-289 Link to this article: musicologytoday.ro/28/MT28studiesMoisil.pdf How to cite this article: Costin Moisil, “Byzantium, Folklore, Race: National Church Music in Interwar Romania”, Musicology Today: Journal of the National University of Music Bucharest, 7/4 (28) (2016), 277-289. Published by: Editura Universității Naționale de Muzică București Musicology Today: Journal of the National University of Music Bucharest is indexed by EBSCO, RILM, and ERIH PLUS Studies Costin Moisil National University of Music Bucharest Byzantium, Folklore, Race: National Church Music in Interwar Romania* Keywords: Orthodox church music, Byzantine chant, Macarie the Hiero- monk, Anton Pann n the wake of the First World War, the young Romanian state1 doubled its surface and population. Unlike pre-war Romania, where 90% of the Idwellers were ethnic Romanians and Orthodox Christians, Romanians now accounted for a little more than two thirds of the population. The rest of the population was comprised of Hungarians, Germans, Jews, Roma and other minorities. About 85% of the Romanians were Orthodox, and 10% Greek-Catholics, the latter living mostly in Transylvania.2 * The main part of this article has been published in a slightly different form in Roma- nian language in “Muzica bisericească națională în muzicologia românească. Partea a II-a: perioada interbelică” [The National Church Music in Romanian Musicology. Part II: The Interbellum], in Artă și știință 2010 [Art and Science 2010], edited by Petruța Măniuț Coroiu (Brașov: Editura Universității Transilvania din Brașov, 2010), 141–42, 144–46, 149–50, 153–55, 160–61, 165–66 and resumed in Geniu românesc vs. tradiție bizantină: imaginea cântării bisericești în muzicologia românească [Romanian Genius vs. Byzantine Tradition: The Image of Church Chant in Romanian Musicology] (Bucha- rest: Editura Muzicală, 2016), 31, 65, 68–70, 71, 73–75, 77–78, 79–80, 87–88, 94–95. 1 The principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia elected the same prince, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, in 1859. The two states were unified during a process that unfolded in the fol- lowing three years. The new state was called Romania since 1862. After the First World War Romania also included territories which were parts of the Austrian and Russian empires: Transylvania, north of Banat, south of Bukovina, and Bessarabia. 2 Gh. Iacob, “Populația. Transformări sociale” [The Population. Social Change], in Isto- ria Românilor [The History of Romanians], vol. 7, part 2: De la Independență la Marea Unire (1878–1918) [From the Independence to the Great Union (1878–1918)], edited by Gheorghe Platon (Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică, 2003), 62–64; Ion Agrigo- roaiei, Ioan Scurtu, “Teritoriul, populația, starea de spirit” [The Territory, the Popula- tion, the General Mood in the Country], in Istoria Românilor, vol. 8: România întregită Journal of the National University of Music Bucharest 278 | Studies | Costin Moisil The church music of the Romanian Orthodox was no less diverse. In the Old Kingdom, that is Wallachia and Moldavia, they sang Byzantine music. In the monasteries, the chant resembled more the Constantinople model. Nevertheless, they used the variants of chants translated into Romanian and printed by Macarie the Hieromonk and Anton Pann in the early nineteenth century. In the outskirts, villages, and in Transylvania they sung simplified variants and the music was transmitted mainly orally. In the main urban churches there were choirs in-parts singing various kinds of music at the Divine Liturgy. As Gavriil Musicescu put it around 1900: I do not think there is a country with a greater variety of styles in Church compositions than Romania. In our churches with a choir one can hear: simple harmonic combinations, on the basis of a figured bass; compositions in the modern style of the Catholic Church, as well as the Italian stage style; attempts at a national style, using popular melodic figures; claims of a wide musical knowledge, such as imitations, fughettas, complicated modulations etc., attempts at an imitation of the style adopted in the Russian Orthodox Church, original compositions by foreign authors, mainly Russians, and moreover, one can even hear profane choirs with religious texts.3 Despite, or maybe because of, this variety, the question of a national church music was quite widely debated. The main ideas were those set as early as the late nineteenth-century: Romanian church music originated in the Byzantine one; by adapting the Byzantine chant to the Romanian language and to the Roma- nian genius, and by purging the Turkish traits of the modern Byzantine