In the present blog I’ll try to avoid terminologies and elements of Greek chant that, for one with no intimacy with the subject -a Gregorianist for example – can be perceived as foreign, difficult and laborious to deal with; mainly something exotic that should be left to those devoted to (Latin and / or Greek) music theory. I am aware that it could appear as more “neutral” and “unbiased” if I chose to simply list the online sources, but I prefer to go into more detail, adding some comments in the end about modern vocabularies. Addressing Latin chant specialists about online sources of Musica Enchiriadis is, after all, more straight-forward than informing them about Greek chant theory stuff. Last but not least, those who still believe that “it’s all Greek” to them can enjoy the diagrams and the schemes of the MSS; some of them are really beautiful.
A small introduction
The earliest Byzantine MSS of ancient Greek music theory (below I give the links of about 130 online MSS from 11th century onwards) appear to us –believe it or not- only after the 11th century. The D-Heu: Cod. Pal. gr. 281 (Mathiesen, 1988 No 14 [=Math. 14]) is written on 14 January of 1040 (or 6548 W.E.). The other MSS of 11th and 12th centuries are I-Vnm: Gr. app. cl. VI/3 (coll. 1347) (Math. 270, Vitrac 2019 [=Vitrac] p. 142, Acerbi-Gioffreda 2019, p. 655), I-Vnm: Gr. 307 (coll. 1027) (Math. 261, Vitrac p. 142) and later I-Rvat: Gr. 2338 (Math. 234, Acerbi-Gioffreda 2019 Va [13th century], p. 661) with I-Vnm: Gr. app. cl. VI/10 (coll. 1300) (Math. 273, Düring 79 M, additionally the 14th century hand of Grēgoras has been identified [Bianconi 2005, p. 413 No 12, Acerbi 2016, p. 186, No 10, e.g. he added the numbers and titles of chapters of book I of Ptolemaios’s Harmonica, see also Vitrac, p. 66 and p. 142]). But for us it is important to know the relation of them (and of the later ones) to medieval music.
Indeed, some of the, for example, 13th and 14th century Greek manuscripts that contain the treatises of ancient musicographers (who go back to 4th century B.C.), are full of medieval scholia and paratextual diagrams (mainly on Claudios Ptolemaios’s Harmonica [2nd century A.D.]) about Greek chant theory; a good deal of them (especially those connecting ēchoi to the names Dōrios, Phrygios etc.) never published. But first, let us begin with a useful note which shall underline the importance of these relatively late sources about the modern prospects of medieval chant in general.
A pattern? The earlier the sources the later the socio-cultural entity
We do not have in our disposal – in contrast to Latin chant- any text of chant theory in Greek (excluding few ekphonetic signs lists) from the 1st millennium. But in the neumes table of M. Lavra Γ 67, f. 159r (10th / beginning 11th century) there is the following - not rudimentary- chant theory sentence: the voices are seven, but the ēchoi four, three mesoi, two phthorai and four plagioi, voice 1st, voice 2nd, voice 3rd, voice 4th, voice 5th, voice 6th, voice 7th, that is the “fin(e)-al” (τελεία, more economically in French: “fin-al,” a medieval Latin speaking scholar would tended to translate it with the meaning of perfect, David Cohen, “‘The imperfect Seeks Its Perfection’: Harmonic Progression, Directed Motion, and Aristotelian Physics,’’ Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 23, No. 2 [Autumn, 2001], p. 155 with n. 58 and 62). The, now conventionally named, Hagiopolitēs is a 14th century manuscript; we do not know how the 1st millennium appearance(s) of this treatise was. The first question is what happened and, given the cultural importance of medieval Jerusalem and New Rome, an earlier material didn’t reach us. As most people of M.M. know, the same question applies to the scarcity of indigenous sources from Old Rome before the Carolingian times [1*], not to mention theoretical treatises or even something like “primitive” considerations of – let us accept the linear phraseology for the moment – a not “full-fledged” Octoēchos. Rome was -and still continues frequently to be- thrown inferentially, together with any kind of material that “we” do not feel comfortable / understand, into the convenient box with the label “pre-theoretical period” (of exactly what and concerning whom?). The problematic on such speculations acquires even more importance if one thinks that we have MSS of Boethius’s De Institutione Musica already from 9th century – thanks to the preferences of the new Carolingian realm - and that the first Greek text of the Harmonica of Claudios Ptolemaios (who is quoted by Boethius) is appeared only in an above-mentioned 12th century MS (the MS Math. 273). Indeed, the sources that reached us [2*] didn’t appear in the past ex nihilo and / since, among others, they are the residues of many of historico-ideological sieves (like the issue of the existence of an Old Tropologion in Greek).
[1*] I am not referring here, of course, to the later notated sources of the so-called Old Roman chant.
[2*] Of disparate nature; as for the much better studied mathematical material see now, Vitrac, 2019, and for music already in Barbera’s edition of the Euclidean Division of the Canon (1991), especially pp. 104-111, see also p. 205 and n. 6 of my contribution to the 13th meeting of Cantus Planus (2006, here).
How music historiographies could be a projection to the past of modern conceptual frameworks
Let us now return to our subject. Surprisingly enough some of the above mentioned scholia / diagrams reflect, among others, Hagiopolitan music theory topics by quoting - and thus connecting them to - certain chapters of the Harmonica. One can assume that such an important material would attract the attention of the scholars of Byzantine chant of the 20th century, but this wasn’t the case and the aforesaid material remained a terra incognita. Why this happened is mainly the work of the ethnomusicologist of the future (here I give only some samples), but it is so amusing that Jorgen Raasted in his, “Quis Quid Ubi Quibus Auxilis… Notes on the transmission of the Hagiopolites,” Scriptorium 42-1 (1988), p.91 (Persée), passed just next to this Hagiopolitan material of Vat. gr. 192 since he referred to this MS but had not had the chance to consult it!
One can find such kind of information sporadically not in studies of Greek chant but in the book Ancient Greek Music Theory, by Thomas J. Mathiesen, RISM (BXI), 1988. In the bibliography (and mainly in the description of some MSS) Mathiesen gives information that there are interlineated and marginal scholia (extensively or not) mainly to the Harmonica of Ptolemaios and in some cases he understands that they have relation to Greek chant theory. Interestingly, he uses an atypical wording about the modern classification of Byzantine music theory in two classes (indeed, medieval reality appears to be more complex if one consults the MSS of ancient Greek music theory): “There are at least two major classes of Byzantine music theory, one dealing primarily with practical problems of musical notation and liturgical chant (the papadikai), and the other representing an archaicizing attempt to preserve ancient Greek music theory and philosophy and to apply it to Byzantine music theory” (emphasis mine). As a matter of fact the phrasing is not inaccurate if one recalls that even the earliest papadikai of the 14th century, report also a certain correlation of Dōrios Phrygios etc. with (i.e. apply them to) the numbering of the ēchoi in which, for example, the Lydios / Hypolydios is correlated to 2nd / pl.2nd ēchos respectively. Moreover, the papadikai system was also a product of intellectual (and “archaicizing”) effort (not only about the above mentioned correlation) [3*]. But for the above Mathiesen’s (1988) passage and his wider rationale and decisions see pp. xxx-xxxi (and about his hopes - some of them relative to our subject here - on p. xxxv-xxxvi). In my opinion, the high degree of isolation of these two frameworks in modern academia 1) on ancient Greek music and 2) on Greek (and other Eastern and Oriental) chant is the main reason that all this material remained unpublished, not catalogued and uncommented. A fitting analogy would be the scholia on Martianus Capella and Boethius having the same treatment. Adding to that is the seemingly established approach (based on our reconstructions) that Byzantine chant theory (whatever relation “had” this theory to actual practice) and ancient Greek music theory (whatever relation “had” this theory to actual practice) are treated as more separate entities in accordance to the degree of interaction they really had (especially after the documentation of the MSS of the 13th or 14th centuries we will see below). So this little presentation of online MSS is concerned with this “gray area” [4*] between the somewhat well-defined boarders of these two modern disciplines beginning the discussion with a primary selection of some online MSS just to realize the Byzantine chant status of affairs (or, the “accepted facts”) during the 20th century (and the first fifth of the 21st). The D. Touliatos-Banker, “Check List of Byzantine Musical Manuscripts in the Vatican Library,” Manuscripta. A Journal for Manuscript research 31 (1987) has to be seen under this paragraph’s prospect.
[3*] The exceptional use of a Hagiopolitan correlation in a papadikē would just demonstrate that a) in performance practice the results would be not of so much difference (at least, for us) and b) that all that theoretical effort and different streams was something important (for them), not only in terms of periphery-center.
[4*] As André Barbera, J.A.M.S., 43 2, 1990, p. 363 named it in his review of Mathiesen (1988) referring also to the importance of Vat. gr. 191 and connecting it, after A. Turyn of course, mainly to Maximos Planoudēs
N.B. A somehow exhaustive list of MSS, persons and scholia, given the problems of Düring’s edition of the Harmonica of Ptolemaios, could be possible only after a real critical edition of this text (Mathiesen, 1988, p. xxxiv and 2000, p. 432) and the inclusion of further paleographical studies (especially after the identification of the inks via spectral imaging) of the relative MSS. But the progress already made in the last few decades is of remarkable importance and any kind of skepticism based on the latest or future technologies (implying that the current state is not “convincing enough”) would be unfair, only alluding on supposed “neutrality” and an absence of “bias” and “ideology” of the wo/man who expresses such skepticism. The field is continuously being studied, with new additions being published; regarding earlier “codicological and palaeographic units” of the MSS we are dealing with, see now F. Acerbi-A. Gioffreda, “Harmonica membra disjecta,” Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 59 4, Winter 2019 [=Acerbi-Gioffreda 2019] (here), accessed 24 November 2019. And one can also add the Mathiesen’s (1992) “Hermes or Clio…” (here), especially on p. 4 (on Why and How these treatises survived), p. 7 and pp. 14-15 with n. 22.
Below, slowly but surely, I have advanced my older work on the subject by giving a selection of eight MSS that include Greek chant information mainly on two - and occasionally on more - chant related topics i.e., α) on the I.16 of Ptolm. Harm. i.e., concerning the medieval use of equal diatonic genre and β) on the II.10 of Ptolm. Harm. i.e., concerning the correlation of Dōrios Phrygios etc. with the numbering of the ēchoi.
Eight online MSS with Greek chant information
1.
I-Vat: Gr. 191 (Math. 214 [13th], Dür. 64 W [13th /14th], Acerbi 2016 p. 195, Vitrac [1296-1298] p. 145)
Content and Bibliographic References and at Pinakes (here)
According to Ingemar Düring, the editor of Harmonica (1930), it is stemming from the m-class and gives rise to the recension of its own subclass [W]. This is one of the most studied codices in relation to the included astronomical and mathematical material. Importantly, in some scholia the hand (the revisoris manus R of A. Turyn) of the intellectual and deacon Ioannēs Pothos Pediasimos recently has been identified (Pérez Martín, 2010) and he “assembled, and annotated at least between 1296 and 1302/3 the early Palaiologan mathematical encyclopaedia in Vat. gr. 191” (Acerbi 2016, p. 183 No. 3). His hand is also responsible for some crucial chant related scholia, within Harmonica, and a small theoretical text just after it. What, at first glance, we have here is:
α) As far as Ptol. Harm. I.16 (entitled, in Jon Solomon’s tr.: How Many and Which Genera Are More Familiar to the Hearing), on f. 331r, there is not any remarkable marginal or interlinear scholion in connection to equal diatonic.
β) Referencing to II.10 of Harmonica, on f. 340r, there is one extra correlation of the names Dōrios Phrygios etc. with the ordinals (and additionally, here, to the martyriai [modal signatures]) of the ēchoi. This correlation was the most proximate to the more widespread of the Latin chant and is different to the Hagiopolitan and the one of the Bryennios’s stream. I transliterate and provisionally translate in English:
Dōrios (is the name of) the 1st ēchos, Phrygios the 2nd, Lydios the 3rd, Mixolydios the 4th, Hypodōrios the plagios of the 1st, Hypophrygios the plagios of the 2nd, Hypolydios the plagios of the 3rd, that is the Varys, Hypomixolydios the plagios of the 4th. Ptolemaios, not properly (?!), says that the ēchoi of them are seven. And other people, speaking nonsense, name them otherwise. (emphasis mine, then follows the same nomenclature and the relative martyriai, I transliterate:)
Picture 1
The pneumata (spirits) are four, hypsilē, chamēlē, kentēma and elaphron, because we are in need of pneuma (both) for ascending and descending.
