Pulse and pauses in medieval and postmedieval byzantine chant

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• Publié par: opakito
• Nombre de lectures: 116
• Langue: English

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Pulse And Pauses In Medieval And Postmedieval Byzantine Chant

Jørgen Raasted

Byzantine musical notation has constantly developed towards explicitness and precision, alsoin rebus rhythmicis. Therefore, the rhythmical indications of Metabyzantine and Neobyzantine musical documents are important means to define earlier – unwritten – habits and traditions, in much the same way as versions of melodies in Round Notation can be used as 'clues' to Palæobyzantine settings of the same melodies. Provided, of course, that we believe in some kind of stability in the oral tradition. The Western attempts to form an over-all picture of the rhythm of Byzantine melodies – Riemann, Tillyard, Wellesz, Jammers, van Biezen, and others – have been strongly influenced by the discussion on rhythm in Gregorian chant, and too little attention has been paid to the Metabyzantine and Neobyzantine traditions. It seems therefore justifiable to make some probings into the way in which data of post-medieval manuscripts might be used to gain an insight into the nature of Byzantine musical rhythm. The present paper does not aim at any kind of completeness or finality, but is rather to be understood as a basis for a discussion. It suggests that the typically 'mixed rhythms' are best analyzed as a kind of pulse with free alternations between 2-beat and 3-beat units. This analysis presupposes the existance of pauses – with defineable lengths – and shortenings of specific neumes or groups of neumes, depending on the rhythmical structure of the context. The comparisons also lead to a modification of our interpretation of several details in the Round Notation – and in the Palæobyzantine systems as well – for instance as regards Petasthe, Tzakisma, and Apoderma. One general feature of the material investigated is that the rhythmical structure of a given melodic formula will be differently treated by sources from the same period. This phenomenon is taken to reflect individual 'arrangements'.