• Author / Uploaded
• Nicholas Ragheb

Citation preview

The Earliest Oktoechoi: The Role of Jerusalem and Palestine in the Beginnings of Modal Ordering Peter Jeffery

Few elements of Western music have had as long and continuous a history as the theory of the eight modes. As early as the eighth century, the modes were present in some of the oldest written records of European music. By the ninth century they were already inextricably involved in 'many of the central issues in medieval chant: the principles of composition, the changing approaches to modal analysis, the methods of music-instruction, problems of oral and incipient-written transmission, questions concerning the regional Gregorian dialects and the other Western dialects that for a time coexisted with the Gregorian-Roman'.1 Throughout the course of the Middle Ages, successive discussions, systematizations and reformulations of the theory of the modes were among the strongest forces driving the development and refinement of music theory, as generations of theorists, editors and copyists repeatedly adjusted the Gregorian melodies and the eight modal definitions to fit each other better.2 By the sixteenth century, polyphonic music was being composed in ways that were intended to represent the perceived affective qualities and tonal characteristics of the eight modes. 3 With further evolution in the seventeenth century, modal concepts and Kenneth Levy's review of Huglo, Tonaires, in 1974b:126. For a general introduction to the medieval modes, see David Hiley, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 454—77. A classic outline history of medieval modal theory in Western music (and of similar conceptions in selected other cultures) is Harold S. Powers, 'Mode', GDM 12: 376^50. See also Powers's articles on the individual modes throughout GDM: 'Aeolian', 1:114—5; 'Dorian', 5:575-6; 'Hyperaeolian', 8:852; 'Hypoaeolian'. 8:852; 'Hypodorian'. 8:852; 'Hypoionian', 8:852-3; 'Hypolydian', 8:853^; 'Hypomixolydian', 8:854; 'Hypophrygian', 8:854; 'Ionian', 9:289-90; 'Locrian', 11:119; 'Lydian', 11:389; 'Mixolydian', 12:371; 'Phrygian', 14:663. One important topic within modal theory is surveyed in Dolores Pesce, The Affinities and Medieval Transposition (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). But a full and comprehensive history of the eight modes in medieval European music remains to be written. Richard H. Hoppin, 'Tonal organization in Music before the Renaissance', Paul A. Pisk: Essays in His Honor, ed. John Glowacki (Austin: College of Fine Arts, University of Texas, 1966), 25-37; Harold S. Powers. 'Tonal types and modal categories', JAMS 34 (1981), 428-70; Howard Mayer Brown, 'Theory and practice in the sixteenth century: preliminary notes on Attaingnant's modally

148

Mode and melos

terminology played a role in the emergence of the major/minor tonality that governed most Western music into our own century.4 Yet composers of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries continued to show interest in the old modes,5 which remain part of the standard curriculum of elementary music theory even today. Yet we know hardly anything about the origin of the modal system, which even in the earliest witnesses had already attained its familiar shape: eight numbered classifications (hence 'oktoechos', or 'eightfold sound'),6 arranged in two groups (labeled 'authentic' and 'plagal') of four classifications each. From where did the Middle Ages obtain this doubly fourfold scheme, and why did it take this particular form?

4

5

6

ordered chansonniers', and Claude V. Palisca, 'Mode ethos in the Renaissance', Essays in Musicology: A Tribute to Ahin Johnson, ed. Lewis Lockwood and Edward Roesner (n.p.: American Musicological Society, 1990), 75-100, 126-39; Gristle Collins Judd, 'Modal types and Ut, Re, Mi tonalities: tonal coherence in sacred vocal polyphony from about 1500', JAMS 45 (1992), 428-67; the entire issue devoted to 'Modus und Tonalitat' of Basler Jahrbuchfur historische Musikpraxis 16 (1992), 9-234. Recent studies include: Carl Dahlhaus, Untersuchungen uber die Entstehung der harmonischen Tonalitat, Saarbriicker Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 2 (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1968), translated as Carl Dahlhaus, Studies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality, transl. Robert O. Gjerdingen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); Bernhard Meier, Die Tonarten der klassischen Vokalpolyphonie nach den Quellen dargestellt (Utrecht: Oosthoek, Scheltema & Holkema, 1974), translated as Bernhard Meier, The Modes of Classical Vocal Polyphony Described According to the Sources with Revisions by the Author, transl. Ellen S. Beebe (New York: Broude Brothers, 1988); Robert Frederick Bates, 'From mode to key: a study of seventeenth-century French liturgical organ music and music theory' (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1986); Joel Lester, Between Modes and Keys: German Theory 1592-1802, Harmonologia Series 3 (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1989), reviewed by Benito V. Rivera in Journal of Music Theory 35 (1991), 267-82; Eric Chafe, Monteverdi's Tonal Language (New York: Schirmer Books, 1992); Joel Lester, Compositional Theory in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992); Bernhard Meier, Alte Tonarten Dargestellt an der Instrumentalmusik des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, Barenreiter Studienbucher Musik 3 (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1992); Thomas Christensen, The Regie de I'Octave in thorough-bass theory and practice', AMI 64 (1992), 91-117, especially 102-3; Helmut Federhofer, Tonarten- und Transpositionsprobleme um 1700', Festa Musicologica: Essays in Honor of George J. Buelow, ed. Thomas J. Mathiesen and Benito V. Rivera, Festschrift Series 14 (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995), 455-65. For examples see: Julia d'Almendra, Les modes gregoriens dans I'oeuvre de Claude Debussy (Paris: G. Enault, 1950), John Vincent. The Diatonic Modes in Modern Music (New York: Mills, 1951); Bela Bartok, Essays, ed. Benjamin Suchoff (London: Faber and Faber, 1976; Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1992), 361-75; Frieder Zaminer, '"Dorisch" in der europaischen Musik', Griechische Musik und Europa: Antike - Byzanz - Volksmusik der Neuzeit, Im Gedenken an Samuel Baud-Bovy: Symposion 'Die Beziehung der griechischen Musik zur europaischen Musiktradition' vom 9.-11. Mai 1986 in Wiirzburg, ed. Rudolf M. Brandl and Evangelos Konstantinou, Orbis Musicarum 3 (Aachen: Alano Verlag, Edition Herodot, 1988), 25-36; Lori Anne Burns, Bach's Modal Chorales, Harmonologia Series 9 (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995); Vuk Kulenovich, The Lydian concept', Sonus: A Journal of Investigations into Global Musical Possibilities 14/1 (Fall 1993), 55-64. Thus the word is defined 'qui est octo sonorum [that which is made up of eight sounds]' in Henri Estienne. Thesaurus Graecae Linguae ab Henrico Stephana Constructus 5 (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1842-6), 1862. Compare the word 'oKTWj8t/3Aoy', which is defined as 'a work in eight volumes' in Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, rev. Henry Stuart Jones et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 1213. In other words, it is a book (singular) divided into eight parts; hence 'OKTOJTJXO?' is 'sound divided into eight categories'.