The tension in the wording is indicative of the tension among personalities of the time. Here most probably it is the monk Maximos Planoudēs (his friend Manuēl Bryennios and the historian and deacon George Pachymerēs represent the same ēchoi correlation stream [see them on f.101v of the autograph of Pachymerēs I-Ra: Gr. 38, not included in Math.]) that is implied to “speaking nonsense.” Remind also that –not only- in Hagiopolitēs the “schemes of diapason” are not numbered, as I wrote some years before, here in M.M., in the ancient way from 1 to 7 but from 2 to 8 (the online MSS that contain this form of Anōnymos III passage are: [Math. 87=] F-Pn: Gr. 2458 68r-v, [Math. 89=] F-Pn: Gr. 2460 27v, F-Pn: [Math. 95=] Gr. 2532 82r-v, [Math. 219=] I-Vat: Gr. 221 pp. 388, [Math. 230=] I-Vat: Gr. 1364 f. 134v, [Math. 238=] I-Vat: Barb. gr. 265 p. 458, [Math. 253=] I-Vat: Ross. gr. 977 pp. 178-179 and of course its ρ recension, the Hagiopolitēs MS F-Pn: Gr. 360 f. 229v together with the EG-MSsc: Gr. 1764, f. 94r-v [the very last MS, numbered 299, that Mathiesen decided to include in his Catalogue]). Vincent (p.224) already at 1847 realized that there is an interesting variation here and, reasonably, felt the need of an explanation.
Additionally, we have a totally unknown and unpublished small theoretical chant text on f. 359v, just after the Harmonica, with strong affinity, even in wording, to Pseudo-Damaskēnos [=Ps-D] text. Thus, we can legitimately label it as proto-pseudodamaskēnos and it is also important for the “pre-history” of Ps-D. The earliest testimony of the latter belongs to the 15th century. I provisionally translate the half of the whole text, in order to understand some of its content. It is also interesting regarding modern phraseologies about Latin chant in which we see terms like sign and neume. The relative concordances to Ps-D are given in parentheses as its editors did not use at all this early (as far as the Byzantine chant) text:
The principal (κύριοι) tonoi (are) ison, oligon and apostrophos (Ps-D 42-43): oxeia and petastē (are) so-called tonoi because they (are) dominated and diminished (συστέλλονται) (Ps-D 44) by the ison: as tonoi (are) called also the compound (σύνθετα) signs (contra [?] in Ps-D 49), but signs (σημάδια) (are) called when they are placed and written, and tonoi when they are sung (Ps-D 50-51):-
Ēchos and melos are different, because ēchos precedes melos (Ps-D 79-80), and there is not melos without ēchos, but ēchos exists without melos, and the ēchos always begins with the ison, but the melos begins with tonos and pneuma (spirit):
Psalm (is) melody with the use of a musical instrument, but Ōdē (is) the one with the use of mouth and without an instrument (Ps-D 85-88). The tonoi (are) fifteen since the (main) frets / bridges [5*] in Music are fifteen (Ps-D 152-153), and Ptolemaios said all these:-...
And then continues with another categorization of the 24 signs.
That means that the above text, one of the oldest best dated complete [6*] treatises of Greek chant, is not found in a papadikē and the like “church” MSS, as most people would expect, but just next to Ptolemaios, in a MS of ancient Greek music theory! This is an example of how “innocent” prospects predispose modern narrative as well as… findings.
Of the other online subclasses of Harmonica’s m-class we have 1) the E i.e., I-Vat: Gr. 186 (Math. 210, Vitrac p. 145, 13th c.), 2) the I-Vat: Pal. gr. 60 (Math. 242, Vitrac p. 165, where we see for α) the “softer of the intense diatonic” together with “equal diatonic” in the same scheme on f. 16r [like BNF gr. 2450, see below] and for β) ēchoi and enēchēmata (the intonation syllables of the ēchoi), on f. 26r in the order of Bryennios / Grēgoras) and 3) the 13th century I-Vat: Pal. gr. 95 (Math. 243, Dür. 73 13th/14th century, Pinakes [here]) of the M subclass.
[5*] Καβάλια / kavália (or καβάλλια / kavállia in Hagiopolitēs, as well as κάβαλα / kávala in other sources of Ps-D), in the edition of Ps-D a not good reading is adopted: kavála, see MS Dionysiou 570, 8r; best translation in French: chevalet (=almost a transliteration). In modern Greek something like καβαλάρηδες or better γέφυρες / περντέδες (from Ottoman-Turkish perde).
[6*] Complete, because there was plenty of space - in this initially blank page- for Pediasimos to continue to write if there was more text to add, but he didn’t. This text is not like 1) the (one) question-(one) answer material of the MS RUS-SPsc: Gr. 495, ff. 1v-4v, or 2) collections of en-ēchēmata (in-tonation formulas of the ēchoi) (here) without theoretical text, or 3) neumes material like F-Pn: Gr 260 ff. 253v or even 4) the dated 1289 F-Pn: Gr. 261 ff. 139v-140r that includes headings, and on f. 140v we have the oldest testimony - in the form of a “table”- of the widespread nomenclature of the papadikai. Here is not the place to discuss these –and more- cases (and their one by one labeling).
2.
I-Vat: Gr. 192 (Math. 215 [13th], Dür. 65 V [13th /14th], Vitrac p. 145 [second half of 13th century])
Bibliographic References and at Pinakes (here)
This is a “mathematical miscellany” stemming from the m-class that gives rise to the recension of Düring’s subclass labeled V. It seems that this MS is the immediate (not entirely in chronological terms) predecessor of Vat. gr. 191 and unfortunately, it didn’t acquire so much –and not only - paleographical attention like that until now (consider e.g., the above Bibliographic References where some 11 works are sited in relation to the 116 for the Vat. gr. 191). As far as the content there are learned scholia written within and after the Harmonica linking it to the Hagiopolitan theoretical tradition of the Greek chant. But in this case we have one personality that published such an important material of scholia. He was the French polymath Théodore Reinach (1860-1928) in his - more than a century before – “Fragments Musicologiques Inédits,” Revue des Études Grecques, Tome X, No 39, July-September 1897, pp. 313-327 (Persée). Reinach transcribed and commented the theoretical texts / diagrams found - only after - the main texts of the MS Vat. gr. 192, leaving aside the scholia within the Harmonica. I will not elaborate, for the moment, on Reinach’s work. In relation to Greek chant and Ptolemaios we have the α) on f. 201v (and f. 223 [here there is only the name of “softer of the intense diatonic,” on that, see the next MS below] i.e., two times) and the β) on f. 225v (a scheme using whole tones and leimmata and in an name-order that Bryennios’s stream inverts in an absolute manner) respectively. Terms like mesos, phthora, enēchēmata, epēchēmata and apēchēmata and a trochos like scheme on f. 227r are found.
Other online MSS of this subclass [V] of Harmonica are F-Pn: Gr. 2451 (Math. 80) and F-Pn: Gr. 2453 (Math. 82).
3.
F-Pn: Coislin gr. 173 (Math. 103 [15th], Dür. 51 [14th], see Acerbi 2016, p. 151, Vitrac p.154 [first half of 14th]) see also: Notice rédigée par Anne Lapasset, Fevrier 2015 (here) and at Pinakes (here)
On f.1 there is a possession note of the Megistē Lavra monastery at Mount Athos / Greece. Christos Terzēs in his edition of Dionysios (Athens, 2010, p. 115*) believes that the hands had not been identified (quoting Mathiesen, 1988) and that the MS is produced in Mount Athos. As far as the Harmonica the text belongs to Düring’s g-class that represents the recension of Nicēphoros Grēgoras (ca. summer 1293/June 1294 - 1358/1361 [after Divna Manolova’s Dissertation, Budapest, 2014, academia.edu]). Indeed, “concerning the musical treatises, I-Vat.: Gr. 198 [Math. 218, Vitrac p. 146] is an apograph of Paris gr. 173” (Acerbi 2016, p.160). Note among Grēgoras’s autograph scholia (Bianconi, 2005, p. 415, No 25), the partly autograph one at the beginning of Harmonica on f. 32r (B. Mondrain, “Maxime Planoude, Nicéphore Grégoras et Ptolémée,” Palaeoslavica 10, 2002, p. 321 n.26).
α) On f.58r as scholion to I.16 of Harmonica. Here Ptolemaios begins accepting that the diatonic genera in general are more familiar to hearing than the enharmonic and the soft chromatic and continues extensively with the equal diatonic genus. Then he presents some other genera and their tunings / positions in musical instruments, and finally, he “can hardly fail to accept” the ditonal diatonic (roughly saying, the one using semitones and whole tones). But, since the “equal diatonic is a logical modification [and “more even / ὁμαλώτερον”] of the intense diatonic” (Mathiesen, 2000, pp. 450-451) the scheme here, together with “equal diatonic,” gives another title - referencing the position (numbers 24 to 18) – to it, this is the “softer of the intense diatonic”; thus uses the same ratios! The naming of the equal diatonic as (and its connection to) softer (μαλακώτερον, see also in Ptolm. Harm. I.12.28ff.) of the intense diatonic, has important consequences for the use of equal diatonic in the theory and the actual musical praxis in medieval times. A variation of this scheme exists also in the next F-Pn: Gr. 2540 (and I shall transliterate that form there).
β) On f. 74v, in relation to II.10, a scheme is given with the correlations of Dōrios Phrygios etc. with the ēchoi, their enēchēmata and the four phthorai. This correlation, at first glance, is the same as the tradition of Bryennios i.e, the prōtos ēchos is placed at the highest position (Hypermixolydios). For the moment, I have not any definitive opinion if it is exactly the same system as the one of Bryennios since we know that Grēgoras’s work consisted of, more or less, a new “adjustment” of the ancient material in order “to save the phenomena.” Here is a transliterated form of that diagram:
Picture 2
See also the trochos like schemes on ff. 110v-111r.
Other online MSS of this Grēgoras’s recension of Harmonica are: GB-Ob: Bar. gr. 124 (Math. 134), F-Pn: Coislin gr. 336 (Math. 105), and F-Pn: Gr. 2456 (Math. 86) (from [?, Math. p. 226] I-Vat.: Gr. 2365 [Math. 235]), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 389 (Math. 245), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 390 (Math. 246).
4.
F-Pn: Gr. 2450 (Math. 79 [14th], Dür. 42 [14th /15th], Acerbi 2016 p. 152, [about 1335], Vitrac p.157 [about 1335]) see also: Notice rédigée par Anne Lapasset, Fevrier 2015 (here) and at Pinakes (here).
According to Düring’s Harmonica edition the text of this MS belongs to the gp-subclass that stems from the main Grēgoras’s g-class. Is this a representation of a separate choice (to the degree Düring’s classes are reliable), in relation to the text / content, of (or someone close to) him? His hand is identified in some scholia of the ff. 57r, 59r, 71v, 72v, 73r. (Pérez Martín, 2008). As far as the schemes in relation to Greek chant the α) and the β) of F-Pn: Gr. 173 are found on 32r (in a different form but “better” as for our understanding) and 53r (again in Bryennios’s order) respectively. A transliterated form of that 32r diagram is the following:
Picture 3
See also the trochos like scheme on 89v.
Other online MSS that belong to the gp recension of Harmonica are I-Vat: Gr. 221 (Math. 219, ēchoi, phthorai and enēchēmata on p. 106), I-Vat: Barb. gr. 265 (Math. 238, ēchoi, phthorai and enēchēmata on p. 138) that we’ve already met and note the transcription of Ismaël Boulliau (in 1656), in F-Pn: Sup. gr. 292 (Math. 111).
5.
F-Pn : Coislin gr. 172 (Math. 102 [15th], Dür. 50 [14th /15th], Vitrac [14th /15th] p.154) see also: Notice rédigée par Anne Lapasset, Mars 2015 (here) and at Pinakes (here).
It is somewhat posterior to the aforementioned F-Pn: Coislin gr. 173, but this time its Harmonica, according to Düring, belongs to his f-class stemming from D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 361a (Math. 22 [13th-16th], Dur. 28 [13th-16th], see Vitrac p. 153, Acerbi-Gioffreda 2019 Mo, [2nd half of 13th century] p. 659). Again, is this a representation of one more separate choice, in relation to the text / content, of (or someone close to) Grēgoras? The relative scheme of α) is found on f. 13r (with no reference to “softer of the intense diatonic”). Note the diagrams on ff. 17r-18v on dynamis and thesis phenomena in relation to Ptolem. Harm. II.5-6.
There is another online MS that belongs to f-class the I-Vat: Barb. gr. 257 (Math. 237).
6.
I-Vat: Gr. 187 (Math. 211 [14th], Dür, 61 [14th], Vitrac [14th] p. 145)
Bibliographic References and at Pinakes (here)
This is a MS that represents the circle of the monk Barlaam the Calabrian as the I-Vat: Gr. 196 (Math. 217 [14th], Dür, 66 [14th], Vitrac p. 146 [14th]) and F-Pn: Gr. 2452 [Math. 82]). Note the diagrams on ff. 32r, 34v and 35r on thesis and dynamis phenomena in relation to Ptolem. Harm. II.5-6.
7.
I-Vat: Gr. 176 (Math. 208 [14th], Dür. 58 [14th], Vitrac [14th] p. 145)
Bibliographic References, and Pinakes (here).
Acerbi (2016, p. 173) notes: “A further recension of Harmonica was redacted by Isaac Argyros, whose fair copy is preserved (but recall that Argyros was used to correct in scribendo) in the autograph Vat. Gr. 176, ff. 101r-159v.” It is the A-subclass of Grēgoras’s g-class but this time “favoring the readings of the f-class” (Mathiesen 2000, p. 431).
The other online MS that belong to the same reduction of Harmonica is the F-Pn: Sup. gr. 449 (Math. 114).