chant, this music acquired a national character; the harmonized variants of the adapted chants were part of the national music as well; it was highly desirable to have a uniform repertory all over the country, because a nation implied uniformity.4 (1918–1940) [Romania Reunited (1918–1940)], edited by Ioan Scurtu and Petre Otu (Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică, 2003), 56; Ioan Scurtu, “Societatea românească în perioada interbelică” [Romanian Society in the Interwar Period], in Istoria Românilor, vol. 8, 125; Ioan Scurtu, Ion Agrigoroaiei, Petre Otu, “Instituțiile” [The Institutions], in Istoria Românilor, vol. 8, 209, 212–13; Viorel Achim, Țiganii în istoria României [Gypsies in the History of Romania] (Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică, 1998), 120–22. 3 Gavriil Musicescu, quoted in Octavian Lazăr Cosma, Hronicul muzicii românești [The Chronicle of Romanian Music], vol. 4: Romantismul [Romanticism], 1859–1898 (Bucharest: Editura Muzicală, 1976), 192. 4 For details see Costin Moisil, “Muzica bisericească națională în muzicologia româ- nească. Partea I: de la întemeierea României până la primul război mondial” [The Nati- onal Church Music in Romanian Musicology. Part I: From the Foundation of Romania Musicology Today Issue 4 | 2016 National Church Music in Interwar Romania | 279 In the interwar period, after the national state was consolidated and recognized as such by foreigners, Romanians felt less the need to legitimize themselves as Europeans and compare themselves with neighbouring states. Musicologists could now shift their interest to “nationalism-free” topics such as the Byzantine chant from which the Romanian chant originated. On the other hand, they became more interested in elements specific to Romanian church music. Consequently, interwar writings about the Romanian chant attached less importance to the comparison with the Greek or Turkish or Russian music and invoked less the opposition between East and West, but laid emphasis instead on national traits for which they mainly looked to traditional folk music. Byzantium Unlike the prewar writers, Constantin Brăiloiu5 and Alexandru I. D. Ștefă- nescu6 were interested not in the differences between the Romanian and the Constantinopolitan church chant, but in their common aspects, and in the possibility of revival of Byzantine music in Romania. Constantin Brăiloiu’s view about church music was similar to the one of Western researchers at the time:7 Oriental church music—taken by the Roma- to the First World War], in Portretele muzicii românești — 2007 [Portraits of Romani- an Music—2007], edited by Petruța Măniuț (Brașov: Editura Universității „Transil- vania,” 2007), 128–46, and “The Role of the Nationalism in Modeling the Romanian Chant before the First World War. The Case of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostome,” http://www.asbmh.pitt.edu/page12/Moisil.pdf (accessed on 17 February 2014). 5 Well-known for his activity as an ethnomusicologist, Constantin Brăiloiu (1893– 1958) was also interested, though to a lesser extent, in church music: he was director and professor of the Academy of Religious Music in Bucharest, contributed to the post- humous edition of the Psaltic Liturgy by D. G. Kiriac, and conducted religious pieces by Romanian composers in concert (Alexie Buzera, “Constantin Brăiloiu și Academia de Muzică Religioasă” [Constantin Brăiloiu and the Academy of Religious Music], in Cen- tenar Constantin Brăiloiu [Constantin Brăiloiu’s Centennial], edited by Vasile Tomescu and Michaela Roșu (Bucharest: Editura Muzicală a Uniunii Compozitorilor și Muzico- logilor din România, 1994), 191–98; Emilia Comișel, “Constantin Brăiloiu — viața și opera” [Constantin Brăiloiu—His Life and Works], in Centenar Constantin Brăiloiu, 29; Vasile Vasile, Istoria muzicii bizantine și evoluția ei în spiritualitatea românească [The His- tory of Byzantine Music and its Evolution in Romanian Spirituality], vol. 2 (Bucharest: Interprint, 1997), 250). 6 During his short life, Alexandru Ștefănescu (1916–1933) was equally interested in history and music. He was equally well versed in Western music—having studied the violin, the piano, and composition—and in Byzantine music. 7 Brăiloiu mentioned the names of H. J. W. Tillyard, Amédée Gastoué, and Egon Wellesz and quoted the opinions—which were older, but still accepted by Western musicolo- gists at the time—of L. A. Bourgault-Ducoudray (“Muzica bisericească (I)” [Church Mu- sic (I)], in Constantin Brăiloiu, Opere/Oeuvres, vol. 6, edited by Emilia Comișel (Bucha- rest: Editura Muzicală, 1998), 238; “Muzica bisericească (II),” in Brăiloiu, Opere, 240; “Muzicomoftologie