In his monography about Magister Léonin and his Magnus liber organi, Rudolf Flotzinger wrote that there was no Magnus liber organi during his lifetime, his students did write it posthumously. This corresponds somehow to the function of the domestikos today, who is no longer the leader of the right choir, but the assistant of the Archon Protopsaltis or the Lampadarios (see Lykourgos Angelopoulos' workshop "Organizing the Byzantine choir"). The office includes the charge to write down the psaltic art of the Archon Protopsaltis or the Lampadarios into Byzantine notation. Until the early 20th century, some of the Archon Protopsaltis consequently refused the notation of the New Method or Chrysanthine neumes, among them Konstantinos Byzantios and Iakovos Nafpliotis, or even Petros Peloponnesios' analytic way of using Late Byzantine notation, in case of Iakovos the Protopsaltis.
It is probably this relic of kalophonia, as far as it has survived in the living tradition of Orthodox chant, which makes appear Orthodox singers so well skilled in the Parisian ars organi. No singer today has so far matched the level of Lykourgos Angelopoulos' interpretation of Léonin's Magnus liber organi.
Organum duplum over the gradual «Benedicta et venerabilis» (version F, ff. 122v-123v):
One of the «Benedicamus domino» of the Magnus liber (version F, ff. 87v-88r):
Maybe some of those members who were present during the recording of these organa would like to share with us their memory...
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