8.
F-Pn: Sup. gr. 1101 (not in Math., A. Gastoué 70 [14th]) See a description (here) and Pinakes (here)
The MS contains mainly the early translations of Maximos Planoudēs into Greek of Boethius’s, De Consolatione Philosophiae, Cicero’s, Somnium Scipionis and Macrobius’s Commentary on it and other material. But importantly enough for us, at the last folia, there are music related schemes on 162r, 163v, 164r and 165v. Also another small music related scholion on 137r. On 162r we see the correlation of ēchoi with the Dōrios Phrygios etc. in the order of Bryennios / Grēgoras (ie. prōtos ēchos placed in the position of Hypermixolydios) and a trochos like diagram; compare it with two small schemes in the later F-Pn: Gr. 2339 f.59v. On f. 163v there is a scheme of the 7- and 8-stringed lyres of Hermēs (or Orpheus in other MSS) and Pythagoras respectively. See them in F-Pn: Gr. 2339 f. 60v, and, together with Bryennios’s MSS, on f. 47r of Pachymerēs’s aforementioned autograph I-Ra: Gr. 38).
A note on modern classifications and vocabularies
Indeed, why 20th century people didn’t “see” all this set of sources of Ptolemaios with their relative to Byzantine chant material and why the studies for chant wasn’t so decisive as the other disciplines (especially for the medieval Greek MSS on mathematics, see Vitrac, 2019, 6.B, p. 48 and 7.B, p. 59)? A possible answer of mine is already known to the list of Μ.Μ.: “we” “see” only what we have pre-theorized to see or more simply, when two people look at the same direction (and set of things) they do not acknowledge (and taxonomize) the same phenomena, although ‘all of them’ are there. Think of the results if they look at different directions….
And some final notes on the grand narrative of the society, the time and our vocabulary remembering Christian Troelsgård’s, “Ancient Musical Theory in Byzantine Enviroments,” Cahiers de l’Institute du Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin 56 (1988), (here) in p. 229 where he writes: “On the other hand we find an increasing interest [7*] in copying, exerpting and commenting on the remains of ancient theory [are we sure that there wasn’t an – perhaps even more – “increasing interest” before?]. It is an accepted fact that these activities were centered around two different milieus in Byzantine society, the church [7*] on the one side and the scholarly circles of quadrivial study [7*] on the other. But I think there are some very important points or area of contact and interaction between these milieus.” And also, in the concluding p. 237, he speaks of “… the interaction between the two hemispheres [7*] of the musical culture of Byzantium. They imply that the Byzantines took a far more active and dynamic interest in the ancient musical theory than usually accepted.”
In my view, and after what we saw here, we can speak of an even far more active and dynamic interest in the ancient Greek theory and this, not only because we added the Harmonica, the main sholiated treatise in relation to chant.
But as it becomes obvious, the issue isn’t exactly the potential infinite discussions (past or future) on a degree of interaction of “two” domains. All these medieval theoretical constructions in this kind of sources are related to the everyday ecclesiastical music of the ordinary – differentiating, case by case, on degree of knowledge- faithful people (and psaltes). In contrast with other branches of knowledge, like Geometry or Arithmetic (with problems that sometimes still a modern wo/man, can’t understand), the ecclesiastical music circles or “parties” of people (recorded by the sources [remember the “many people” / πολλοì of Bryennios]), give us an idea about our narrative on the structure of that world. These intellectuals weren’t debating as isolated personalities because, among others, they had a vision about their society as a whole. I ask and explain: in our mind, where do we have to place an intellectual? Over, next to, in parallel or among ordinary people? Especially if we remember the other similar ecclesiastical case of theological debates among highly educated people (we met some of them already above) like Barlaam, Grēgoras, and others, not music related figures, like Grēgorios Palamas etc. who were also supported by their (larger or smaller) circles or “parties.”
Last but not least, referring to the current vocabulary (I will not criticize, for the moment, nation-centered vocabularies here in Greece) used on music related issues of the time: a generalized view of “church” and “scholarly circles of quadrivial study” would be misleading [8*] since a lot of the personalities (belonged to all the theoretical streams) we are dealing of were highly educated clerics, monks etc. And again, we have the same problematic with the “theoretical hemispheres.” In which MSS, who is theorizing, at what music(s) exactly? Are there more than two interacted “spheres” (including their “middle grounds,” a] and b], as I described them in my above given paper, pp. 217-218), thus not “hemispheres,” that we have to use in the narrative of the earlier or later medieval chant?
[7*] This is not a comment on what (and when) meant by “increasing interest,” “scholarly circles of quadrivial study,” “church” etc. as I have no intention to interfere in any kind of interpretation of “what the X scholar means,” but I make use of this quotation in order to express my skepticism – separately- on the use of certain terms.
[8*] Giving room even to potential polarization and not interaction, in other words, this could be a case of ‘glass half empty and glass half full’ within the same proposition.
MORE SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Acerbi, Fabio. “Funzioni e modalità di transmissione delle notazioni numeriche nella trattatistica mathematica Greca: Due esempi paradigmatici.” Segno e Testo 11 (2013). (academia.edu)
----------------. “Byzantine recensions of Greek mathematical and astronomical texts: A survey.” Estudios Bizantinos 4 (1016). (academia.edu)
Bianconi, Daniele. “La biblioteca di Cora tra Massimo Planude e Niceforo Gregora. Una Questione di mani.” Segno e Testo 3 (2005).
----------------.“La controversia palamitica. Figure, libri e mani.” Segno e Testo 6 (2008). (academia.edu)
Düring, Ingemar (ed). Die Harmonielehre des Klaudios Ptolemaios. Göteborg, 1930.
Gastoué, Amédée. Catalogue des manuscrits de musique Byzantine de la Bibliothèque de Paris et des Bibliothèques publiques de France. Paris, 1907. (Archive.org)
Mathiesen, Thomas. Ancient Greek Music Theory. A catalogue raisonné of manuscripts (RISM, B XI). München, 1988.
---------------. Apollo's Lyre : Greek music and music theory in antiquity and the Middle Ages.Lincoln and London, 2000.
Mondrain, Brigitte. "Les écritures dans les manuscrits byzantins du XIVè siècle." Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici (2008).
Pérez Martín, Inmaculada, “El estilo Hodegos y su proyección en las escrituras constantinopolitanas.” Segno e Testo 6 (2008). (academia.edu)
----------------. “L’ecriture de l’hypatos Jean Pothos Pédiasimos d’après ses scholies aux Elementa d’ Euclide.” Scriptorium 64 (2010). (Persée) and (academia.edu)
Ruelle, Charles-Émile. Études sur l’ancienne musique grecque. Paris, 1875. (BSBdigital)
Turyn, Alexandrer. Codices Graeci Vaticani saeculis XIII et XIV scripti annorumque notis instructi. Citta del Vaticano, 1964.
Vincent, Alexandre Joseph Hidulphe. Notice sur divers manuscrits Grecs relatifs à la musique. Paris, 1847. (Gallica)
Vitrac, Bernard. “Quand? Comment? Pourquoi les textes mathématiques grecs sont-ils parvenus en Occident?” (academia.edu), April 2019, accessed 29 November 2019.
Wolfram, Gerda – Hannick, Christian (eds). Die Erotapokriseis des Pseudo-Johannes Damaskenos zum Kirchengesang. Vienna, 1997.
THE ONLINE GREEK MANUSCRIPTS OF ANCIENT MUSIC THEORY
The links of the online MSS that has relation to the Harmonica of Claudios Ptolemaios are given above, together with a small description of some of them, since this is the treatise that medieval Greek speaking theorists scholiated the most in connection to chant theory. The other online MSS of ancient Greek musicographers I have located so far are the following (the MSS links that have already given in the above text are just referred to below with no link):
AUSTRIA
Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
A-Wn: Cod. Phil. gr. 64 (Math. 2), A-Wn: Cod. Phil. gr. 176 (Math. 5, Vitrac p.194).
GERMANY
Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek
D-Heu: Cod. Pal. gr. 281 (Math. 14), D-Heu: Cod. Pal. gr. 415 (Math. 15).
Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek
D-Leu: Rep. I 2 (Math. 39).
München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 104 (Math. 17, Vitrac p.179), D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 301 (Math. 21, Vitrac p.180), D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 385 (Math. 23, Vitrac p.180), D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 403 (Math. 24, Vitrac p. 180), D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 418 (Math. 25), D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 487 (Math. 26).
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek
D-W: Cod. Guelf. 3 Gud. gr. (Math. 29, Vitrac p.195).
SPAIN
Madrid, Bibliotheca Nacional
E-Mn: Gr. 4621 (Math. 57, together with C. Laskarēs the codex has a relation to Sultan Cem), E-Mn: Gr. 4625 (Math. 58), E-Mn: Gr. 4678 (Math. 59), E-Mn: Gr. 4690 (Math. 60), E-Mn: Gr. 4692 (Math. 61).
FRANCE
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Fonds Grec
F-Pn: Gr. 1671 (Math. 66), F-Pn: Gr. 1672 (Math. 67), F-Pn: Gr. 1806 (Math. 68, Vitrac p.185), F-Pn: Gr. 1819 (Math. 70, Vitrac p.185) F-Pn: Gr. 1820 (Math. 71, Vitrac p.185), F-Pn: Gr. 2013 (Math. 72), F-Pn: Gr. 2014 (Math. 73, Vitrac p.185), F-Pn: Gr. 2379 (Math. 74, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2381 (Math. 75), F-Pn: Gr. 2397 (Math.-, Vitrac p.188) F-Pn: Gr. 2430 (Math. 77, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2449 (Math. 78), F-Pn: Gr. 2450 (Math. 79), F-Pn: Gr 2451 (Math. 80, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr 2452 (Math. 81, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr 2453 (Math. 82, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2454 (Math. 83, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2455 (Math. 84), F-Pn: Gr 2456 (Math. 85, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2458 (Math. 87), F-Pn: Gr. 2459 (Math. 88, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2460 (Math. 89, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2461 (Math. 90, Vitrac p.157), F-Pn: Gr. 2462 (Math. 91), F-Pn: Gr. 2463 (Math. 92), F-Pn: Gr. 2464 (Math. 93), F-Pn: Gr. 2531 (Math. 94, Vitrac p.189), F-Pn: Gr. 2532 (Math. 95), F-Pn: Gr. 2533 (Math. 96), F-Pn: Gr. 2534 (Math. 97), F-Pn: Gr. 2535 (Math. 98, Vitrac p.188), F-Pn: Gr. 2549 (Math. 99), F-Pn: Gr. 2622 (Math. 100), F-Pn: Gr. 3027 (Math. 101, Vitrac p.190).
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Fonds Coislin
F-Pn: Coislin 172 (Math. 102), F-Pn: Coislin 173 (Math. 103), F-Pn: Coislin 174 (Math. 104, Vitrac p.154), F-Pn: Coislin 336 (Math. 105, Vitrac p.185).
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Fonds Supplément Grec
F-Pn: Sup. gr. 20 (Math. 106), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 59 (Math. 107, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 160 (Math. 108), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 195 (Math. 109, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 213 (Math. 110, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 292 (Math. 111, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 335 (Math. 112, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 336 (Math. 113, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 449 (Math. 114, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 450 (Math. 115, Vitrac p.190), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 1101 (Math. -).
GREAT BRITAIN
London, British Library
GB-Lbm: Harley gr. 5691 (Math. 128), GB-Lbm: Additional 19353 (Math. 130, Vitrac p.175).
Oxford, Bodleian Library
GB-Ob: Barocci gr. 41 (Math. 133, Vitrac p.182), GB-Ob: Barocci gr. 124 (Math. 134, Vitrac p.182).
Oxford, Magdalen College Library
GB-Omc: Magdalen Col. gr. 12 (Math. 150), GB-Omc: Magdalen Col. gr. 13 (Math. 151, Vitrac p.184).
ITALY
Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria
I-Bu: Gr. 2048, v.1 (Math. 154, Vitrac p.162), I-Bu: Gr. 2048, v.2 (Math. 155, Vitrac p.162), I-Bu: Gr. 2048, v.5 (Math. 156, Vitrac p.162), I-Bu: Gr. 2280 (Math. 157, Vitrac p.162), I-Bu: Gr. 2432 (Math. 158, Vitrac p.162), I-Bu: Gr. 2700 (Math. 159).
Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana
I-Fl: Ms Plut.28.11 (Math. 160), I-Fl: Ms Plut.28.12 (Math. 161), I-Fl: Ms Plut.56.1 (Math. 162), I-Fl: Ms Plut.58.29 (Math. 163, Vitrac p. 151), I-Fl: Ms Plut.59.1 (Math. 164), I-Fl: Ms Plut.80.5 (Math. 165), I-Fl: Ms Plut.80.21 (Math. 166), I-Fl: Ms Plut.80.22 (Math. 167), I-Fl: Ms Plut.80.30 (Math. 168), I-Fl: Ms Plut.86.3 (Math. 169).
Napoli, Biblioteca Nazionale
I-Nn: Gr. 261 (f. 53r, Math. 202, Vitrac p. 153).
