REVIEW ARTICLE

ETHIOPIAN CHRISTIAN LITURGICAL CHANT

BY

TANIA TRIBE (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London)

SHELEMAY,Kay Kaufman, JEFFERY, Peter (eds.), Ethiopian Christian Liturgical Chant: Art Anthology, 3 vols., Madison, Wisconsin, A-R Editions. Vol. 1: General Introduction and Dictionaries of Notational Signs, 1993, xi + 125 pp., 0 89579 285 0, $42.95; Vol. 2: PerformancePractice and the Liturgical Portions, 1994, vii + 103 pp., 0 89579 294 X, $39.20; compact disc accompa- nying Vol. 2: AVL94196, $19.95; Vol. 3: History of Ethiopian Chant, 1997, vi + 162 pp., 0 89579 322 9, $61.60.

This ambitious ethnomusicological text and anthology of Ethiopian liturgical music is the product of several years' work by Shelemay and Jeffery. The three volumes offer a considered insight into a rich but still comparatively little known musical culture, and represent a sub- stantial piece of research by two scholars who have engaged in depth with their subject. Their ability to learn from Ethiopian musical experts Alaqa (lit. 'learned man') Berhanu Makonnen, Berhan Abiye and Tebebu Tseger is to be commended. Not least, it has led them to reappraise carefully the limitations, as well as the usefulness, of the ethnomusi- cologist's western musical training when seeking to understand the full range and subtlety of a non-western musical practice such as that of Ethiopian liturgical chant. Since the 4th century most of highland Ethiopia has been Monophysite Christian, retaining an ancient liturgy chanted in Ge'ez, with partici- pation by the congregation in the form of hand-clapping, ululation and rhythmic movements. A collection of chants performed before the Mass on Sundays and holidays throughout the entire liturgical year forms the non-monastic or 'cathedral' office, the most important occasion for 488 music in the Ethiopian liturgy. Traditionally, this Ethiopian liturgical chant is monophonic and includes the qëddase, containing the sixteen to twenty anaphorae of the Ethiopian rite; the zëmmare, a collection of eucharistic canticles; the dikgu)a, containing the hymns for the festivals of the whole church year, except I,ent; the mäwasë"'t, a special collec- tion of hymns; and the /7MYa/,the main manual for the daily oflices. These chants are based on three zema, or genres, which differ in tonal structure: the built on three principal disjunct notes; the based on a chromatic scale divided into two sections; and the eiraray, based on a pentatonic scale. All three zema are built up from original texts (sàåju), forming a succession of melodic cells usually consisting of an initial syllabic section and a concluding melismatic cadence. Although tradition attributes the composition of these hymns to the 6th century Ethiopian Saint Yared, the oldest Ethiopian musical manuscripts date from the 14th century. These traditional notations and styles of performance were revised in the 17th century, during the Gondar period. Established by Emperor Fasiladas in 1635, the city of Gondar became a centre for all liturgi- cal and musical activity, playing a significant role in supporting and influencing the chant tradition. There was extensive royal patronage for musicians, and the production of notated manuscripts was encour- aged, leading to increasing reconstruction, revision and standardization of the Ethiopian Christian oral musical tradition. Shelemay and Jeffery's work makes available important and reliable empirical information on this chant tradition, including a sample of eighteen complete chants notated in the dë"ggwa and accompanied by transcriptions in western notation (volume 2). One of the central concerns of the text is the problem of how the indigenous Ethiopian liturgical musical notation relates to these tran- scriptions. As the authors emphasize, Ethiopian notation emerged from the close union of music and text in a liturgical setting, representing textual-melodic information that was stored in the mind of the singer. Its marginal (bet) and interlinear (mëlëkkët)mnemonic signs take the form of the Ethiopian writing script, comprising one, two or three letters which represent the abbreviation of a word or group of words associ- ated with a given melody type. Fusing word and melody in the signs, this notation exemplifies the learning process involved in the traditional Ethiopian practice. In particular, it leaves room for the traditional singer to reshape basic musical material according to contemporary local prac- tices and personal norms rather than providing a prescriptive guide to rhythm and specific pitch, as is the case with current western notation.