The earliest Oktoechoi

149

I. The Provenance of the Modes We can no longer answer such questions as Auguste Gevaert did a century ago, when he set out to prove the then universal assumption that the Middle Ages inherited the eight modes directly from Greco-Roman antiquity, and that the creators of Gregorian chant therefore knowingly employed melodico-scalar constructs that had been familiar for centuries.7 We now know that the eight modes of Gregorian chant theory bear little resemblance to the seven or eight or thirteen or fifteen octave species or modulation schemes derived from the tuning of the ancient Greek lyre, which classical Greek theorists variously called dp^ovia (harmonia), roVo? (tonos) or rpo-nog (tropos).8 The artificial identification of the medieval modes with the ancient Greek tonoi was a product of the Middle Ages itself,9 as Carolingian and later theorists, following the medieval habit of reading their own situation into the classical texts, borrowed anachronistic terminology and concepts from Boethius and the other late antique writers who transmitted the music theory of classical Greece to the medieval Latin West.10

8

g

10

Francois Auguste Gevaert, La Melopee antique dans le chant de I'eglise latine (Ghent: Librairie generale de Ad. Hoste. 1895; repr. Osnabriick: Otto Zeller, 1967). See the statement in the introduction, 'Personne aujourd'hui ne doute que les modes et les cantilenes de la liturgie catholique ne soient un reste precieux de Tart antique. Mais juqu'a present tout le monde a du se contenter de cette notion sommaire et superficielle, qui ne fait que stimuler notre besoin d'en savoir davantage'. p. V. Yet the book is still of interest as an interpretation of Regino's tonary, discussed further below. Gevaert's views of the continuity between the ancient and medieval modes are fully spelled out in Auguste Gevaert, Histoire et theorie de la musique de I'antiquite, 2 vols. (Ghent: Typ. C. Annoot-Braeckman. 1875-81, repr. Hildesheim: Olms 1965), 1: 127-268. For a history and interpretation of these terms as they were used by various ancient Greek authors, see Andrew Barker, ed., Greek Musical Writings 2: Harmonic and Acoustic Theory, Cambridge Readings in the Literature of Music (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 14-27, plus the many passages cited in the index, 553-4, 570-1, to be supplemented by Barker, Greek Musical Writings 1: The Musician and his Art, Cambridge Readings in the History of Music (Cambridge University Press, 1984), 163-8, and the passages cited in the index, 318-19, 331. See also Martin Vogel, 'Zur Entstehung der Kirchentonarten', Die Musikforschung 21 (1968), 199-202. Thomas Mathiesen, 'Problems of terminology in ancient Greek theory: "APMONIA"', Festival Essays for Pauline Alderman: A Musicological Tribute, ed. Burton L. Karson et al. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1976); John Thorp, 'Aristoxenus and the ethnoethical modes', Harmonia Mundi: Musica e Filosqfia nell'Antichita I Music and Philosophy in the Ancient World, ed. Robert W. Wallace and Bonnie MacLachlan (Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1991), 54-68. An issue of Journal of Musicology 3/3 (Summer 1984) devoted to The ancient harmoniai, tonoi, and octave species in theory and practice' includes the following articles: Claude V. Palisca, 'Introductory notes on the historiography of the Greek modes', 221-8; Andre Barbera, 'Octave species', 229^11; Jon Solomon, Towards a History of Tonoi, 242-51; Calvin M. Bower, The modes of Boethius', 252-63; Thomas J. Mathiesen, 'Harmonia and Ethos in ancient Greek music', 264-79; 'Discussion', 280-6. Otto Gombosi, 'Studien zur Tonartenlehre des fruhen Mittelalters', AMI 10 (1938), 149-74; 11 (1939), 28-39, 128-35; 12 (1940), 21-52; Jacques Chailley. 'Le mythe des modes grecs', AMI 28 (1956), 137-63: Chailley, La musique grecque antique. Collection d'etudes anciennes (Paris: «Les belles lettres» 1979), especially 113-19. See Giinther Wille, Musica Romana: Die Bedeutung der Musik im Leben der Romer (Amsterdam: P. Schippers, 1967), 594-715; Ann E. Moyer, Musica Scientia: Musical Scholarship in the Italian Renaissance (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 24-35; Ubaldo Pizzani, 'La Musica

Mode and melos

The earliest Oktoechoi

But if the 'composers' of Gregorian chant were not working within an inherited system of ancient Greek tunings or scales, neither did the Gregorian chant theorists construct the modes themselves, creating, as it were from whole cloth, a systematic framework for describing and summarizing the natural characteristics of the repertory through a process of analytic reflection on the full range of observable musical behaviors. On the contrary, both medieval and modern analysts have detected numerous discrepancies between the intrinsic properties of the Gregorian melodies and the theoretical characteristics of the modes to which they have traditionally been assigned. Atypical ranges and finals, emphasis on anomalous structural pitches or reciting tones, unexpected accidentals, conflicting assignments of ambiguous melodies and melodic families and the sharing of melodic formulas or stereotyped patterns across modal boundaries all go to show that at least much of the Gregorian repertory was originally conceived (by whatever oral or written processes) without reference to the modal system as we know it." The four-by-two arrangement of modal classifications was not suggested by a purely inductive process of observation and abstraction, but owes something to some external source, whence it was arbitrarily imposed on the Gregorian melodies after they had already begun to form. Why and how this happened is one of the major unsolved questions of medieval musicology. If the modes were neither inherited from antiquity nor extrapolated from the repertory itself, where did they come from? Why were there eight of them - in a four-times-two arrangement - rather than some other number? And why was this approach to classifying the melodies so appealing that it was adopted and imposed so zealously on an alien repertory, with centuries of effort expended to make the classification fit? All we can say for sure is that the modes seem to have been imported into Latin-speaking Europe from somewhere farther East. 'Here the evidence lies outside the realm of a Western specialist. For the shadowy pre-history of the Oktoechos . . . one must turn to Byzantium, and then to some discussion that has yet to be written.' 12 The Greek terminology of the modes, since it is not a direct survival from classical antiquity, hints at some sort of medieval Greek or Byzantine provenance. Yet the study of Byzantine modal theory is beset by many of the same problems as its Latin counterpart: as in the West, there is a questionable relationship to the musical legacy of classical Greece, which continued to be studied in Byzantium. 13 As in the West there is only an imperfect fit between the

theoretical modes and the actual repertory of Greek liturgical melodies, resulting in chants of ambiguous assignment and necessitating additional modal classifications beyond the central eight. And just as the perceptions and presuppositions of Renaissance and Baroque theorists misled students of the medieval Western modes for centuries, only recently being recognized and put aside, so the postmedieval history of Byzantine music - both in the Greek world and in the Slavic musical culture that was built upon it - has added many layers of new development that make it all the more difficult for us to discern what the modes may originally have been like. Thus to say that the Latins probably received the modes from the Byzantines is actually to say very little about where and how they originated, or what they were like at the time the Latin world adopted them. Moreover it is possible that the Byzantine modal system was not native to its culture either, that here too it was an exotic idea imported from somewhere else. The alternative provenance most often suggested is Syria, a cipher for what were actually several distinct Semitic Christian traditions that bordered the Byzantine world to the East and South. Since the history and geography of these groups is scarcely less complicated than for the Latins and Greeks, alleging a Syriac origin for the modes simply pushes the whole complex of questions on to a more obscure culture without actually answering any of them. Nor does the trail necessarily end even there. On the one hand, Syriac Christianity not implausibly claimed a certain direct continuity with the world of Judaism and the ancient Near East, from either of which it might conceivably have inherited the modes. On the other hand, eightfold modal systems were used in the even less explored musical cultures of Armenia, Georgia and Egypt, a fact that also requires historical explanation. The search for the origin of the modes, then, requires simultaneous comparative investigation of all the cultures where this system was used - not only because any one of them might be the original home of the modes, but also because any or even all of them may well preserve

150

Disciplina tra Agostino e Boezio', Paideia Cristiana: Studi in Onore di Mario Naldini (Rome: Gruppo Editoriale Internazionale, 1994), 347-64. It is clear that many of these writings were little read until interest in them revived during the Carolingian period; see Bruce Stansfield Eastwood, 'The astronomy of Macrobius in Carolingian Europe: Dungal's Letter of 811 to Charles the Great', Early Medieval Europe 3 (1994), 117-34. 1 1 See Powers, 'Mode', 382^4-; Terence Bailey. 'Modes and myth', Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario 1 (1976), 43-54. 12 Levy's review of Huglo, Les Tonaires, 1974b:126. '•' Tn fact the earliest manuscripts listed in Thomas J. Mathiesen, Ancient Greek Music Theory: A Catalogue Raisonne of Manuscripts, RiSM 11 (1988), date from the Byzantine period: #14