Roma, Biblioteca Angelica
I-Ra: Gr. 35 (Math. 205), I-Ra: Gr. 101 (Math. 206).
Citta del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
I-Rvat: Gr. 139 (Math. 207), I-Rvat: Gr. 176 (Math. 208), I-Rvat: Gr. 186 (Math. 210, Vitrac p. 145), I-Rvat: Gr. 187 (Math. 211), I-Rvat: Gr. 191 (Math. 214), I-Rvat: Gr. 192 (Math. 215), I-Rvat: Gr. 196 (Math. 217), I-Rvat: Gr. 198 (Math. 218), I-Rvat: Gr. 221 (Math. 219, Vitrac p.166), I-Rvat: Gr. 1013 (Math. 221), I-Rvat: Gr. 1033 (Math. 222), I-Rvat: Gr. 1048 (Math. 225, Vitrac p.167), I-Rvat: Gr. 1060 (Math. 226), I-Rvat: Gr. 1364 (Math. 230, Vitrac p.167), I-Rvat: Gr. 1374 (Math. 231), I-Rvat: Gr. 2338 (Math. 234), I-Rvat: Gr. 2365 (Math. 235, Vitrac p.168), I-Rvat: Barb. gr. 257 (Math. 237), I-Rvat: Barb. gr. 265 (Math. 238, Vitrac p.164), I-Rvat: Barb. gr. 278 (not in Math.), I-Rvat: Ottob. gr. 372 (Math. 237), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 53 (Math. 241), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 60 (Math. 242, Vitrac p.165), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 95 (Math. 243), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 303 (Math. 244, Vitrac p.165), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 389 (Math. 245, Vitrac p.165), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 390 (Math. 246, Vitrac p.165), I-Rvat: Pal. gr. 392 (Math. 247), I-Rvat: Reg. gr. 80 (Math. 248), I-Vat: Ross. 977 (Math. 253, Vitrac p.165), I-Vat: Ross. 986 (Math. 254), I-Vat: Urb. gr. 78 (Math. 256, Vitrac p.166), I-Vat: Urb. gr. 99 (Math. 257).
Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana
I-Vnm: Gr. app. cl. VI/3 (coll. 1347).
SWEDEN
Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket
S-Uu: Gr. 45 (Math. 292, Vitrac p.193), S-Uu: Gr. 47 (Math. 293, Vitrac p.193), S-Uu: Gr. 52 (Math. 294, Vitrac p.193).
UNITED STATES
New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
US-NHub: MS 208 (f.30v, Math. 295)
EGYPT
Mount Sinai, St. Catherine’s Monastery
EG-MSsc: Gr. 1764 (Math. 299).
Additionally, a small collection of online MSS of BNF that include medieval music theory (some of them referred to in Vincent [1847]) is given below although I didn’t include, for example, all the Pachymerēs, Pediasimos etc. music related MSS. All these MSS need a fresh look together with the similar MSS of other libraries.
F-Pn: Gr. 2338, F-Pn: Gr. 2339, F-Pn: Gr. 2340, F-Pn: Gr. 2341, F-Pn: Gr 2448 see Notice rédigée par Anne Lapasset Mars 2015 (here) and (Pinakes), F-Pn: Gr. 2536, F-Pn: Gr. 2762 see: Notice rédigée par Morgane CARIOU (here) and (Pinakes).
And also: F-Pn: Gr. 1810 see: Notice rédigée par Jocelyn Groisard (novembre 2008) (here), F-Pn: Sup. gr. 51.
Comments
A correction to my previous long post on the The Tonoi of Claudios Ptolemaios as considered in recent years by researchers of Medieval Chant and a proposal…
On the occasion of a correction to the previous post in the section a proposal for some “new insights” announced about Papadikē (and one might add, Greek chant in general) in order to avoid potential (and unnecessary) confusion and debate, I'd better write the related sentences more clearly. The correction: As a slip I wrote Slavic instead of Slavonic. Moreover, for the surrounded sentences it is clearer to write:
“Furthermore, how would it appear to the "insiders" of the Latin chant-world if one were to define the "new" and the "old" of Latin chant affairs, in relation, only, to what was said e.g. from the Solesmes school and does s/he not make it clear that s/he refers, only, to the views of this school? And even more importantly, for our “global” and 'interdisciplinary' priorities, could this one-sided perspective “be discerned/distinguished” from the "outsiders", i.e. all people of e.g. medieval Greek, Syriac or Slavonic chants or even AGMT? In our case now, I hope that the above announcement of Troelsgård's "new insights" is not determined, only, in relation to the variations of the "old insights" as narrated by the rest of the people of Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae [=MMB], (and those who have proximity to this school [or, even, passer sous silence passages of European musicologists that criticized some of them*]) but also determined by all “the others,” old and modern, views of the non-MMBs.
*The German musicologist Heinrich Husmann, wrote in his 1970, “Modulation und Transposition in den bi- und trimodalen Stichera” p. 3 [bold emphasis mine]: “Glahns Hinweis trifft aber nicht nur Thodberg, sondern - was Glahn sicher nicht beabsichtigt hat - auch Strunk; denn Strunks statistische Methode bestand ja gerade darin, die häufigen Quarten in der hypothetischen Konstruktion seines sticherarischen Oktoëchos als die reinen, die seltenen oder ganz gemiedenen als die übermäßigen anzusetzen. Zwar die Tatsache der statistischen Bevorzugung [Troelsgård in his 2011 Byzantine Neumes, p. 61 writes “statistical evidence”] gewisser Quarten gegenüber gewissen anderen war ihm mit Recht der Beweis für die Existenz unterschiedlicher Quarten, - aber warum sollen die in einer Tonart gemiedenen Quarten nicht in einer anderen Tonart unter den benutzten vorkommen?”
And later (on pp. 6-7) Husmann in, of course, a polite way he states [bold emphasis mine]: (p. 6) “Die Einstellung Thodbergs und Raasteds gegenüber der der älteren Forschergeneration basiert auf der Überzeugung, daß man einen Sinn hinter den ZS [=medial signatures, PE] finden kann, wo jene einen Schreiberirrtum annahm. … (p. 7) offenbar sind die wirklich falschen ZS doch häufiger, als die sehr verdienten dänischen Forscher in ihrem Idealismus annehmen.”
Together with Husmann's use of “Idealismus,” I would like to add a comment about the use of the term Ideology (as they both share the same root word). I think that the –conscious or unconscious- ideological factor could, of course, be discernible in views of Chant researchers. But, in this day and age, when someone criticizes a point of view and chooses to use the label "ideological" :
it is important to make it even more discernible that it is not only the criticized who have "ideological" perspectives but also, her/himself, the one who criticizes.
The Tonoi of Claudios Ptolemaios as considered in recent years by researchers of Medieval Chant and a proposal for some “new insights” announced about Papadikē (and one might add, Greek chant in general) in order to avoid potential (and unnecessary) confusion and debate
1)Days ago I saw that there is a Study Group of Byzantine Chant named “Psaltike” funded by the Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi here. Additionally, they have announced an event for October 25th entitled: The Reception of Ancient Music Theory in Byzantine and Western Traditions here .
2)More online MSS of Ancient Greek Music Theory [=AGMT]:
A-Wn : Phil. gr. 268 (Numéro diktyon: 71382, Math. 7, 16th c., Vitrac p. 195, 2e m. 16th, Pinakes )
D-Leu : Rep.I 68b (Numéro diktyon: 38412 [Naumann 24], Math. 38, 15th c., Pinakes. Note the existence of a fragment with square notation in the binding)
D-Leu : Rep. I 2 (Numéro diktyon: 38416 [Naumann 25], Math. 39, 16th c., Vitrac p. 175, 16th Pinakes ) The last two MSS can be accessed via the URL link at Pinakes..
3) [The text below has several passages, reproduced in italics, so that the reader can read them directly and not waste time looking for them in the given links (reading them in full is encouraged). The result is a long post. Apologies in advance]
At the last Anniversary Conference of Cantus Planus Study Group, which, unfortunately, I was unable to attend, Christian Troelsgård in the abstract for his paper entitled Elementary Chant Education in Late Byzantium here wrote [bold emphasis and underlining mine]:
“The contribution rests on my and Maria Alexandru’s ongoing preparation of a critical edition of 'The elements of the Papadike’ for Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae, Corpus Scriptorum de Re Musica […] The Elements of the Papadike consist of didactic prose, neume lists, exercises, and diagrams. The detailed study of these materials has revealed some interesting connections between the Byzantine tradition of scholarly treatises on ancient music and grammar, ecclesiastical chant, and the oral teaching of music.These new insights into the Papadike materials contribute to a more detailed picture of chant instruction in Late Byzantium.”
It seems that, for Troelsgård, among the “new insights into the Papadike” are “the revealed some interesting connections between the Byzantine tradition of scholarly treatises on ancient music and grammar, ecclesiastical chant, and the oral teaching of music.” The first question that comes to mind is: “new” for whom? Are there people for whom some of such “new” insights, not only those relating to the connection of Ancient Greek Music Theory [=AGMT] with Papadikē (=late Byzantine theoretical treatises about Greek chant) and Greek chant in general, could not be so new and some of them could date back to the 19th c.-early 20th c.? Furthermore, how would it appear to the “insiders” of the Latin chant-world if one were to define the “new” and the “old” in relation, only, to what has been said e.g. by the Solesmes school? And even more importantly, could this one-sided perspective “be discerned” from the "outsiders", i.e. all people of Greek, Syriac or Slavic chant or even AGMT? In our case now, I hope that the above announcement of the "new insights" does not refer to what has been said by the people of MMB [=Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae], only. And there are more aspects as we shall see. So the rest of Greek chant people will wait, I am sure, for the published version of the above critical edition with the announced “new insights” to see what’s the new. That’s it for the rest of Greek chant people. But there is also the, most important, reverse aspect.
In their recent books, Suzan Rankin (2018, Writing Sounds in Carolingian Europe: The Invention of Musical Notation) and Nina-Maria Wanek (2024, Cultural Transfer of Music Between Byzantium and the West? The Case of the Chants of the So-called Missa Graeca) felt the need to devote a large part of their work to meticulously describing what the previous state of research on their subject was. This was, of course, their personal way of evaluating previous views on their subject. Someone like me could disagree on some points with their assessments/narratives [1*], but the important point is that anyone should be able to have an idea of the research development (the way it is presented by them) and in second level to figure out what the "new" contributions are. The matter, for medieval Greek chant, has one more aspect: When considering the connection of AGMT to medieval Greek chant, the researchers of AGMT have the “right,” I think, to evaluate the history of the historiography of this connection/relation as narrated in the past worldwide by the researchers of Byzantine music. So specifically since “new insights” have been announced, it is obvious, I think again, that such an account from M. Alexandru-C. Troelsgård in their forthcoming book [1*] should describe us what the older views was (according to their own assessments), at least from the time of Chrysanthos himself (a chant theorist of early 19th Ottoman century). This is said because even Vincent at 1847 does not treat Chrysanthos as a naïve chant reformist of those exotic Ottoman-Greeks of his time but as a researcher. Such an account would have to include Chrysanthos’s contemporaries and later ones Ottoman-Greeks and –down to our time- Greeks from Greece and elsewhere as well as people from the Balkans, Levante, Russia, Italy or Ukraine. With them should be included people like Vincent, Gevaert, Fleischer, Gaisser, Reincah, Jeannin etc. etc…
[1*] Since the Papadikai which began to be documented from the years 1289 and 1336 is one of the most “complete” sets of extant theoretical Greek chant material, their forthcoming edition – with the announced “new” insights- is the appropriate place to have such a historiographical report about the “old” insights. For example, Troelsgård wrote in his 1988 article (p. 229) as [bold emphasis mine] “accepted fact” that there were in the Byzantine society two “different millieus” (and whole… “hemispheres”) between “church” and “scholarly circles.” Does these, especially the labels “church” and “scholarly circles,” still belong to the “new” (or belongs to the “old”) state of affairs for him? (BTW, the most of the people in Troelsgård’s “scholarly circles” were… clerics!)
Secondly, in my current account now, in such an exposition of the "old" by Alexandru-Troelsgård I will have one more tool (written by insiders) to evaluate in the strongest possible, from my side, fair and unbiased way to what extent (and degree) the convictions (and perspectives) of some MMBs and their views, among other issues, especially on the relationship of AGMT with Greek chant, contributed to a misleading (and distorting?) image of the Byzantine music (especially for after the 2nd half of the 20th c.), and more specifically for those who believed that the results of MMB were "ready to use." Of course, the ethnomusicologists or critical musicologists of the future who will work on such topics will have more definite conclusions about these topics (and an "old"-"new" account from MMB insiders will surely be a valuable aid in their work.)
In this blog, here and there, such misleading material has been quoted. For example we mentioned (post dated March 16 2021, but see also the March 14 2021) how Egon Wellesz in his 2nd edition (1961) of his A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography added some two and half pages of text [2*] where he "demonstrated" the reversed direction (according to him; I cannot go into the intricacies here) of the "Byzantine modes" to the "modes of ancient Greek musical theory" in order to "prove" his convictions; as, additionally, a proof of “his” monolithic formula-theory for the Byzantine modes and chant.
