Inanes Et Inficeti. Vechimea Octoihului Şi Stihurile Celor Opt Glasuri
INANES ET INFICETI. VECHIMEA OCTOIHULUI ŞI STIHURILE CELOR OPT GLASURI DANIEL SUCEAVA* Abstract The topic of the grassroots of octaechia (h2 o3ktahci1a) as a taxonomical principle concerning the eight modes of the Byzantine music, as well as the octoechos in terms of liturgical book to which this principle has been applied (or has originated from), has undergone several periods of time while being object to research study. Since the legendary paternity of Saint John Damascene, the pioneer of the semiography and Byzantine hymnography in church tradition, passing through the reevaluation from the first decade of the last century, resulting in considering the octoechos of Severus, the Monophysit Patriarch of Antioch (5th–6th c.), as being the first certification of the hymnographical octaechia, the recent studies in which, refuting the afore-mentioned hypothesis, written proofs had been revealed, including fragments on papyrus, prior to Damascenian epoch (Greek, Georgian, Armenian, Syrian, Arabic manuscripts, some recently discovered), try to prove that the origin of the cult book, structured on the eight-week continuous sequence of the Christian liturgical calendar, is hagiopolitan (Palestinian), therefore reflecting the liturgical service of the cathedral in Jerusalem. The equivalence of the eight echoi (modes) of the psaltic theory with the harmoniai (a2rmoni1ai) of the Hellenic ancestry has been regarded from the beginning of more rigorous investigations on the phenomenology of the Byzantine musical art, as an artificial construction. But even those short dodecasyllabic poems, devoted to each echos that can be encountered within the Greek octoechoi in which the old ethos-doctrine of the Hellenic harmoniai late reflection has been seen, have been considered, by the scolars who scientifically managed to publish and decipher the Byzantine musical monuments, factical poetical improvisations lacking any real ground.
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