151

(anonymous quadrivial treatises and work attributed to Psellus, dated AD 1040); #261 (Theon of Smyrna, from the eleventh or twelfth centuries); #234 (Cleonides, Gaudentius, Theon, Aristoxenus, Ptolemy), #270 (Euclid, Aristoxenus, Alypius), #273 (Ptolemy, Plutarch, Aristides Quintilianus), appendix #267 (Ptolemy), all from the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. See also Lukas Richter, 'Antike Uberlieferungen in der byzantinischen Musiktheorie', Deutsches Jahrbuch der Musikwissenschafl 6 (1961), 75-115; Richter, 'Fragen der spatgriechisch-byzantinischen Musiktheorie: Die Erforschung der byzantinischen Musik', Byzantinische Beitrdge: Grundungstag der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Byzantinistik in der Sektion Mittelalter der Deutschen HistorikerGesellschaft vom 18. bis 21.4.1961 in Weimar, ed. Johannes Irmscher and Giinther Chr. Hansen (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1964), 187-230; Thomas J. Mathiesen, 'Aristides Quintilianus and the harmonics of Manuel Bryennius', Journal of Music Theory 27 (1983), 31^9; Christian Troelsgard, 'Ancient musical theory in Byzantine Environments', CIMAGL 56 (1988), 228-38. Milos Velimirovic, 'Reflections on music and musicians in Byzantium', T6 'EXX-^viKov: Studies in Honor of Speros Vryonis, Jr., 2 vols., ed. Milton V. Anastos et al. (New Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1993), 1: 451-63, especially 456-7, 462. For the background of Byzantine learning and classical studies, see A. P. Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), 120-66. .

and melos

^

3

o °o

*< **,

, GO

II. The Essential Features of the Modal System

"cL

00

OO

JS ,8 S

—cd

— f cx

1

ijj .—GO Cu cd cti

8 g C C

•5 "o x

1 c cx

J3

.3 1 o X

o •5 3 o x

.c

3 43

"GO

'S

3 £

'1o

C

r
!

a>. ^:

_c cx

a

(/; 3

^ D '5b c 8 bo S w c c c

1)

d "H. 0 1

noioean

(N

neanes

CN

(U

r-

authenti deuteru:

SS

echos d

hi

authentl

0

O

"5b

3

o

VI

3

"Sb 1" cx

S

cx o cx

3 J5I

o •5

I o

> p C«

CS

!—

a cd

c

c o

Greek echemata

Latinized echemata

Latinized Greek names

-

Latin numbers

-

-

ffl

en O

'C :/: 3 O

•o

o o cx p

.2

1 Classical names (Papadike)

^

Greek numbers

'S.

-G 3 ed

Slavonic/Syriac numbers

o Q

(D p CO (D O C

Classical names (Hagiopolites)

c

3 B

Classical names (Latin)

0

g cx d

o cx

aneanes

d

ambitus type

Table 6.1

Thus the Coptic tradition borrows 'echos' from Greek; see Ragheb Moftah, Marian Robertson, Martha Roy, Margit Toth, 'Music, Coptic: description of the corpus and present musical practice', The Coptic Encyclopedia, ed. Aziz S. Atiya (New York: Macmillan, 1991), 6 1715-29, especially 1722^1. However, it is translated by the Arabic lahn, which means 'air, tune, melody' according to Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (Arabic-English), ed. J. Milton Cowan, 4th edn (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1979), 1011. 15 Slovnik Jazyka Staroslovenskeho I Lexicon Linguae Palaeoslovenicae [Dictionary of Old Slavonic], vol. 2 fasc. 8 (Prague: Nakladatelstvi Ceskoslovenske Akademie Ved, 1964), 401-2; T. A. Lysaght, Old Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian) - Middle Greek - Modern English Dictionary (Vienna: Verlag Briider Hollinek, 1983), 74; Cswaapt, flpeeuepyccKozo fl.iuKa XI-XIY 66) [Dictionary of the Old Russian Tongue, llth-14th centuries], ed. P. II. AuaHecoB, vol. 2 (Moscow: PVCCKHH flsHKa, 1989), 327-9. 16 Emmanuele Ciakciak [also known as Manouel Chakhchakhian], Dizionario armeno-italiano (Venice: Tipografia Mechitaristica di S. Lazzaro, 1837), 908-9. 17 Spelled 'xma' in modern Georgian; see Kita Tschenkeli, Georgisch-Deutsches Worterbuch, ed. Yolanda Marchev 3 (Zurich: Amirani-Verlag, 1974), 2370-1. 18 R. Payne Smith et al. Thesaurus Syriacus 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901), 3618-20; J. Payne Smith, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, founded upon the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith, D.D. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903), 505; J. P. Margoliouth, Supplement to the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith, S.T.P. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), 302-3; Karl Brockelmann, Lexicon Syriacum, 2nd edn emended (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1928), 651, col. b. ''' Though Latin 'tonus' is obviously the Greek word 'tones', it is not clear that the word was ever 14

U

^ GO "cx

CX c« co 0

| 2

xoludio;

unique evidence, lost to the others, pointing to the time and place and human milieu in which the modes began.

Before undertaking a truly cross-cultural examination of modal origins, it is essential to clarify exactly what is being sought, lest we search in vain for phenomena that are unique to the familiar Western expression of the eight modes. We therefore begin by asking which features of the modal system are genuinely essential or universal. Given the many different cultural milieux in which the system found a place, what characteristics are, or once were, common to all of them? Two types of characteristics can be discerned: those that pertain to the classificatory scheme as a whole, and those that pertain to the musical traits and definitions of the individual modes. The most important features of the first kind, those that apply to the eight-mode classification as a whole, are listed in Table 6.1. What all the modal systems have in common is the principle - unknown to classical antiquity - that there are eight categories arranged in four pairs. In most traditions, the individual category is called by the Greek word 'echos'14 or by a native word that shares some of the same range of meanings, from 'voice' to 'sound' (compare the English word 'echo'): Slavonic 'glas'",15 Armenian 'dzayn',16 Georgian 'qmay',17 Syriac 'qal'.18 The Latin terminology is exceptional in this regard; instead of borrowing 'echos' from Greek or an equivalent Latin word, medieval Latin music theory has always substituted terms associated with the classical Greek tonoi: 'tonus', a Latinization of the Greek 'tones',19 'tropus', a

153

The earliest Oktoechoi

Greek names

152

ll 55

fe

1-1 It Si $ 2> II 11 C a P ^

-S ^-

Mode and melos

The earliest Oktoechoi

Latinization of Greek 'tropos',20 and 'modus', a Latin translation of 'tropos'.21 The choice of such words is surprising, since 'tones' and 'tropos' were not used to designate the church modes or echoi in early Byzantine sources,22 and 'echos' was

not used as a synonym for 'tonos' in classical Greek, where it was not a technical theoretical term at all. The natural Latin translation for 'echos' is 'sonus', the word used in the Latin Bible, which was translated from the Greek by the third and fourth centuries AD.23 The medieval Latin terminology illustrates a tendency that is often encountered in early Western music theory: a willingness to adapt or even invent Greek technical terms without regard for actual Greek usage, giving even wholly Western phenomena an erudite, Hellenistic appearance. The use of Latin equivalents for 'tonos' and 'tropos' to designate 'echos' meant that a deliberate identification of the medieval Western modes with the ancient Greek tonoi was already being made explicit in the basic vocabulary of music theory. Within each of the four pairs, the relationship of the two modes is asymmetrical, if not unequal, for one mode is always identified by a derivative of the Greek word TiAayioj (modern English 'plagal') or a translation of it, meaning 'sideways' or 'oblique'. 24 The other mode was at least by implication "straight', perhaps in the sense of 'unaltered, original', a concept formalized in the Latin tradition by the use of terms derived from the Greek 'avQevnKoi ('authentic, principal'), though this word is not used to designate musical modes in the known classical Greek or Byzantine sources.25 The use of this Greek word as a modal