I write “his” because this is the way he presented and “promoted” this theory in the interested English-speaking people of the 2nd half of the 20th c. (“I found” he wrote, p.71). This was even although as I wrote (in the aforementioned post dated March 16 2021) Gevaert’s “formulaic structure”-related, “Thèmes” had already been raised, not to mention the strongly-related “Thesis [as a melodic concept, in addition to its rhythmical meaning]-Period” views of Chrysanthos. (see his §§ 140, 314, 419 (with footnote β), 420, 423) See also, on p. 111, K. Filoxenēs’s (1868 Lexicon of the Greek Ecclesiastical Music [in Greek]) entry ΘΕΣΙΣ/Thesis, specifically the 7th meaning of this word, where he cites at the same time the 15th c. theorist M. Chrysaphēs (91-96). [3*] For all of those 19th c. people, along with the formulaic elements, there were other, compatible, elements/theoretical and oral (and aural) teaching concepts. Anyhow, in my opinion this 1961 Wellesz’s text addition is an important turning point for MMB and this is why I refer especially to the 2nd half of the 20th century (from 1961) in the MMB's understanding of AGMT's relationship with the Greek chant.
"New" and "old" (and also, sometimes, attempts at promotion) are not always clear and discernible, especially for “outsiders.” Unfortunately.
[2*] I can now give the details with more accuracy: In the 1st edition 1949, p. 61 the section ends on “…formulas of incantation.” In the 2nd edition, 1961 the new text continues from there, i.e. from the half of p. 69, from “E. Werner rightly…” to the end of the section on p. 71. Then begins in this book Wellesz’s new endeavor on the “Greek alchemists on music”…
[3*] Indeed, an "outsider," to realize the strong relevance of "formula" to "melodic thesis," could compare Troelsgård’s (2011 Byzantine Neumes) exposition p. 61 section 52.Modality, with Filoxenēs’s (1868) entry ΘΕΣΙΣ/Thesis, p. 111-112: Where Troelsgård e.g. writes among other things “Shorter stichera and chants in other genres normally use a more limited repertory of formulas,..” Filoxenēs gives, among other categories of thesis, musical examples with the titles “Thesis according to” the short stichera and “Thesis according to” the long stichera as well as the same for the “short” and the “long” –of the genre of- heirmoi)! There are also “theseis of modes,” infinite and definitive/apeiroi kai oristikai. Thesis seems to be a wider conception since what for Troelsgård is simply “final cadence,” Filoxenēs in the same entry use two species of thesis as terminative/conclusive or non-conclusive (katalēktēkē/akatalēktos). Intriguing enough Filoxenēs uses here also the term of Gevaert “Thema” (and “Thema of the mode”) and he says that akatalēkton [Thema] is an appellation used by the “mucisians” of his time!
Greek chant, AGMT(s) and only… “sicut in grammatica”? Or in Chrysaphēs’s (92) wording: καθώς γαρ εν τη γραμματική?
Some more general thoughts (constructive I hope), not just criticism; although criticism is a constructive process. We theorize about music using the texts of the “real” AGMT and the texts of the Lehrschriften der klassisch-byzantinischen Musik as Ch. Hannick named AGMTheorizing in the medieval Greek speaking world. ("Die Lehrschriften der klassisch-byzantinischen Musik": One could see that the existence of an AGMT theorizing in Byzantium was recognized, [not so much in connection to chant] at least, by those times, although in our days there are still AGMT perspectives, less and less, that not consider seriously this aspect.) But, what happens when the discipline of grammar is also gets involved with the Greek chant? For the 19th c. see e.g. the above mentioned quote of Filoxenēs to the 15th c. Chrysaphēs (as well as his, p. 44 lemma, Grammatikē. As far as our “new” affairs, should we theorize ancient Greek grammar (Hellenistic, Imperial) and Byzantine Greek (Early, Middle, Later, in the style of Die Lehrschriften der klassisch-byzantinischen Grammatik) grammar separately, or do we not need Greek grammar to be divided? In the Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner all the evolution is given within one title: Antike Grammatik. Or, simply, for narratives of Byzantine music would this, merely, be an imitation, without reason, of contemporary dominant trends and conceptual patterns on Carolingian musical affairs?
Actually, medieval "Greek musical stuff" is even more complicated; more specifically: the word φθόγγος/phthongos as we all know, belongs to both the domain of grammar and music. The “universal” word τόνος/tonos, belongs e.g. α) to ancient and Byzantine Greek grammar(s) [4*], β) AGMT(s) and Byzantine AGM and γ) (Stoic) philosophy (Stoics enjoyed certain popularity in Byzantium and e.g. for Epiktētos there were three Christian adaptations of him) together with another word (which also found in Papadikē and Hagiopolitēs): πνεύμα/pneuma/spirit. This word as well as, yes, σώμα/body also belongs to medieval Greek Alchemy. Not to mention some more philosophical, but also theological this time, terminology: φθορά/phthora. Thus, things are not that simple. Any (if) attempt to impose trends – just as they applied nowadays in Latin chant research - as a prototype for the Byzantine music (remember “Byzantine” theorizings of using only tones and semitones from the Orientalizing MMBs of the past) will not always be the most advanced (and in the cutting edge). Of course, this is the case for Latin chant because the priority given is, among other things, due a certain theory which connects (and interprets) the origin of the earliest European neumes with Latin grammar…
Back to Alchemy now and to Byzantine musical civilization in general: It would be a great omission for the alchemical dimension (which Wellesz, once again underestimated; could this be because there is not such substratum/layer in Carolingian musical affairs to be mimicked [or emulated]?) not to be considered along with grammar etc.
As a conclusion: there is not only the AGMT(s) and the Greek grammar(s) for Byzantine musical affairs in order to potentially identify and "reveal" possible relationships with the, as Troersgård named them, “ecclesiastical chant, and the oral teaching of music” in the abstract cited in the beginning of this post.
[4*] One could taxonomize Priscian as a Byzantine Latin grammarian although in the brain synapses of most this is not the case because, most probably, his work was the standard for the teaching of Latin grammar [and glossed MSS] in the European geography before and during the Carolingian schools!
The tonoi of Claudios Ptolemaios as considered in recent years by three Medieval Chant researchers
Since the main topic of this blog is Claudios Ptolemaios and its relation to Chant, I would like to add a piece about three researchers who have recently taken an interest in the tonoi of Claudios Ptolemaios: Gerda Wolfram, Charles Atkinson and Matthiew R J Nace.
About Gerda Wolfram’s view of Feb. 2021 (Wolfram, Gerda. The Byzantine Modal System in Relation to Ancient Greek Music Theory. Series Musicologica Balcanica, [S.l.], v. 1, n. 2, p. 200-208, feb. 2021. ISSN 2654-248X. Here ) we have already written some things in the end of the post dated March 14 2021. She wrote about the subject in the first volume of a new journal. This first volume was devoted to Modus-Modi-Modality. She writes on p. 202 [bold emphasis mine]:
The common intent of the theoretical treatises is above all to give practical orders to singers and composers and to clarify the existing tradition. On the other hand, the authors try to show in a simple way that Byzantine church music has a connection with the ancient modal system and classical Greek music theory.
On p. 204 as we already have seen in this blog she gives the “Example 2” and the text continues to explain [bold emphasis mine]:
“Example 2
The seven tonoi of Ancient Greek Music, according to Ptolemaios
Hypodorios a‘ – a, hypophrygios g‘ – g, hypolydios f‘ – f,
dorios e‘– e, phrygios d‘ – d, lydios c‘ – c, mixolydios b – B
The seven tonoi or transposition scales are in a descending order: hypodorios from a‘ to a, hypophrygios from g‘ to g, hypolydios from f‘ to f, dorios from e’ to e, phrygios from d‘ to d, lydios from c‘ to c, and mixolydios from b to Β. The σύστημα τέλειον of two octaves consists of two external tetrachords which are connected above and below with two inner tetrachords, which are separated by a whole tone, the mese. (TTS)”
So, for Wolfram, Mixolydios is the lowest tonos according to Ptolemaios (if I understand her correctly).
Charles Atkinson in an article of 2018 “Constitutio in Boethius' Musica Antecedents and Implications,” Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 108 here (Wolfram does not use it [or e.g. Barker 2007, pp. 223-228 or even Mathiesen 1999, pp. 464-466] in her poor, in relation to Harmonica, bibliography; she uses the 1934 book of Düring, Ptolemaios und Porphyrios über die Musik) on p. 47 also deals with the tonoi of Ptolemaios and he writes [bold emphasis mine]:
“After describing the "improper" derivation of eight tonoi, Ptolemy then proceeds to derive the seven tonoi that correspond to the seven discrete octave species (see Figure 4). This can be done in the "proper method," as he calls it, by starting with the highest tonos, the Mixolydian (which is A in Figure 4), and then deriving the others by a succession of moves by consonances - fourths and fifths - not via the transposition of the system by means of emmelic intervals.”
I cannot, again, go into the intricacies here or express my opinion about what exactly Ptolemy's tonoi are, their relation to Boethius (but see the quote to Calvin Bower’s relative work and the immediately following parenthetical comment of mine in the aforementioned post dated March 14 2021), the Alia Musica, and medieval musical theories in general. But are these two modern expositions compatible? If so how could this happen? Or are they different and we have two equal candidates for a valid explanation for Ptolemy's tonoi? But if we have two different explanations here, what about their conclusions about medieval modes? Are both still valid?
For Wolfram on p. 205, in renewed Welleszian way, writes [bold emphasis mine] :
“In contrast with the classical system, Byzantine modes are arranged in ascending order: the first echos is equated with the dorios D-a,…”
And Charles Atkinson, more elegantly in style, concludes his article on pp. 49-50:
“…I must confess, though, that I am drawn to the idea that these chapters are a reworking by Boethius himself in part by the fact that his was one of the greatest minds of Roman Antiquity. It is difficult for me to believe that the author of In Ciceronis topica, the De topicis differentiis, and the Consolatio Philosophiae would not have been intellectually capable of choosing the texts he wanted to use as models, whether from Nicomachus, Ptolemy, or Aristides Quintilianus, and then constructing his own explication of tone-system and mode. Clearly, this article raises more questions than it provides answers, but I hope that one of its outcomes will be for us to reconsider the possibility that Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius might have been the person who constructed the most cohesive and convincing theory of tone-system and mode that survives from Latin Antiquity, one that formed the very foundation of Western modal theory itself.”
The fact that Claudios Ptolemaios is nowadays of some interest to researchers of Latin chant (A. Machabey’s article with its misleading title in relation to its content, now comes to mind) can also be observed in the recent thesis (2020) of Matthiew R J Nace, The Alia musica and the Carolingian Conception of Mode here . On p. 188 he begins his account of Ptolemaios with the following sentence [bold emphasis mine]:
“The system of fifteen τόνοι described above remained essentially the standard paradigm right through the rest of the Greco-Roman era, with a few refinements. These refinements were proposed by the second-century Alexandrian theorist Claudius Ptolemy.”
And on p. 190 [emphasis mine] :
“Ptolemy’s second refinement is easily missed if one reads only his discussion of the τόνοι, which he seems to describe as being raised up or down, as had his predecessors. Ptolemy’s actual view is not entirely clearly articulated and requires a little reading between the lines. It comes from his discussion of the structure of the gamut and the naming of notes by both position and function.”
On p. 191 he writes:
“Ptolemy’s actual conception of mode is revealed in his description of note-naming by function: he says that one begins by…”
The figure 19 follows and then he continues:
“Taken together, the effect of Ptolemy’s refinements to the modal concept is that mode has effectively returned from a key signature paradigm to an octave species paradigm. Once again, the purpose of this detailed examination of Ptolemy’s conception is in preparation for a caveat regarding the Alia musica, to be made after a consideration of Boethius. Before leaving Ptolemy, however, there are two direct references to Ptolemy in the Alia musica that ought to be addressed. The references in question are in §16(b) and §130(c); both say essentially the same thing, and make the same error – but one that scarcely deserves to be so identified, as it is a repetition of an error in Boethius (and verifies the general assumption that the authors of the Alia Musica never read Ptolemy, but learned of his doctrines via Boethius)…”
I would also like to note in this thesis his chapter 18 “Retuning the lyre from the Dorian octave species to the Lydian. “
It would be of importance at some point to see e.g. these three chant researchers on an interdisciplinary panel together with AGMT people to discuss what the tonoi of Ptolemaios are and how (if) he contributed to the formation of Medieval music theories. Hopefully such a discussion of Ptolemy-Medieval chant will take place sometime. In addition, in such a case, the AGMT researchers will have the opportunity to have a judgment/evaluation of the ways and priorities through which Latin and Greek chant Medievalists currently read and interpret the AGMT material.
