Studii si Cercetari de Istoria Artei : Teatru, Muzică, Cinematografie (Dec 2015)
INANES ET INFICETI. Vechimea octoihului și stihurile celor opt glasuri
Abstract
The topic of the grassroots of octaechia (η οκταηχια) 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 (V-VI 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 (ηαρμονιαι) 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 reflexion 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. They appear in manuscripts starting with the XII century, in different variants, among which one later on (XVth century), published only in the midst of the last century. The most common variant that can be found in the printed books, seems to have an author, the Bishop Theodore of Cyzicus, a correspondent, among others, of emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Although these rhymes, that pretend to portray in a naïve and obsolete metaphor, the character of each echos, have been considered, in the first scientific printed anthology, as „barren and dull (uninspired)” (illos [...] inanes et inficetos), they are still able to transmit the echo of the theological conception in connection with music’s role of spiritual loftiness of music within the Christian cult, the way it is encountered in the first writings of the Fathers of Church, as well as other authors close to our days, such as Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite.