154

used in classical Latin as a technical musical term for the Greek tonoi or octave species. See A. Walde, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch, 3rd edn, rev. J. B. Hovmann, vol. 2 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, Universitatsverlag, 1954), 690-1. However 'tonus' was used in this sense by the sixth-century authors Fulgentius and Cassiodorus. See Rudolfus Helm, ed., Fabii Planciadis Fulgentii V. C.: Opera (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1898), 74-9, especially 79; a translation with some comment in Leslie George Whitbread, Fulgentius the Mythographer Translated from the Latin (n.p.: Ohio State University Press. 1971), 93-8. R. A. B. Mynors, ed., Cassiodori Senatoris Institutiones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), 145-8; a translation is Cassiodorus Senator, An Introduction to Divine and Human Readings, transl. Leslie Webber Jones (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946, repr. W. W. Norton, 1969). 192-5, but a more accurate and informed translation of the musical section is published in Strunk, Source Readings 143-8. Favonius (ca. 400), a commentator on the 'Somnium Scipionis' from Cicero's Republic, uses the word 'sonus' in this sense ('Zodiacus circulus . . . sono Dorio moveatur'); see Luigi Scarpa, ed., Favonii Eulogii Disputatio de Somnio Scipionis, Collana Accademica 5 (Padua: Accademia Patavina di Scienze ed Arti, 1974). 40-1. Martianus Capella consistently used the word 'tropus' for what we would call 'mode', reserving 'tonus' to refer to the whole tone interval. See James Willis, ed., Martianus Capella (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1983), 359-6, 372, and elsewhere. It should be noted, however, that Martianus also referred to a Dorian 'melos' (ed. Willis, p. 54) and a Lydian 'modus' (ed. Willis, p. 363). In choice of vocabulary Martianus did not entirely follow his main Greek source, Aristides Quintilianus, who used both 'tones' and 'tropos' in a modal sense. See, for instance, the passage wherein Aristides gave Vpovros avaT-rjiJ.aTi.K6s' ('tropos systematikos", 'scalar mode') as one of the definitions of 'tonos': R. P. Winnington-Ingram, ed., Aristidis Quintiliani De Musica Libri Tres (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1963), 20; Aristides Quintilianus, On Music in Three Books, transl. and annotated by Thomas J. Mathiesen, Music Theory Translation Series (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 86. Pliny the Elder referred to the invention of 'Lydios modules', 'Dorics', and 'Phrygios' in his Historia Naturalis, 7, 56, 57, 204. See C. Plinii Secundi Naturalis Historiae Libri XXXVIII C. Plinius Secundus d. A, Naturkunde Lateinisch-deutsch, ed. and transl. Roderich Konig and Gerhard Winkler, Tusculum-Bucherei, vol. 7 ([Munich:] Heimeran Verlag, 1975), 144-5, with comments 238^0. The 'Fragmentum Censorini' (but not the genuine work of Censorinus to which it has become attached) uses the word 'modus' for a variety of musical and metrical phenomena, some of which can be related to modern meanings of the term 'mode' - but the 'dorius, phrygius, lydius' and so on are called 'species carminum tredecim' ('thirteen types of songs'). There is also some confusion in the manuscript tradition between 'modus' and 'motus'. See Nicolaus Sallmann, ed., Censorini De Die Natali Liber ad Q. Caerellium, accedit Anonymi Cuiusdam Epitoma Disciplinarian (Fragmentum Censorini) (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1983), 15-25 (Censorinus), 71-6 (the 'Fragmentum'), our quote from p. 74. For a commentary on the musical section of Censorinus, see Censorinus, Le jour natal, transl. Guillaume Rocca-Serra, Histoire des doctrines de 1'antiquite classique 5 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1980), 50-4. Boethius used all three terms, 'tonus', 'tropus', and 'modus', but preferred 'modus.' See Michael Bernhard, Wortkonkordanz zu Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius De institutione musica, VmK 4 (1979), 380-7, 673-90, 709. For discussion, see Bower, 'The modes of Boethius', and the comments in Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, Fundamentals of Music, transl. Calvin M. Bower, ed. Claude B. Palisca, Music Theory Translation Series (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 153^1. Hence the gloss attributed to the Byzantine philologist Manuel Moschopulos (ca. 1265-1316) in Estienne, Thesaurus 4 (1841), 221: 'The Lydian tonos in music, now called "echos."' It was indeed at this very period that the Byzantine echoi began to be identified with the ancient tonoi, according to Michael Markovits, Das Tonsystem der abendlcindischen Musik imfriihen Mittelalter, Publikationen der schweizerischen musikforschenden Gesellschaft, ser. 2 vol. 30 (Bern and Stuttgart: Paul Haupt, 1977), 98-9. On Moschopulos see Wolfgang Buchwald, Armin Hohlweg,

155

and Otto Prinz, Tusculum-Lexikon griechischer und lateinischer Autoren des Altertums und des Mittelalters, 3rd expanded edn (Munich: Artemis, 1982), 537-9. See Edwin Hatch and Henry A. Redpath, A Concordance to the Septuagint and the Other Greek Versions of the Old Testament (Including the Apocryphal Books), 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897), repr. in 2 vols. (Graz: Akademische Druck, 1954), 1 620-1. Two passages where echos/sonus clearly refers to a musical sound are Ps 150:3 and Sap 19:18. Particularly interesting is Sir 47:9 (=Ecclesiasticus 47:11), referring to the singers in the Jerusalem Temple, where 'echos' is translated 'sonus', but '^eXr/' as "modes'! Hjalmar Frisk, Griechisches etymologisches Worterbuch 2 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, Universitatsverlag, 1970), 547. An example of what the words 'echos' and 'plagios' can mean in a non-musical context comes from the second-century apocryphon, 'Acta Petri cum Simone', published in Ada Apostolorum Apocrypha, ed. R. A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 18911903), 1/2: 45-103. At one point in the story (p. 96), St. Peter, while nailed to the cross on which he would die. makes a lengthy address to the crowd which includes the words, the Spirit says, 'For what else is Christ but the Word, the sound [echos] of God?' So that the Word is this upright tree on which I am crucified; but the sound [echos] is the cross-piece [plagios], the nature of man; and the nail that holds the cross-piece [plagios] to the upright in the middle is the conversion [or turning point] and repentance of man. The English translation is from Edgar Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha, ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher, transl. R. McL. Wilson (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1965; repr. 1976), 2:320. The earliest writer known to have used the word 'plagal' in a musical context is apparently the Alexandrian alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis of the third or fourth century (though the authorship has been questioned). But Zosimus was speaking of tetrachords and did not use the word 'echos'; see Gombosi, 'Studien zur Tonartenlehre' in A Ml 12 (1940). 29-52. Caspar Detlef Gustav Miiller and Lukas Richter, 'Zosimus von Panopolis', Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart 14 (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1968), 1398-1400; partially transl. in GDM, 10:708-9. Huglo, Les Tonaires, 378-81. Michel Huglo, 'Comparaison de la terminologie modale en orient et en Occident' in International Musicological Society, Report of the Eleventh Congress, Copenhagen 1972 2 (Copenhagen: Wilhelm Hansen, 1973), 758-61; Huglo, 'Le Developpement du vocabulaire de YArs Musica a 1'epoque carolingienne', Latomus: Revue d'etudes latines 34 (1975), 131-51, see 140-2.

157

Mode and melos

The earliest Oktoechoi

term seems to have originated in the West, another instance of the Latin inclination to turn to Greek as a source of technical terms. Once we move beyond the bare fact of categorization into four pairs, the different medieval chant traditions become more unlike each other, even in the relatively straightforward matter of how to place the modes in order and number them. In the Greek enumeration, also used in the Armenian26 and Georgian Churches and in the few Coptic sources that mention the eight modes,27 the non-plagal modes are numbered 1 through 4, and the plagal modes again as plagal 1 through plagal 4. The Syriac,28 Slavonic,29 modern Greek,30

and Rumanian 31 traditions have slightly modified this arrangement by assigning the plagal modes the numbers 5-8. The Latin sources, on the other hand, use a different arrangement, in which the authentic and plagal modes alternate, so as to keep together each pair with a common final. Thus the Latin authentic modes are given odd numbers and the plagal modes even ones, so that the two modes on D are numbered 1 and 2, those on E 3 and 4, those on F 5 and 6, those on G 7 and 8. It is important to keep in mind that, though each numbering system implies a particular ordering, it need not require it. In some Armenian and Syriac sources, the modes are given in the usual Western order (authentic, plagal, authentic, plagal, . . .) even though they retain the customary Eastern numbering. They are thus presented in the order: 1, 5 (plagal 1), 2, 6 (plagal 2), 3, 7 (plagal 3), 4, 8 (plagal 4).32 The names given to the modes vary even more from one tradition to another. The standard Greek names for the modes are simply the ordinal numbers: echos protos means 'first mode', echos deuteros 'second mode', echos plagios protos 'first plagal mode', and so on. In Latin, however, the earliest sources use what are evidently Latinized variants of these names: authentus protus and so on for the authentic modes, plagis proti or variants thereof for the plagal modes. Besides their numbers and numeric names, the Latin and Greek modes were also identified by their Schemata, melismas sung to the meaningless syllables 'noeane' etc.33 In the East these seem to have been sung by the leader before the chant, to give the other singers the pitch and help them tune in to the intervallic peculiarities of the mode to be sung.34 They are also the source of the martyriai or