Exoticizing the “Global”? The continuation
In preparing that material, I argue that it is very interesting that scholars of Ancient Greek Music [=AGM]/Theory[=AGMT] often, but less and less, do not consider seriously, and with the importance it deserves, the Byzantine background of certain AGMT treatises as well as the related Byzantine scholia on AGMT (mostly in Ptolemy's Harmonica). So very often we see such accounts of AGMT taking place as late as the Roman Imperial period at the latest. These accounts, probably unconsciously and unintentionally, contribute to Eurocentric readings (of a not well defined "geo-cultural Europe") of a narration from AGMT to Latin chant without any serious involvement of the Byzantine world, which BTW preserved, what an irony, the Greek treatises of the ancient and later musicographers. [5*] All this occurs despite the fact that there is a significant portion of this AGMT material, where a number of treatises belong chronologically "anytime between the 4th and... 10th c." (You know, including Byzantine “Dark Ages” etc.) i.e. not so definitely (and exclusively) material of the Roman Imperial period! (Here is not the place to argue, in a “magnetic” way, with more specific details and more unexploited material on the subject of dating e.g. the Eisagōgē text(s) of Baccheios in the Dark Ages and probably in the times of emperor Kōnstantinos V [741-775]. Even E. Gertsman, p. 106, proposed a wide dating concluding that it “is a document of Byzantine musicology.” And after all, it is more appropriate to wait for the, announced, forthcoming work by Ch. Terzēs on a new dating of Eisagōgē.)
More generally, a eurocentric reading would prefer “to pull” these unsure and highly relative (from 4th to 10th century) dating attempts closer to their earlier terminus, i.e. by interpreting and reading that material as belonging exclusively to - a kind of a "more European(?)”- Roman world. [6*]
Furthermore, among other things, I point to the fact that any decontextualization of the medieval MSS and the relative Byzantine material of AGMT can easily be used as an arbitrary “pretextual argument/documentation” for any kind of modern reconstruction in order to solve the riddles of AGMT.
[5*] Simultaneously, the existence of elementary educational material (but not only that) in later medieval Greek chant, should not give us the impression that, to use Leo Treitler’s hasty and échappatoire phrasing, “a genuine literate tradition had not [emphasis of the original] become established” [5a*] in the medieval Byzantine chant world and this not only in terms of the relation of medieval Greek chant with the AGMT. It is obvious, I think: the presence of the “elementary” does not automatically mean the absence of the “literate.” [5b*] In contrast and more generally, the case of the music theory texts (and their relation[s] to AGMT) of the Islamicate world and its translation movement is treated in a "better" way. I have to add here that I owe a fuller, with more attention to detail, account about Bardaisan/Harmonios/Ephrem and Severus of Antioch cases and how they worked in parallel within their contemporary musicotheoretical environment(s).
[5a*] A phrase that reflects the “air” of the time and the way, an “outsider,” Leo Treitler, absorbs the then widespreading “discerned patterns.” His phrasing was referring even until the mid. 17th c.: “And there are hints that as late as the seventeenth century a genuine literate tradition had not [emphasis of the original] become established in the East.” It would be interesting to check whether Kenneth Levy, as an “insider” (active in the circle of Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae) felt the need to reject (or even comment on) Treitler’s formulation about a not -so- literate chant tradition of the Byzantines (As far as I remember the relative polemical literature, including “communications,” this did not happen). Of course then, and until this blog, the MSS of AGMT and their references to the Greek chant (i.e. a whole class of sources, not a reference or a piece of evidence from here and there) were not “seen,” but that was no reason to dismiss or try to minimize (or to make it seem somewhat “irrelevant” or “nonsense”) the “other pole,” at least in terms of the relative medieval intellectual literature or even… humanness. I will, additionally, mention here the existence of allusions to the “Western” origin of the “misapplicated” ēchoi nomenclature (from Hypodōrios to Hypomixolydios) of the Hagiopolitēs treatise.
[5b*] Not to mention the intermediate “shades” between such polarization; and, as one can read the note at the end of the first post of this blog, the potentially infinite discussions/polemics (past or future) about the magnitude of the degree of interaction (less, more or even more) between two “defined” poles or whole… hemispheres.
[6*] To give a different example from another, more recent, x-centric case/side: Chrysanthos’s ecclesiastical music reforms (early 19th century, considered as an “institutionalization of the tradition” by J. Samson 2013, p. 146) should not be considered within a perspective of an exclusively nation-centered “Greek Enlightenment/Ελληνικός Διαφωτισμός,” as, sometimes, here in Greece, nor an exclusively Balkan-centered “Balkan renaissance,” i.e. without taking into account the cultural geography of chant in the Levant, e.g. Sinai, Jerusalem, Egypt end the like, as well as the Byzantine chant in Italy; this is a kind of suppression of the wider view through “our” “Balkan lens.”
True, as we shall see, there are many collateral consequences of the preference to theorize, in a vague and abstract way, about AGMT as part of "Western music" (or even, tentatively, using terms like the “Medieval music” in the sense of “early European music”; although, with this “European,” again, the early North African factor of Latin chant is suppressed. After all, things are not that easy in this world) and this is nothing more than suppressing the evidence in a "West and the Rest” way. (Indicatively, together with the article of M. Walker that we quoted elsewhere in this blog, see two articles from the 90s (although the label is older) from The New York Times here , contra and especially for Byzantium here .)
For now I add one more part from that to-be-completed project of mine:
Exoticizing the “Global”?
Sometimes, I think how old-fashioned I am when I talk about Global perspectives in a new world that is trying to reorient itself (see as an - amuse-bouche- [a culinary term], in the “Going Global, In Theory” in Musicological Brainfood, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2019 here ) within already standardized domains, 1) without challenging them and 2) just using “provocative” (for who, exactly?) terms like “defamilirizing the West” and others and at the same time we hear, over and over again, narratives about the same stereotypical borders: "medieval Western theory," “Carolingians,” “Arabic-Persian” material, “Imperial Greek music,” “Byzantine chant” etc. or more recently, looking at parallels (=bells and hammers [as in other cases with stars, winds, waves etc.]) between Chinese and Greek music (apparently meaning Ancient Chinese and Ancient Greek musics). As a result, one could read such standardized ways of thinking just wrapped in a piece of paper that fashionably reads “GLOBAL.” Some people may think, also, that the only problem is how much representation of cultures there is on “Global panels” or whether we should naïvely send letters in each country’s language (using the correct one, I hope) to ask them to send representatives to such a gatherings. Not only that, the case, as we speak in culinary terms, have also aspects related to the fusion cuisines of our time (e.g. our preference for a chef's new Egyptian-Peruvian cooking language to enjoy a great dinner; everyone involved are well-intentioned people). This is nothing more than a fusion-exoticism, but within modern day creativity because it seems far-fetched that someone would do research to define the interconnected culinary past of an artificial culinary dipole like Egypt and Peru e.g. in early times. But it is possible, in such a hypothetical example, to hear, a posteriori, on surprising common elements [7*], despite the existence sometimes of altitudinal difference, between them! (You know, pyramids, desserts etc., inspired by the relative posters in such a hypothetical restaurant) But, some of the real complexities are how phenomena like “orientalism”/“occidentalism” by “outsiders,” or “self-orientalism”/“self-occidentalism” by the “insiders,” or “auto-exoticism” by both will be, as far as possible, managed (or to be able to check how well/adequately informed several updated/"upgraded" [also in terms of methodology] contemporary expositions are or if doing any injustice to detail in favor of a “discerned pattern” or personal, sometimes narcissistic, experience) in such “Global panels.” E.g., in regional terms, I imagine some of the people from our beloved Balkans participating in such gatherings specifically in terms of auto-exoticism. On the contrary, in my personal communications, for many years, with historical musicologists and especially ethnomusicologists from all over the world, I realized that phenomena/behaviors like some of the ones mentioned above are not so rare in our days. Moreover, in this blog I strongly emphasized, so many times, that e.g. Global chant perspectives/methodologies should also be discussed/cross-checked by ethnomusicologists; but the reverse is not something to be forgotten, especially when “comparisons” are involved and not only for any attention to accuracy and detail. [7*, again]
Anyway, it is evident that the matter has more aspects than the dimensions expressed by David R. M. Irving in his manifesto article (in an earlier 2018 article he explained the “dialectical” way AGM absorbed in “Western European” cultural world [8*]; but there is also the other way round: how this absorption affects/influences, even in our days, the study of AGM itself? And not only that, there are more, unnoticed, implications in the grand narrative, not only, of “Western music.”) in the above mentioned issue of Musicological Brainfood (or see one more text in the last Vol. 7, No 2, 2023, “Global musicology revisited”), for then it is not certain that the results will be so very different from the "good" and “uncomfortably familiar” old way: in this text of ours we have shown how globalizing, but ill-defined, 1) terminological preferences and 2) geocultural boundaries (indeed: “fluid or liquefied,” like Imperial music in Egypt as a somewhat [not exclusively, I hope] “Western music,” even in our days [it is not only early, or earlier, European music theorists missionaries or traveling ethnographers of the 16th -18th /19th centuries and their different “modern” opinions]) still reflect not only α) exeptionalism, but β) yes, broken narratives, β.1) a particular –as we shall see- régime d’historicité and γ) have an impact on the “object,” in general, regardless of any good will (even for those interested exclusively in “Western” music itself) “to write a history of Western music without Western music as the focus.” So, more recently, Daniel K. L. Chua wrote an article on Global musicology in Acta Musicologica 94, 1 (2022) “Global Musicology: A Keynote without a Key,” here and an online response to this article is written by the chair of our Cantus Planus group Jeremy Llewellyn, “Is musicology ‘broken’? A response to Daniel K. L. Chua on ‘Global Musicology’” (2022) here as well as there is also the “Is There A Global History of Music? On Contextualizing Music in/from Asia and Europe” by Tobias Janz here .
Global, okay, there are good reasons for this, but Global how, is the question I am asking, for my part, in this short paragraph, not as an amuse-bouche, but this time as… a meze.
[7*] Indeed, when writing, routinely, about differences and similarities or any other kind of a “balancing conventionality/compromise” between “two (or more)” “defined” domains, a benevolent agent (insider or outsider) often realizes that s/he does not understand very well the material (in all its, historical and other, dimensions). Additionally, a polarization-depolarization procedure is not always an innocent endeavor from the point of view of certain perspectives. One should remember the amount of ink spilled about “existing” dipoles such as oral-written transmission; not to mention the usage of terms with potential (in the future) polarizing characteristics like prescriptive-descriptive notations [7a*] “West”-“East,” e.g. S. Rankin (2011, p. 48) wrote: “But the copying of music in an early medieval neumatic notation [P.E., most probably of the Latin chant] could not have been handled in the same way as text. Such notations had no independence from the sound phenomenon to which they related: nor were they ever fully prescriptive – since they did not provide primary instructions for the recreation of articulated sound.” See also her Writting Sounds… 2018, p. 83 where she interprets, among others, “these signs indicating liquescence” in the “earliest extant example, written between 820 and 840” (the clm 9543) [emphasis mine]: “we might now describe the graphic marks over the words of Psalle modulamina as indications of how those words sound, within which category changes of pitch, speed and voice production can be included. Read in this way, the graphic marks above the text represent a prescriptive reflection back from writing into the medium of sound from which these sounds had first been captured.”
Now back to the larger issue: the solution, most times, is not a “harmonizing” and “transactional” (I mean, διεκπεραιωτικός) effort that “navigates” between two poles. Be that as it may, in a way we become wiser by reading the relative literature(s) and one can realize, in retrospect, how polarizing “infinite” polemics, “updated” or not, “resolved” or not, could have, predictably, disorienting qualities.
[7a*] Especially about medieval notations, since we are not, of course, fully understand them. E.g. “directionality” above all (in our days), but also “duration,” “intensity,” “grouping/ligation,” “the depiction of vocal nuances” (or some neumes with “valeur ornementale,” or the “some niceties of delivery” of K. Levy) not mention “calligraphy,” “orthography” etc., are only a part (the most important for “those singing in Latin medieval people” or only what “we” understand?) of the information the graphs of the neumes convey, as the most people of our times, consider them in a “post-” but “Cardinian” way…
[8*] He (2018, p. 23) writes: “The present essay considers the place of ancient Greece within genealogies and historiographical conceptions of Western art music, examining early modern discourse (mostly French) on the musical breach with antiquity; it goes on to explore analogies that were made between extra-European music traditions and ancient Greek practice, arguing that these analogies were underpinned by assumptions of Western European modernity. Finally, it surveys Western European views of early modern Greek music, which demonstrate how Ottoman-ruled Greece was excluded from an ‘imagined community’ of Western European art music.” On my account, the seemingly endogenous grand narrative (even of our days) is more revealing on how the “West” (whatever that means) absorbed the Greek speaking world, sometimes even constructing a convenient “pure” (=a kind of a “musical/cultural Katharévousa”) image of it from exogenous elements, than a new (chimeric?) contextualization of a collection (exhaustive or not) of case by case microhistories. Indeed, it is no consequence that a significant part of the “West and the Rest” thing is based on the reworking(s) of conceptions from the Rennaisance and Reformation.
Exoticizing the “Global”?
Five more manuscripts of Ancient Greek Music [=AGM] /Theory [=AGMT] were digitized by the Vatican in the past months. We have only one manuscript from Barb.gr. The majority, four, came from Reg.gr fond, which has now been fully digitized in relation to AGMT manuscripts (Numbers 248-253 of RISM-Mathiesen catalogue).
