Bilingual neume collections of the late middle ages - a new view at the well-known music sources

Abstract

The long-term process of the byzantinization of Serbian culture and art, intensified in the framework of complex political relations at the beginning of the 15th century, is testified, among others, by the preserved bilingual Greek-Slavonic musical manuscripts. As the primary sources in the reconstruction of the Serbian church chanting art in the late Middle Ages, but also the Byzantine-Serbian musical connections, the neum manuscripts unambiguously confirm the existence of the bilingual worship practice at the time of Despotovina Serbia. The long-held views on the dated two neum anthologies from the Great Lavra (E 108) and the National Library of Greece (EVE 928), their scribes, composers and songs in this paper are critically examined for the first time. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177004: Identiteti srpske muzike od lokalnih do globalnih okvira: tradicije, promene, izazovi]

Keywords

• neum musical manuscripts
• EBE 928
• Lavra 108
• anthology
• music scribe
• Serbs
• Greeks