156

The following three articles were published under the collective title: 'Recherches sur la genese de 1'octoechos armenien': Nishan Serkoyan, 'I: Les huit modes de Fhymnaire armenien'; Nikogos Tahmizian, 'II: Les huit modes de la psalmodie armenienne;' Bernard Outlier, 'III: Etude critique des documents presentes', in Etudes gregoriennes 14 (1973), 129-211; and reprinted in Vrej Nersessian, ed., Essays on Armenian Music (London: Institute of Armenian Music 1978), 51-128. See also Alice Ertlbauer, Geschichte und Theorie der einstimmigen armenischen Kirchenmusik: Eine Kritik der bisherigen Forschung, Musica Mediaevalis Europae Orientalis 3 (Vienna: Offsetschnelldruck Anton Riegelnik, 1985), 63-164; Aram Kerovpyan, 'Les Charakan (troparia) et 1'octoechos armenien selon le Charaknots (Tropologion armenien) edite en 1875', in Atelier de Recherche et d'Interpretation des Musiques Medievales, Aspects de la musique liturgique au Moyen Age: Actes des colloques de Royaumont de 1986, 1987 et 1988, ed. Christian Meyer (Paris: Editions Creaphis, 1991), 93-123. " On the unsuccessful medieval attempts to introduce the eight modes into the Egyptian Church, see Louis Villecourt, 'Les observances liturgiques et la discipline du jeune dans 1'Eglise copte', Le Museon 36 (1923), 249-92, especially 262-9. Rene Menard, 'Die Gesange der agyptischen Liturgien', Geschichte der katholischen Kirchenmusik 1: Von den Anfangen bis zum Tridentinum, ed. Karl Gustav Fellerer (Kassel: Barenreiter, 1972), 109-27 especially 117-18. 2S Of the four Syriac liturgical traditions, only two make use of the eight modes: The Melkite or Antiochene Orthodox tradition, which is in effect a translation of the Byzantine rite into Syriac, and the so-called Jacobite, West Syrian, or Syrian Orthodox tradition, concerning which see: Heinrich Husmann, Die Melodien der Jakobitischen Kirche: Die Melodien des Wochenbreviers (Shimta gesungen von Qurillaos Ja'qub Kas Gorgos, Metropolit von Damaskus, Sitzungsberichte der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 262/1 (Vienna: Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolger, 1969); Husmann, Die Melodien der Jakobitischen Kirche: Die Qale gaoanaie des Beit Gaza, Sitzungsberichte der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 273/4 (Vienna: Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolger, 1971); Husmann, 'Syrian church music', GDM 18, 472-81; Josef Kuckertz, "Die Melodietypen der Westsyrischen liturgischen Gesange', Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 53 (1969), 61-9 plus 14 foldouts; Elias Kesrouani, 'L'Octoechos syriaque', in Atelier de Recherche et d'Interpretation des Musiques Medievales, Aspects de la musique liturgique au Moyen Age: Actes des colloques de Royaumont de 1986, 1987 et 1988, ed. Christian Meyer (Paris: Editions Creaphis, 1991), 77-91. 29 See Juan de Castro, Methodus Cantus Ecclesiastici Graeco-Slavici (Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, 1881), 48-50; Johann von Gardner, Russian Church Singing 1: Orthodox Worship and Hymnography, transl. Vladimir Morosan (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980), 58-61; Stela Sava, Die Gesange des altrussischen Oktoechos samt den Evangelien-Stichiren: Eine Neumenhandschrift des AltglciubigenKlosters zu Belaja Krinica, 2 vols., Studien zur Volksmusik und aussereuropiiischen Kunstmusik 9 (Munich and Salzburg: E. Katzbichler, 1984). 30 Frank Desby, 'The modes and tuning in neo-Byzantine chant' (D.M.A. [Church Music] diss., University of Southern California, 1974); Antonios Alygizakes, 'H 'OKra-rjxia arrjv VAAijviKi) XiTovpyiK-r) 'vjivo-ypapta [The Eight Modes of Music (Octaechia) in the Greek Liturgical Hymnography] (Thessalonike: P. Pournara, 1985); Jessica Ray Suchy-[Pilalis], 'Byzantine chant: the melodic structure of the octoechos Mode III' (M.A. thesis, University of Rochester, 1982); Adriana §irli, 'New Data on Post-Byzantine Echoi', MA 1 (1985), 435-45.

26

N. Lungu, G. Costea, I. Croitoru, A Guide to the Music of the Eastern Orthodox Church, transl. and ed. Nicholas K. Apostola (Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1984), 47-9; Filothei sin Agai Jipei, Psaltichie Rumaneasca 2: Anastasimatar, ed. Sebastian Barbu-Bucur, Izvoare ale Muzicii Romanesti (Bucharest: Editura Muzicala, 1984). 12 This is the order given in Serkoyan, 'Les huit modes de Fhymnaire armenien'. For the Syriac sources see Heinrich Husmann, 'Hymnus und Troparion: Studien zur Geschichte der musikalischen Gattungen von Horologion und Tropologion', Jahrbuch des Staatlichen Instituts fur Musikforschung Preussischer Kulturbesitz: 1971 (Berlin: Merseburger, 1972), 7-86, especially 489; Aelred Cody, 'The early history of the octoechos in Syria', East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period, ed. Nina Garso'ian et al, Dumbarton Oaks Symposium 1980 (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1982), 89-113, see 92-3. 33 Huglo, Tonaires, 383-90; Michel Huglo, 'L'Introduction en Occident des formules byzantines d'intonation', Studies in Eastern Chant 3, ed. Milos Velimirovic (New York 1973), 81-90; Terence Bailey, The Intonation Formulas of Western Chant, Studies and Texts 28 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1974); Michael Markovits, Das Tonsystem der abendlimdischen Musik imfruhen Mittelalter, Publikationen der Schweizerischen Musikforschenden Gesellschaft ser. 2, vol. 30 (Bern and Stuttgart 1977), 99 n. 6; Tilden A. Russell, 'A poetic key to a preGuidonian palm and the Schemata', JAMS 34 (1981), 109-18; Michel Huglo, 'Les Formules d'intonations «noeane noeagis» en Orient et en Occident', in Atelier de Recherche et d'Interpretation des Musiques Medievales, Aspects de la musique liturgique au Moyen Age: Actes des colloques de Royaumont de 1986, 1987 et 1988, ed. Christian Meyer (Paris: Editions Creaphis, 1991), 43-53. '* Jorgen Raasted, Intonation Formulas and Modal Signatures in Byzantine Musical Manuscripts, MMB-S 7 (1966), 77-84. The tuning function of the echemata may perhaps be compared to the brief preliminary melisma - also sung to nasal consonants - that some Irish folksingers call the 'Nea' (pronounced 'nyah' as one syllable); see James R. Cowdery, The Melodic Tradition of Ireland (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1990), 36-9. 11

158

Mode and melos

The earliest Oktoechoi

modal signatures found in notated Byzantine manuscripts.35 In the West, their function may have been more theoretical or paedogogical - yet in time they became linked to the phenomenon of the wordless melismas, called by the Greek term 'pneumata' (usually Latinized to 'neumae' or 'neupmae'), which were sung at the end of certain antiphonal psalms as ornamental, modally-marked codas.36 Finally, both Greek and Latin sources identify the eight modes with the tribal names of the classical Greek tonoi: Dorian, Phrygian, etc. But, as Table 6.1 shows, they make the identifications differently. The familiar Western arrangement, first found ca. 900 in the Musica Enchiriadis^1 and more extensively in the Alia Musica?* differs from the two arrangements found in Byzantine theory.