V-CVbav : Barb.gr.273 (Numéro diktyon: 64819, Math. 239, 15th c., Vitrac p. 164, 16th c.) This is a copy of Parisinus gr. 2450. The echoi (along with their enēchēmata and phthorai) in relation to their principal names (κύρια ονόματα) Dōrios, Phrygios etc. are on f. 53 r.
V-CVbav : Reg.gr.94 (Numéro diktyon: 66264, Math. 249, 16th c., Vitrac p. 165, 16th c.)
V-CVbav : Reg.gr.108 (Numéro diktyon: 66278, Math. 250, 16th c.)
V-CVbav : Reg.gr.119 (Numéro diktyon: 66289, Math. 251, 16th c., Vitrac p. 165, 16th c.)
V-CVbav : Reg.gr.169 (Numéro diktyon: 66338, Math. 252, 16th c., Vitrac p. 165, 15th c.)
Beyond Eurocentrism in Ancient Greek Music Theory
With BAV Reg. gr. 108 we have, now, online one more MS where the Hypolydian Kanōn and the hormasià are placed (f. 33 r- 33 v) and Reinach 1896 also used. As I have seen, in our days, there are a few “new” reproductions specifically for the adjacent short middle Byzantine text of Kanōn/Monochord (not like other later texts of the 13th -14th c.) diagram [1*]. Regarding their typed reproduction of the word hormasià [2*] it seems that they all follow Reinach 1896, p.196 (see also his p. 187 n. 2, and pp. 208-209) although his apparatus (“variants”) is poor. In a way, for this case it is not, exactly, so necessary to look at all three MSS (see also Pöhlmann 1970, p. 32), since we have the Heidelbergensis, but this is a good opportunity to see how Reinach's text is rather influenced by his views on pp. 208-209. So as far as the hormasià we have (I’ll try to write in polytonic, let us hope that no electronic font compatibility issues will appear): in all three MSS: τῆς ὁρμασιᾶς, not τῆς ὁρμασίας, see 1) Heidelberg Pal. gr. 281 (and at the end of that short text, ὁρμασιὰν; also ὁρμασιὰ for the title on f. 173 r), 2) Münich gr. 104 (and at the end, ὁρμασίαν; but ὁρμασία for the title on f. 289 r), 3) BAV Reg. gr. 108 (and at the end, ὁρμασιὰν; also ὁρμασια for the title on f. 33 r); see also Vincent 1847, p. 257, n. 1. Moreover, in all the cases the word καβάλιν/kaválin/chevalet is correctly (regarding the Kanōn text) reproduced.
[1*] The contextualization (chronological and not only) of the Imperial and Medieval music related diagrams (described in words or drawn in MSS) is an important issue, e.g. who endorses the arrangement of psychic divisions in a single length and who in a Λ-shape, see D. Baltzly, 2009, pp. 31-32. Here I recall the existence in the medieval Latin MSS of the trois lambdas (ou trois triangles sans base in simple, élaborée and dissociée forms) of Chalcidius’s text (ed. [avec la collaboration de Luc Brisson pour la traduction] Béatrice Bakhouche, 2011, Tome I, pp. 232-271, §§ 26-55) and specifically the relative Valenciennes, BM, 293 with the monogram here of Hincmar of Reims (an important, not only in ecclesiastical terms, figure) see e.g. here , or, perhaps, a Werden MS, in connection with Enchiriades, see M. Huglo 2008, p. 228). For a recent short exposition on monochord see M. Haas (2019) in Musik und Schrift, pp. 168-169.
[2*] Reincah wrote: «Le mot ὁρμασιὰ —accentué à la néo-grecque particulièrement embarrassant [why?], car ce mot, inconnu des dictionnaires classiques…»; of course, this is a medieval Greek word. I will simply give the way in which this word occurs in these three MSS, and will not proceed, here, with any "explanation" of mine on the subject.
More on Kaválin/Chevalet, as a case study
Thus, in the short adjacent scholion on the left of this Hypolydian Kanōn a central role is played by the use of this word, Kav(/b)álin, a word indeed overlooked by the mainly “dictionnaire classique” LSJ. Regarding its use in later medieval church music sources we have covered elsewhere in this blog, see e.g. my post dated December 15, 2019. The difference in this earlier case is that the word Kaválin/chevalet appears in an intellectual secular (not ecclesiastical) context. According to Solomon p. 26, n.138, “Ptolemy uses no less than five different terms for ‘Bridge,’” but this word is not among them. It is first attested [3*], again in a secular middle Byzantine intellectual context in the ca. 950 A.D., Suda Lexicon. Its orthography this time is with ēta: καβάλη/kabálē/kaválē (here). So this word, with the meaning “Bridge,” seems to appear no earlier than 10th c. as well as the adjacent to the Hypolydian Monochord short scholion which includes the word kavàlin and which scholion, to use art terminology, should not be decontextualized from its middle Byzantine framework and then recontextualized into an earlier one.
[3*] In Montanari’s dictionary in the “relevant” lemma the cases in Hesychios have nothing to do with music and in the case of the Scholia in Frogs the word most probably has the meaning of a circular tuning peg (in 13thc. Latin, Cavilla), not as chevalet, see my posts on this blog dated 5 and 6 December 2019, see also Reincah 1896, 214, n. 2.
Furthermore, Raasted also seems to not understand well (if not at all) the term Kavallia/chevalets [4*] and translates it once as ... “signs” and the other time he does not translate it, as “kaballia,” and writes, elsewhere, that the “original” content of the text under the title, with this term, was something that belonged to the actual Byzantine music, i.e. something “useful”… for him: “a useful list of neumes”!
[4*] It is evident that this important term, as well as the theme of AGMT in relation to the medieval Greek chant, has suffered so much by the Byzantinists of Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae in favor to their “discerned patterns” and this not only within the limits of a specific polarization-depolarization procedure between
an “accepted fact [emphasis mine]” (as Troelsgård observed), i.e. the existence of “two different [emphasis mine] milieus in the Byzantine society, the church on the one side and the scholarly circles of quadrivial study on the other” and
“some very important points or areas of contact and interaction [emphasis mine] between these milieus.”
As we shall see, a polarization delimits and entrenches an issue in the “desired boundaries and discourse(s) (e.g. discerned patterns and specific definitions)” and could create “infinite” polemics within them, not allowing us to realize that such a polemics, among fruitful results, it could also have disorienting qualities that give sometimes the impression, among other things, that all the “harmonizing efforts” are more or less… “similar” since “all the people accepts these poles/borders” and the (one?) relative specific discourse. This impression is of course the least important but creates the more confusion, especially when one considers how hopelessly simplistic binary propositions are.
The oldest MS with the adjacent short Byzantine text of the Kanōn is the A.D. 1040 Heidelbergensis Pal. gr. 281 and it is a codex that originally belonged to an intellectual. On the colophon at the bottom of f. 181r, the scribe writes that the codex belongs to his master (authéntou mou/“mon-sieur”/mon Seignieur/Efendim benim) Rōmanos, an ασηκρήτης (=asēcrētēs, "secretary," high rank bureaucracy, and as usual, intellectuals) και κριτής (high rank Judge of a Thema=administrative division of the State) of Seleucia (=Sifike-Türkiye [and here ]; among the sites of the other Seuleucias of the Hellenistic world, e.g. Manavgat-Türkiye, Çevlik-Türkiye, especially the Seuleucia of Tigris here , 29 km south of Baghdad-Iraq was not an –Eastern- Roman territory in the 11th c.). It is of the outmost importance that such a MS had a place in the library of a savant on the Byzantine frontier within an Armenian, Syriac, Turkish, Kurdish and Arabic speaking (and, most importantly, for us, Arabic music theorizing) geography. According to Reinach 1896, p. 215, Rōmanos was: «un lettré byzantin, le conseiller d'État Romanos, amateur [?] de curiosités musicales» and that «En réalité, Hormasia et Canon n'ont rien à démêler l'un avec l'autre: ce sont deux fragments d'époques différentes et de valeur bien inégale». Indeed, we could argue that the hormasià could be an earlier (but how much earlier?) element and the Hypolydian Kanōn a later Middle Byzantine diagrammatic scholion along with its accompanying short text with the 10th c. word Kabálē/Kaválin/chevalet. Moreover, for us, we cannot rule out that Rōmanos was in possession of this MS when (and if) once moved to the Capital (see also Di Mambro 2020 p. 346). A century earlier Fārābī wrote how he was familiar not only with the treatises of AGMT but also with people with interests in music theory (like our Rōmanos) from the lands of the, Eastern, Romans.
Clearly, Shaykh works with AGMT using much more material than we imagine, and in addition, giving us more early testimonies/hints about the early recensions of the medieval Greek MSS of AGMT. One example is the, not observed until now, use by him of terms like μέση υπεβολαίων or παραμέση υπερβολαίων, at least the way D’Erlanger translates it (=“moyenne des aiguës ou paranète hyperboléôn”) on p. 205 of the Premier Tome of his La Musique Arabe; see also the p. 91 of the same volume, my post of August 10, 2023 in this blog, Hagel, 2005 “Twenty-for in auloi…,” pp. 64ff. with note 41 and more recently F. Acerbi- S. Di Mambro, 2023 “Barlaam’s Refutation…,” p. 43 with n. 172.
All of the above are among the material that I am currently trying to deal with under the title Beyond Eurocentrism in Ancient Greek Music Theory [=AGMT] which is concerned with the tendency to include, generally and vaguely, some "Greek musics” (e.g. “Classical,” “Imperial Greek music” etc.) within the cultural history of “Western music” (not exclusively, I hope) and not only that, but also exploiting (and building upon) this appreciation as a self-evident argument for "supporting" a historical informed reconstruction … (Not mention, in contrast, several different perspectives about Greece’s musical singularity.) In fact, e.g. Claudios Ptolemaios isn’t exactly a Western music theorist and the tentative opposite, at least to me, is a bit strange. As a result, this kind of “Western” music (of Imperial times) geo-culturally includes al-ʾIskandariyya/Alexandria in… Egypt (something like, conveniently, a “less Western/European” location on an imaginary scale/gradation of a liquefied “Westernness”?), or even the places where Nicomachos from Gerasa (another not, exactly, “western” locale) wrote his Encheiridion when traveling. So, we must first ask ourselves: Does always “Ancient-Hellenistic-Imperial Music(s)” belong to “Western Music(s),” even conveniently? What are the consequences of such an attitude? Would the results be “the same” if we consider Ancient Greek Music Theory as not, exclusively, “Western”? […]
One more list of new online MSS:
Nl-Ll: gr. 16 D (Numéro diktyon: 37637, Math. 276, 17th c., Düring [Porphyrios] No 19, 17th c.) See Pinakes (here)
GB-Ctc: O.5.16 (gr. 1297, Numéro diktyon: 12001, Math. 118, 17th. c., Vitrac p. 163, 17th.) See Pinakes (here)
The MS exhibits extensive scholia, interlineation, diagrams and marginal collation.
GB-Ctc: O.5.27 (gr. 1308, Numéro diktyon: 12005, Math. 119, 17th c., Vitrac p. 163, 17th c.) See Pinakes (here)
GB-Cu: Gg.II.34 (gr. 1464, Numéro diktyon: 12192, Math. 121, 15th c., Vitrac p. 163, 16th c. Library’s’ description: first half of 16th c.) See Pinakes (here) where ff. 8-16 “Sectio canonis” without reference to the section 3. Thus, one could view the sections of the MS as follows:
1)Κλεονείδου εἰσαγωγὴ ἁρμονικὴ 1r-8r
2)Εὐκλείδου Κατατομὴ κανόνος 8r-11v, 16r -16v
3)[Fragmentum ex Ptolemei musica, sine titulo] 12r-15v.
A few words about a scholion in Πτολεμαίου μουσικά on the occasion of section 3
Section 3 starts with Jan 412(§4) and ends on 418(§23). On the end of 14v and the beginning of 15r the text of Jan 416 (§17, “a verbatim quote from Cleonides,” Jan 192.12-19) is found and, simultaneously, is paraphrased in the right margin. But here we have something that reinforces Mathiesen’s view that this codex forms the exemplar for F-Pn: gr. 3027. In this small marginal text it is said that the whole tone has 12 mória the semitone 6 dodekatimória, the tritemórios diesis tessara [=4 ], but, the tetartemórios again tessara [=4, with four dots below this word demonstrating that this is wrong and the same hand emends with a Γ above to show that the correct is 3]. The relative margin of F-Pn: gr. 3027 on f.32v has only the Γ. The earliest MS with the Πτολεμαίου Μουσικά together with this small marginal text is the I-Vat: Gr. 2338 f. 22 r where there is not the Γ but the whole word tria [=3]. This is the case also of the I-Nn: gr. 260 (III.C.2, Math. 201, 15th c., f. 43 r, reproduced in color by F. Acerbi- S. Panteri, “Eratosthenes in the exerpta Neapolitana,” p.679). Additionally in note 31 they write: The scholium summarizing part of section 17 [.3-9], penned in red ink in Neapol. III.C.2 and edited in MSG 416.6–9 app., is copied from Vat.gr. 2338, where it was apposed at the end of the fourteenth century by Philotheos of Selymbria (Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit 29896).