The material reviewed up to now deals with the formal aspects of the modes as a classification scheme. Much more complex and interesting, of course, are the musical aspects of the modes as a descriptive scheme. What characteristics of range and scale type, location of structural pitches, typical melodic gestures or other traits determined the assignment of a chant to one mode rather than another? The present state of knowledge does not suffice to answer this question across the board. In the familiar Latin tradition, each pair of modes has a common final, one of the pitches we now call D, E, F, or G; the plagal mode in each pair exhibits a low ambitus or range, extending about a fifth above and below each final, while the other mode exhibits a high range, ascending to an octave or more above the final but descending only a pitch or two below it. The medieval Greek tradition seems to have been similar, but there are areas of unresolved doubt. Many arguments have been made for recognizing some degree of chromaticism in Byzantine chant - how much and at what dates remain matters of controversy.39 Even more controversial is the question of how much continuity we can suppose between the medieval modes and the modes that are used in the Orthodox Churches today, which have arguably undergone various degrees of assimilation to the maqamat of Arabic and Turkish music,40 or, in the Slavic realm, to Western European music.41 For the Coptic, Syrian and

Raasted, Intonation Formulas, see p. 154 on the dating of these signatures. For a brief introduction, see Oliver Strunk, 'Intonations and signatures of the Byzantine modes', MQ 31 (1945), 339-55, repr. in Strunk. Essays, 19-36. "' Huglo, Tonaires 386-90; David Hiley, Western Plainchant 331-3; Peter Wagner, Gregorianische Formenlehre: Eine Choralische Stilkunde, Einfuhrung in die gregorianischen Melodien 3, 2nd edn (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel 1921; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1962), 320-1. Walter Howard Frere, The Use of Sarum, 2 vols. (Cambridge University Press 1898, 1901; repr. Farnborough: Gregg, 1969), 2, 209, with examples throughout the tonary in the appendix, i-lxxiv. The rules for when to sing these melismas are spelled out in The Ordinal and Customary of the Abbey of Saint Mary, York (St. John's College, Cambridge, MS. D. 27) 1, ed. the Abbess of Stanbrook [Laurentia Maclachlan] and J. B. L. Tolhurst, Henry Bradshaw Society 73 (London: Harrison and Sons, 1936), 14-15: 'according to our use. the neuma or jubilus - which are the same thing ought to be done at the end of the antiphon . . . . For the neuma, or jubilus, is the ineffable joy or exultation of mind that is had from eternal things; and let the neuma be made only on the last letter of the antiphon, indicating that the praise of God is ineffable and incomprehensible [secundum usum nostrum in fine antiphone fit neuma sed jubilus, quod idem est. . . . Est autem neuma, seu jubilus, ineffabile gaudium seu mentis exultacio habita de eternis; et fit neuma in unica et finale litera antiphone ad denotandum quod laus Dei ineffabilis et incomprehensibilis est.]' Cf. p. 35, where the singing of the neuma is indicated during an actual service. That this practice was already followed in the early Middle Ages is evident from a rubric in the so-called 'Pontifical of Poitiers' of the last third of the ninth century. 'Nee more solito . . . sed simpliciter antiphona a cantore imponitur, sed neque melos musicum terminata antiphona in ultima syllaba protelatur iuxta rationem autenticorum sonorum', which I would translate, 'Not according to the usual custom [are certain texts said on Holy Thursday], but the antiphon is simply laid down by the cantor; nor is the musical melos prolonged at the end of the antiphon by reason of the authentic sounds.' I take the locution 'authentic sounds' as referring to the eight modes, at a time when they were still relatively novel and when 'sonus' was considered the Latin equivalent of 'tonus'. I therefore understand this passage to mean that during the Easter Triduum one dispensed with the usual practice of prolonging the final syllable with a melisma that was specific to the mode of the antiphon melody. For the text, see Aldo Martini, // cosiddetto Pontificals di Poitiers (Paris, Bibliotheque de I'Arsenal, cod. 227), Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Documenta, Series Maior: Fontes 14 (Rome: Herder, 1979), 136. The suppression of the neuma during the Easter Triduum was in fact the medieval practice, as attested in Frere, Use of Sarum, 1: 152, 157. 37 Hans Schmid, ed., Musica et Scolica Enchiriadis una cum aliquibus tractatulis adiunctis, VmK 3 (1981), 22, with other uses cited in the index verborum. The treatises in this complex that are most involved with the modes are the Musica Enchiriadis, Scolica Enchiriadis, Commemoratio Brevis, and Modorum sive Tonorum Ordo, ed. in Schmid, Musica et Scolica Enchiriadis, 1—59, 60-156, 157—78, 182-3. See also Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis, transl. Raymond Erickson, ed. Claude V. Palisca (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 7-8. !K Jacques Chailley, ed., Alia Musica (Traite de musique du IX1' siecle): Edition critique commentee avec line introduction sur Forigine de la nomenclature modale pseudo-grecque au Moyen-Age, Publications de ITnstitut de Musicologie de 1'Universite de Paris 6 (Paris: Centre de Documentation Universitaire, 1965), 22-3, 28-56. The Boethian name 'hypermixolydian' is used instead of i5

159

the 'hypomixolydian' more familiar today. Note, however, that the tribal names are used in what Chailley calls the 'traite principal', but not in some other portions of this complex of treatises. For the differing Latin usages, see Huglo, Tonaires, 381-2. Christian Thodberg, 'Chromatic Alterations in the Sticherarium', Actes du Xlle Congres international d'etudes byzantines, Ochride 10-16 Septembre 1961 2 (Belgrade: Naucno Delo. 1964), 607-12; Gh. Ciobanu, 'Sur 1'anciennete du genre chromatique dans la musique byzantine', Actes du XlVe Congres International des Etudes byzantines, Bucarest, 6-12 septembre, 1971, ed. M. Berza & E. Stanescu (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste Romania, 1976), 513-19; George Amargianakis, 'The chromatic modes', XVI. International Byzantinistenkongress Wien, 4.-9. Oktober 1981: Akten, II. Teil, 7. Teilband: Symposionfur Musikologie: Byzantinische Musik 1453-1832 als Quelle musikalischer Praxis und Theorie vor 1453 [=Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen Byzantinistik 32/7 (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1982), 7-17; J0rgen Raasted, 'Chromaticism in medieval and post-medieval Byzantine chant: a new approach to an old problem', CIMAGL 53 (1986), 15-36; Peter Weincke, 'Some observations on the interpretation of signatures and accidentals in East and West', CIMAGL 54 (1986), 61-72. For the Syrian Melkite or Antiochene Orthodox tradition, see: Dalia Cohen, The meaning of the modal framework in the singing of religious hymns by Christian Arabs in Israel', Yuval: Studies of the Jewish Music Research Center 2 (Jerusalem: Magnes Press of Hebrew University 1971), 23-57; D. Cohen, 'Theory and practice in liturgical music of Christian Arabs in Israel', Studies in Eastern Chant 3 (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 1-50. For the 'Neo-Byzantine' chant of the modern Greek Orthodox Church, see Heinrich Husmann, 'Echos und Makam nach der Handschrift Leningrad, Offentliche Bibliothek, gr. 127', Archiv fur Musikwissenscha.fi 36 (1979), 237-53; Kurt Reinhard, 'Uber die Beziehungen zwischen byzantinischer und Tiirkischer Musik', MA 4 (1975), 623-32; loannis Zannos, Ichos und Makam: Vergleichende Untersuchungen ziun Tonsystem der griechisch-orthodoxen Kirchenmusik und der turkischen Kunstmusik (Bonn: Verlag fur systematische Musikwissenschaft, 1994). Eastern and Western opinions on this question were formerly at opposite extremes. The traditional Western view is expressed in this quote from Carsten H0eg, The oldest Slavonic tradition of Byzantine music', Proceedings of the British Academy 39 (1953), 37-66 with four plates (quote from pp. 42-3):

161

Mode and melos

The earliest Oktoechoi

Armenian traditions these same issues present themselves even more intractably: the likelihood of acculturation to Arab and Turkish music is even stronger,42 yet access to early states of the tradition by means of notated manuscripts43 or theoretical treatises is much more limited. The lack of a theoretical literature is particularly surprising in view of the role that Syriac-speaking Christians played in transmitting ancient Greek music theory to the Arab world,44 where the eight Byzantine modes were apparently known to al-Kindi in the ninth century.45 The

present article will therefore leave aside issues of musical content, and will focus instead on the earliest evidence of eightmode classification schemes, as they were first used to organize the various Eastern and Western traditions of Christian liturgical chant.

The striking fact is that, whereas the modern Greeks indulge in oriental chromatism and strange intervals, the Russians continue obstinately the diatonic tradition of [medieval] Byzantine music and in that way, too, belong to the European family, where, in the Occident, the diatonic style has dominated plain song which became the basis for all later European art music. This explains why the Russian church music was easily adapted to polyphony when it was introduced in Russia [from Western Europe] in the late seventeenth century. The traditional Eastern view, on the other hand, is that Byzantine music has scarcely changed from ancient times, and that any similarities between Byzantine chant and Middle Eastern music are due to borrowing by the Arabs and Turks from the Greeks. For instance Alygizakes, 'H 'OKrarixia., assumes that the Turkish makamlar are derived historically from the classical Greek harmoniai, which survive more directly in the Byzantine ecclesiastical modes. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle: The fact that many Greek and Armenian Christians worked as musicians in Turkish courts, even before the fall of Constantinople, means that there was ample opportunity for influence and interaction in all directions, just as German and Italian influence on Russian church music since the seventeenth century may have brought in more than polyphony and staff notation. See Velimirovic, 'Reflections', 457. For the Syrian Jacobite tradition see Heinrich Husmann, 'Eine Konkordanztabelle syrischer Kirchentone und arabischen Maqamen in einem syrischen Musiknotizbuch', Symposium Syriacum 1972, OCA 197 (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1974), 371-85. For the Armenian tradition, see Jean-Claude C. Chabrier, 'Le systeme acoustique armenien d'Hambardzoum au XlXeme siecle', Ethnomusicology and the Historical Dimension: Papers Presented at the European Seminar in Ethnomusicology, London, May 20-23 1986, ed. Margot Lieth Philipps (Ludwigsburg. West Germany: Philipp Verlag, 1989), 130-2. Among the Syrians, the most significant group of notated sources belongs to the Melkite tradition, the most Byzantinized of the Syrian subgroups. See 'Ein syrisches Sticherarion mil palaobyzantinischer Notation (Sinai syr. 261)', Hamburger Jahrbuch fur Musikwissenschaft 1 1974), 9-57; Husmann, Ein syro-melkitisches Tropologion mil altbyzantinischer Notation, Sinai Syr. 261, 2 vols., Gottinger Orientforschungen, 1 Reihe: Syriaka 9 (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1975, 1978); Jorgen Raasted, "Musical Notation and Quasi Notation in Syro-Melkite Liturgical Manuscripts', CIMAGL 31 (1979), 11-37, 53-77. The Raasted article also includes some information on the extant notated Coptic manuscripts. Notated Armenian manuscripts survive in the hundreds, but their notation is not well understood. Amnon Shiloah, The Theory of Music in Arabic Writings (ca. 900-1900): Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in Libraries of Europe and the U.S.A., RISM 10 (1979), 5-6, 60-2 (an author who was aware of the Byzantine oktoechos), 63, 66, 75-6, 95, 101, 134-5 (a treatise by a Nestorian), 155 (an attack on Christian music), 159-60 (a treatise by a Christian on the musical abilities of slaves), 180 (a treatise by a translator of Syriac), 195-7 (including a lengthy treatise in Syriac, cf. 348-9), 198, 200-1, 201-6, 222, 237, 247, 257-9, 264-6, 266-7, 282, 285, 287-8, 322-3, 331, 348-9, 353-5, 360, 362-3, 376-83, 389-90, 394-8. See also: Nancy Sultan, 'New light on the Function of "borrowed notes" in ancient Greek music: a look at some Islamic parallels', Journal of Musicology 6 (1988), 387-98; Marios Mavroidis, 'Byzantium and musical notation in Islamic Arabia: the case ofSafiyu ad-Din'. Rivista di Bizantinistica 1/2 (December 1991), 29-38. Amnon Shiloah, 'Un ancien traite sur le 'ud d'Abu Yusuf al Kindl: Traduction et commentaire', Israel Oriental Studies 4 (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University. 1974), 179-205, see p. 202; Shiloah, Theory of Music in Arabic Writings, 258.

Despite the many differences among the various cultures that use the eight modes, the processes by which the modes were adopted by each of the non-Greek cultures exhibit many similarities. The earliest Latin, Syriac and Armenian evidence for the modes all dates from the eighth and ninth centuries. The Slavonic evidence emerges at the same period, though it cannot be fully separated from the Byzantine, because the Slavonic liturgy was from the very beginning a close adaptation of the Byzantine rite. The Coptic evidence, on the other hand, dates from much later in the Middle Ages, and the eight modes were never assimilated into the bulk of the liturgical chant repertory. Thus Egypt can be excluded from the list of plausible homelands of the eight modes.46 When we carefully investigate the sources of each individual tradition, we can observe two consistent facts. First, the modes were always perceived as Greek in origin, and associated with areas of each culture that were most susceptible to Greek influence. Second, the modes initially stood apart from much of the indigenous musical repertoire, and required a long period of time to be fully incorporated into it. The process of integration brought about significant changes in both the melodic repertory and the theoretical understanding of the modes, as each was adjusted to fit the other better. This is easiest to see in the Latin tradition, which is both the best documented at that period and the most thoroughly studied.

160

III. The Reception of the Eightfold Modal Classification

A. The eight modes in Gregorian chant Written copies of the Gregorian chant repertory begin in the late eighth century, yet very few liturgical chantbooks earlier than the mid tenth century include information about the modal assignments of the individual chants. This in itself is enough to raise doubts about the importance of the eight modes in the context from which Gregorian chant emerged, wherever and whenever that was. The impression that the modes were not a major factor in the early creation and transmission of Gregorian chant is strengthened by the absence of the modes from the local Latin traditions that Gregorian chant more or less supplanted: the 4(1

Ilona Borsai, 'Y a-t-il un "octoechos" dans le systeme du chant copte?' Studia Aegyptiaca I: Recueil d'etudes dediees a Vilmos Wessetzky a {'occasion de son 65'' anniversaire, ed. Laszlo Kakosy and Erno Gaal (Budapest: Elte, 1974), 39-53. Borsai correctly answers this question in the negative.

163

Mode and melos

The earliest Oktoechoi

Mozarabic, Milanese, and Beneventan repertories as well as the Old Roman tradition of the city itself.47 The fact that the Gregorian repertory is modally organized is one of the things that distinguishes it from the other Latin repertories. Most of the earliest evidence regarding the modes in Gregorian chant, therefore, is not to be found in the liturgical books, but in theoretical treatises and in the tonaries, didactic collections in which the chants have been listed or arranged according to their modal characteristics. In the West, then, the modes were first known as a framework for organizing chants that already existed, not as a resource for composers creating new chants. Two simultaneous trends can in fact be discerned in the earliest Latin theoretical sources, dating from the end of the eighth century to the beginning of the tenth. One trend involved the classification of the chant melodies into modal categories. Initially this was done by identifying representative pieces that exhibited the appropriate melodic traits, but soon the classification was extended to the entire corpus. This classification process did not happen once for all, but was attempted repeatedly by different individuals, with differing results. It required expansion of the original eight categories in two directions: On the one hand, subdivisions were created within each mode, linked to the various possible terminations of the psalm tone melodies,48 to allow for finer categorization than the eight modes alone could make possible. On the other hand, new categories beyond the original eight were created to allow for chants that could not be fitted into the eightfold scheme. The other trend involved the acculturation of the unfamiliar Greek terminology of the modes. This process included the development of traditional translations and explanations of the original Greek mode names, but it also entailed the creation of additional 'Greek' technical terms, based on the limited Western knowledge of classical and biblical Greek. Gradually a dialectic emerged in which both the theoretical modal system and the actual chant repertory were reformulated with the help of concepts derived from the late antique Latin literature on classical Greek music theory. The historical picture, then, is not one of a continuing musical heritage extending back to ancient times, but of a simple

and indeed limited classification scheme, imported from a contemporary Greekspeaking milieu, and quickly elaborated with the help of locally available information to support broad application to the current Gregorian chant repertory.