Philotheos, a metropolitan, was most probably student of Gregoras but theologically an opponent of him (and of Barlaam). So this simplified paraphrase of the main text, as scholion, apposed, by an ecclesiastical figure, is written in order to stress and popularize the importance of this paragraph for the 14th c. Byzantine readers. Anyhow, the importance of such Aristoxenian-Cleonidian theorizing in medieval times was global and one has to remember the “same theme” in the earliest anonymous tradition of the commentaries on Martianus Capella, and the exposition on intervals within the common paragraphs of Anonymos III and Hagiopolites that I came across, in a preliminary manner, in the past.
For the MS tradition and the layers of the Πτολεμαίου μουσικά one can see the above mentioned article. I’ll give now the links of online MSS relative to the two interpolations within the long excerpt from Nichomachos within the Πτολεμαίου Μουσικά, where after the Jan 266 (§1, on the Lyra of the ancients) there are two interpolations. The first is the Canobic Inscription (with coping mistakes) of Claudios Ptolemaios (let’s say, his system of the “harmony of the spheres) and the Koine Hormasia (=”the common tuning” of a stringed instrument played with the both hands, i.e. the text gives the “notes” of the right hand and the “notes” of the left one).
I’ll give here three online MSS of the Canobic inscription within the astronomical MSS (in the musical ones is found within the Πτολεμαίου Μουσικά). The
Marcianus gr. Z 313 (=690) (mid-10th c., Numéro diktyon: 69784, see Pinakes here) is not online.
BNF Gr. 2390 (13th c., Numéro diktyon: 52022, see Pinakes (here) ff. 13v-14v)
Vat. gr. 184 (13th c., Numéro diktyon: 66815 see Pinakes (here), ff. 23v-24v
Laur. Plut. 18. 01 (14th c., Numéro diktyon: 16182 see Pinakes (here) ff. 14v-15r
Finally the Koine Hormasia is found, in the already given in this blog, earliest codex in relation to Ancient Greek Music Theory the
D-Heu: Cod. Pal. gr. 281 (14 January of 1040, Math. 14, Numéro diktyon: 66013, see Pinakes [here]) f. 173r.
New online MSS of Ancient Greek Music Theory and on the No-e-no-e-a-ne intonation syllables
I will start, of course, from yet another manuscript where Ptolemy's Tónoi, as described in the 10th chapter of his Book II on Harmonics (entitled: Πως αν υγιώς λαμβάνοιτο των τόνων αι υπεροχαί), are connected to the Octoechos by the use of a marginal diagram. This is the
D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 200 (Numéro diktyon: 44646, Math. 19, 15th c. [ff. 1-173]-16th c. [ff. 174-320], Vitrac p. 179, 15th-16thc., Düring 26, 15th-16th c.). See Pinakes (here)
The marginal diagram with the 8 echoi is on the left margin of p. 293. The correlation of the echoi with the names of Dorios, Phrygios, Lydios etc. is the one with the affiliation of Pachymeris, Bryennios, Gregoras and Argyros, e.g. the 1st echos is Hypermixolydios and not Hypodorios referred to as the principal name (κύριο όνομα) for 1st echos in the Hagiopolitan systematization, or even Dorios as in the later Papadikai exposition.
On this occasion some food for thought since these pieces of information (and class of sources) about Byzantine chant never used (and “seen”) in the 20th century and our days from the people working with Greek and Latin chant. Below that diagram, we read also the in-tonation (en-echema/εν-ήχημα) syllables of the echoi: ananaìanes for 1st echos, naìanes for the 2nd echos etc. That is to say, not as ananeanes or neanes, as in other Byzantine sources e.g. in the, Sinai 1218 f. 271 (A.D. 1177) or in the Papadike of 1336, Athens 2458 f. 4v (see also Raasted “Intonation Formulas…” pp. 229-31. And here, too, I’ am reminded of the way Raasted was contemplating about the echemata in relation to the “Octoechos systematization”). I’m trying to think if something “special” is meant/represented with this different orthography of the echematic syllables in the 13th-14th c. Byzantine sources of Ancient Greek Music Theory (= archaizing orthography, something “more official” and/or lost exemplars with older material?*) since such a lettering exists this way both in Harmonics-Hagiopolitan and Harmonics-Gregoras (in more than one MS of Gregoras recension ) expositions; so there is consciousness here and it is not the case of a coincidence or “wrong.” Weird for some people, perhaps yes in this case, but not wrong.
* One could remember, among others, the A-I-ANEOEANE in Alia Musica and noe-a-i-s in Commemoratio Brevis (for the noeagis, see Bailey’s apparatus on p. 38), where the –i there, consists of a separate syllable. I think if this –a-i- was the case in an earlier (now lost) music theory/practice layers of eastern Roman world where the vowels of the echemata had some function in relation to a kind of abstract “solfege syllables” together, of course, with the “interval (not only whole tones and especially semitones as Raasted proposed, pp. 9 and 66) and direction recognition.” As inspiration for this could be Hucbald’s theorizing (see e.g. the Claude Palisca’s reconstruction on p. 8, figure 2 in “Hucbald, Guido and John on music.” Letters in such a solfege-alike use wasn’t unknown in later antiquity and medieval times but we cannot theorize about –only- one (and linear developed) intonation system or that all the chant people, collectively, in the Middle Ages knew/not knew the meaning(s) of these syllables. It becomes obvious that my orientation is more akin to Terence Bailey than his reviewer Miloš Velimirović who is in accord with Wellesz’s “scale-avoidance obsession” and among others, writes (Notes, vol. 32, no 3, 1976, p. 531): “As far as this writer [=Velimirović ] knows, the Byzantine formulae aimed at presenting a melodic design- a melodic line- rather that pointing out the “position of the half-step in the scale” (p.39) [**] which as a “succession of pitches” was not part of the theoretical definition of a Mode in Byzantium… [then, he informs the reader (and Terence Bailey) that a much deeper investigation of the Byzantine practices is needed.] These comments suffice to point out how difficult it is to make such a comparative study without a much deeper investigation of Byzantine practices [one must ask: Are we encouraged by Velimirović to follow a particular of the possible ways of deeper investigation of Greek chant’s echemata, namely the one “that (not) pointing out the “position of the half-step in the scale?” Ethnomusicologists (and some of the people of Critical Musicology) of the future have a lot of work to do!] before attempting to compare the two traditions of East and West. … Bailey’s work, which needs further refinements. They are sure to follow in the not-too- distant future.”
Be that as it may, for the Byzantinist of our times now: if one thinks, in a different treatment, i.e. in ascending manner (or accepting the -No as a focal center with ascending-descending direction) the Palisca’s 1978 reconstruction (even if some would consider his relative text as elliptical or laconic) ne-a-ne-No, placed on the tetrachords B-E, E-a (yes, it is true: E-a), b-e and e-a’ then things could become intriguing.
**This would be the case if the “design” of the echema had the same “design” of the formulas of their following melody (not only its incipit but something like a summary of it); or, if we go a little too far, with the aim of demonstrating the exclusivity of such considerations: one seyir (sorry for the turquerie) for almost every piece or even for a collection of “similar” pieces (whatever this “similar” could mean). The consequence is that the number of echemata must be much larger (and thus, useless) than the lists of enechema-piece incipit (and independent echemata) that exist in the MSS. Or to put it, roughly, in the Latin chant way: that kind of intonation formulas should have, at least, the number of almost all the possible thèmes/formulas (and the combinations of them, if we have to accept that a Greek or Latin chant Mode is first and foremost, a collection of formulas***). Returning to the Greek chant for the number of enechemata, described by Miloš Velimirović , some 50 years ago as “design,” I do not take into consideration, let us accept the term, only for the moment, ““differentia-alike”” cases. And, I could add also successive triphoníes (sorry for the grecquerie this time) and other kinds of “succession of pitches” phenomena. The echemata were not only a “design,” they describe also direction, intervals and “voices,” among others, and this make them useful. But, it is the priority of their intervallic content (and the practical need for positioning within a scale-part/unit even if a practitioner [or semi-practitioner] did not understand music theory stuff and had only learned to “hear” “voices****”) that reduces significantly their number and thus makes them useful for all, the practitioner and the semi-practitioner, the intellectual and the semi-intellectual singer.
***The formulaic structure (specifically the dating and the possible localization of the formulas) of Chant is of the outmost importance. But it is also important, especially if we want to look at things more globally, not to create a selective and an a posteriori “unified [Byzantine, Gregorian or other] theory” (of the style: a little bit of this, a little bit of that, we remember this one, we forget that one, this was silly, that isn’t, we “see” this, we don’t “see” that [even in an unintentional conscious way] and…) in order to narrate and “explain” intonation formulas and other kinds of Mode-phenomena as Wellesz did. The influence of Wellesz was very strong on a lot of people like his Greek student Markos Dragoumis who recently passed away.
****Here is not the place to discuss medieval Latin chant terms like the Boethian voces or the Enchiriadian terminology of vis, virtus, potestas or even qualitas.
D-Mbs: Cod. gr. 193 (Numéro diktyon: 44639, Math. 18, 14 July 1580, Vitrac p.179, 1580,) Pinakes (here). On p. 48 Mathiesen writes: “In section 3 [the Book III of the Harmonics], at the conclusion of chapter 13, the scribe has noted τέλος των Πτολεμαίου αρμονικών, indicating that the remaining three chapters are derived from a different paradosis.”
And a few MSS which reflect the circle of Barlaam of Calabria:
I-Ma: E 76 sup. (Martini-Bassi 292, Numéro diktyon: 42700, Math. 178, 14th-16th c., Düring 22, 15th-16thc.) See Pinakes (here)
The scholion (Düring, pp. lxxxi-lxxxii), by a later hand, on the addition of the last chapters of the Book III by the most wise (σοφωτάτου) Gregoras is found in the low margin on 103v and Barlaam’s Refutation (Ανασκευή) of them is on 182r-192r (section 8 of Mathiesen)
I-Ma: R 117 sup. (Martini-Bassi 698, Numéro diktyon: 43201, Math. 182, 16th c.) See Pinakes (here)
Mathiesen writes: Section 5 [ff. 127r-131v] contains chapters 14-16 of Book III of Ptolemy Harmonics [i.e. the additions of Gregoras], which have been included for reference in the Refutation that follows in section 6. [ff. 132r-133r]
Nl-Lu: gr Qo 22 (Numéro diktyon: 37873, Math. 283, 1651-52 c., Düring [Porphyrios ed., but see also here] No 20, 17th c.) See Pinakes (here)
One more MS with Synesius’ (Cyrenensis) De Insomniis with Gregoras’ Scholia in Synesii de Insomnis (207v-227v) is online. This is the I-Vat: Pal. gr. 59 (Diktyon Nr. 65792).
On f. 210r the Octachord Lyre of Pythagoras (Πυθαγόρου Οκτάχορδος Λύρα) is given as a diagram.
There are three more digitized MSS from the Bibliothèque Nationale:
F-Pn: gr 1817 (Math. 69, Vitrac p. 185, in color). Consultation.
F-Pn: gr 2428 (Math. 76, Vitrac p. 188). Consultation.
F-Pn: gr 2457 (Math. 86, Vitrac p. 188). Notice rédigée par Anne Lapasset, Novembre 2014 (here).
The earliest codex containing the treatise Harmonica, in three books, of Claudios Ptolemaios (mid-second century A.D., Alexandria / al-ʾIskandarīyah, Egypt) is now online:
I-Vnm: Gr. app. cl. VI/10 (coll. 1300) (Mathiesen RISM BXI, No 273, late 12th c. or early 13th, Düring (ed.) 79 M, 12th c., Vitrac, p. 142, 12th c.). Numéro Diktyon 70516 and see Pinakes here.
In this blog, I have already noticed that the 14th century hand of Nicēphoros Grēgoras has been identified in this MS (Bianconi 2005, p. 413 No 12. Acerbi 2016, p. 186, No 10 quoting Bianconi 2005, wrote: [Grēgoras added] … numbers and titles of chapters of book I [red ink] of Ptolemy’s Harmonica). And Vitrac, p. 142: Le codex a appartenu à la bibliothèque de la Chora à Constantinople [nowadays Kariye Camii] et a été annoté par Nicéphore Grégoras (BIANCONI, 2005, p. 413) ; il a ensuite été la propriété de F. Barbaro († 1454). Solomon (2000, p. 2, n. 1) writes about this MS: …the twelfth-century M (Venetus Marcianus …) mistook this chapter [I.1] title (“On the Criteria in Harmonics” [Περί των εν αρμονική κριτηρίων]) for the title of the entire treatise (Harmonics [Αρμονικά])…
On ff. 191r-197v we have the Bellermann’s Anonymous set of treatises (three, according to its latest editor D. Najock, 1975). On f. 195r the “schemata” of diapason are once more given from the second to the eighth and not from the first to the seventh.
Three more MSS with Porphyrios’ commentary are now online: E-Mn: Gr 4618 and US-PHu: Ms LJS 97 . There is also one more with Porphyrios and Bryennios (Math. 233, 16th, Vitrac p. 167, 15th) I-Vat: Gr. 1800 .
We have additionally the I-Vat: Gr. 1772 (Math. 232, 16th) and one more from the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, I-Ma : C 126 inf. (Math. 186, 13th).
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