162

" Don M. Randel, The Responsorial Psalm Tones for the Mozarabic Office, Princeton Studies in Music 3 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 12-13; Helmut Hucke, 'Karolingische Renaissance und Gregorianischer Gesang', Die Musikforschung 28 (1975), 4-18; Thomas Forrest Kelly, The Beneventan Chant (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 154-6; Terence Bailey, 'Ambrosian psalmody: an introduction', Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario 2 (1977), 65-78; Bailey, 'Ambrosian choral psalmody: the formulae', Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario 3 (1978), 72-96; Albert Turco, 'Forme di salmodia nel canto milanese', Musica e Storia \, 303-17. 48 Huglo, Tonaires 12-14; Terence Bailey, 'Accentual and cursive cadences in Gregorian psalmody', JAMS 29 (1976), 463-71; Andrew Hughes, Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office: A Guide to their Organization and Terminology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 112-16; JoAnn Udovich, 'Modality, Office antiphons, and psalmody: the musical authority of the twelfth-century antiphonal from St.-Denis' (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1985); Paul Merkley, Tonaries and melodic families of antiphons', Journal of the Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society 11 (1988), 13-24.

1. The earliest Western evidence of the modes The Western encounter with the modes is first documented in the Tonary of St. Riquier,49 a brief appendix to a late eighth-century psalter traditionally linked to Charlemagne.50 It simply lists the modes by their Latinized Greek number-names (Authentus protus, etc.), though the last three are no longer extant. Beneath each mode name are cited the textual incipits of three to five introits, graduals, alleluias, offertories and communions from the Proper of the Mass repertory. The absence of chants for the Office is noteworthy, since these tend to predominate in later tonaries. But the author of the tonary, if he was one of the first Westerners to tackle the task of classifying Gregorian chant according to the modes, would have had little or no precedent to go by. It would not be surprising, therefore, if he turned first to the more stable and circumscribed (and liturgically more important) Mass repertory than to the larger, more diverse, and less stable repertory of the Office. 2. The explanation and expansion of modal terminology Two small treatises may represent the earliest Western attempts to explain the terminology of the modes. Though difficult to date, they represent a stage of intellectual development more advanced than the Tonary of St. Riquier, a chronological placement suggesting the early ninth century. The better preserved treatise, known in two recensions, was entitled De Modis in Martin Gerbert's 4"'

50

The tonary begins with the incipit 'Autentus protus. An. Misereris omnium Domine . . .' but is incomplete at the end. It is found in Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, MS lat. 13159, fo. 167r-v, and edited in Huglo, Tonaires, 25-9. The tonary occurs at the end of a psalter (Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, fonds latin 13159), dated by the eminent paleographer E. A. Towe to the period between 795 (the accession of Pope Teo III) and 800 (the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor); see Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores: A Paleographical Guide to Latin Manuscripts Prior to the Ninth Century 5: France: Paris (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950), 38 no. 652. However, doubts about whether the tonary is of the same date as the rest of the manuscript were raised by John Harris Planer in The ecclesiastical modes in the late eighth century' (Ph.D. diss.. University of Michigan 1970). His arguments, summarized on pp. 87-9, boil down to three: (1) the hand of the tonary exhibits slight differences from the rest of the MS (see pp. 33-40), (2) graduals and alleluias were not generally listed in tonaries before the tenth century (pp. 40-6), (3) the communion Beati mundo corde for All Saints day was 'not cited in tonaries, treatises, or graduali [sic] before the eleventh century' (p. 89), and therefore may not have existed before then (pp. 47-87). But these arguments were anticipated and dealt with in Huglo, Tonaires, 25-9, where it is also asserted (p. 26) that the tonary is in the same hand as the psalter. Because of Planer's objections Helmut Hucke expressed reserve about the eighth-century date in Toward a new historical view of Gregorian chant', JAMS 33 (1980), 437-67, see 442-3, n. 25. But more recently he wrote 'Der Tonar ist von der gleichen Hand geschrieben wie die vorangehenden Seiten, wahrscheinlich kurz vor 800', in 'Gregorianische Fragen', Die Musikforschung 41 (1988), 304-30, see p. 300.

164

165

Mode and melos

The earliest Oktoechoi

eighteenth-century edition,51 despite the fact that this work, like other ninthcentury Latin writings on music, uses 'tonus' rather than 'modus' as the ordinary term for 'mode'.52 The Schemata in the shorter and presumably earlier recension are extremely corrupt, yet the most recent editor of the text has interpreted them as being listed in the customary Byzantine order rather than the usual Western one.55 If this interpretation is correct, this treatise would be the only Western source to list the modes in this order, and would provide important testimony to the Byzantine origin of the Western modes. The De Modis is evidently the earliest Western source to describe the four extra modes, the need for which is, it says, 'demonstrated in the little antiphons, especially from the [ferial] psalter [of the weekday Office], which do not end in the same way they begin'.54 The Greeklooking term that it uses for such modally mixed categories, parapteres, is doubtless a neologism coined in the West,55 for it is not known ever to have been used in Greek music theory.56 The De Modis in fact gives two lists of the

parapteres, which seem originally to have been independent. The first list cites the incipit of one office antiphon as an example of each category, while the second one cites a variable number of antiphons between one and five. The section on the regular eight modes, on the contrary, names no specific pieces. The other early ninth-century treatise, only incompletely preserved, begins 'Autentus dicitur auctoritas'.57 It witnesses in its own way to a Western perception that the modes were ultimately Greek in character, for in the only surviving manuscript, dating between 996 and 1024, the (incomplete) Latin text is written in a curious script (see Plate 6.1), actually a form of the Greek alphabet that circulated in the Latin West.58 The implicit claim made by the script - an endearing attempt by some benighted Western scribe to make the Latin text look as if it were written in Greek - echoed more explicit claims that were evidently made in the text, which includes the line 'omnes nem.pe toni greca lingua nominentur . . . [all the tones are undoubtedly named in the Greek language]' and originally ended 'toni greci exponuntur [the Greek tones are expounded]'. Both the 'Autentus dicitur' and the short recension of De Modis take the same approach to explaining the evidently novel Greek terminology of the modal system, by supplying each Greek word with an equivalent Latin word. In both texts, 'authentus' or 'authenticus' is explained as equivalent to the Latin 'auctoritas' or 'auctoralis'; 'plagis' is identified with 'lateralis'. The Greek ordinal numbers 'protus', 'deuterus', 'tritus', and 'tetrardus' are simply translated into the corresponding Latin numbers. However, the longer recension of the De Modis goes beyond this simple listing of equivalents. The meanings of some of the Greek words are illustrated by comparison with other Greek loanwords, already familiar to Latin readers, that are based on the same etymological roots.

51

52

53

54

35

56

This treatise begins with the incipit 'Autentus autoralis et auctoritate plenus' and ends with 'sed pareat altissimus'. It survives in the manuscripts Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Can. misc. 212 (Italian, fifteenth century) and Cesena, Biblioteca Malatestiana, Plut. S XXVI, 1, fo. 195 (fifteenth century, copied from a lost exemplar of the tenth or eleventh century). Martin Gerbert edited the text from a lost fifteenth-century Strasbourg manuscript in Scriptores Ecclesiastic! de Musica Sacra Potissimum (Sankt Blasien 1784; repr. Milan: Bollettino Bibliografico Musicale, 1931; repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1963), 1:149, but see the newer edition in Terence Bailey, '£)