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El canto mozárabe y su entorno Estudios sobre la música de la liturgia viejo hispánica

Edita: Sociedad Española de Musicología c/ Torres Miranda 18. • 28045 Madrid [email protected]/ • Tel.: 915 231 712 www.sedem.es Sección C: Estudios, n.º 24 ISBN: 978-84-86878-29-0 Depósito legal: M-33549-2013 Edición a cargo de: Ismael Fernández de la Cuesta, Rosario Álvarez Martínez y Ana Llorens Martín © de la edición: Sociedad Española de Musicología © de los artículos: los autores Imagen de cubierta: Miniatura del folio 103 del Antifonario de León Impreso en España / Printed in Spain Maqueta e imprime: Imprenta Taravilla, S.L.- Mesón de Paños, 6-28013 Madrid

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COLABORA:

«Proyecto de Investigación El canto llano en la época de la polifonía Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad HAR2010-17398»

Observations on a «lost» language: the Armenian neumatic notation

Observations on a «lost» language: the Armenian neumatic notation Aram KEROVPYAN

Resumen: En la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, el pionero de los estudios modernos sobre el canto litúrgico armenio, Yeghia Dndessian, realizó una meticulosa comparación entre manuscritos antiguos con neumas y la práctica del canto de su época. Cuando el Padre Komitas intentó continuar el proyecto de Dndessian a finales del siglo XIX, el escaso conocimiento que el primero poseía acerca del significado de los neumas había desaparecido completamente. La situación no ha mejorado a lo largo del siglo XX, especialmente debido a que la práctica tradicional de esta música decayó incesantemente bajo la influencia del autoorientalismo de los armenios. Hoy en día, cualquier investigación sobre la modalidad y la interpretación del canto litúrgico armenio debe estar necesariamente basada en la práctica que pervive en un pequeño número de cantantes, y asimismo en los vestigios que se pueden detectar en las lecturas minuciosas de documentos de los siglos XII a XIX. El artículo propone un breve estudio de este tema. Palabras clave: neumas armenios, khaz, sharagan, oktoechos armenio, patrones melódicos, canto litúrgico armenio.

Abstract: In the second half of the 19th century, the pioneer of the modern studies of Armenian liturgical chant, Yeghia Dndessian, undertook a meticulous comparison between ancient manuscripts with neumes and the practice of the chant of his time. When Father Komitas attempted to continue Dndessian’s project at the end of the 19th century, the little knowledge of the meanings of the neumes that the former had possessed had disappeared entirely. The situation has not improved during the 20th century, especially because the traditional practice of this music has steadily declined under the influence of self-Orientalism of Armenians. Today, any research on the modality and interpretation of Armenian liturgical chant must necessarily be based on the practice which survives in a small number of singers, as well as the remnants that can be detected in close readings of documents from the 12th to 19th centuries. The article proposes a brief survey of this subject. Keywords: Armenian neumes, khaz, sharagan, Armenian oktoechos, melodic patterns, Armenian liturgical chant.

The present paper is my first attempt to examine the Armenian neumatic notation in relation with the living tradition of Armenian liturgical chant, 121

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especially with its modal and melodic structures which are my main fields of research. I have never worked on the neumatic notation system in a methodical way although I use, like many master singers and cantors of the Armenian Church, the remnants of this system during offices. Over the years, the singing practice has allowed me to recognize some fundamental aspects of this notation and made me reticent about theoretical speculations which can be read in musicological literature, as they remain cut off from the practice itself. I often have the impression that cookbooks are being written without entering the kitchen. This is why I prefer to start at ground zero. I will set the context briefly, using a few examples. Armenian liturgical chant is a modal and monophonic tradition. In that respect, it has features similar to other modal music traditions of the Near East. The modal system of Armenian liturgical music contains many intertwined layers of historic developments and changes. This music is presently somewhat obscured by elements introduced during the 19th and 20th centuries which led to a decline in the knowledge of the traditional system and its practice. On the other hand, a new notation system created at the beginning of the 19th century, and a reformation movement started during the second half of 19th century contributed to saving traditional melodies and transmitting the singing tradition, and made possible its continuation after the 1915 rupture. Yet the documentation on theoretical matters being so scarce, modern musicology has difficulty in bringing to light the numerous little-known aspects and disparities of the modal system and its practice. This situation has been one of the reasons why the dominant topics of research on Armenian liturgical music have for a long time been the neumatic notation and building historiography, using numerous bits of information contained in manuscripts. The second reason is that in Soviet Armenia, religious music was banned until the 1980’s, and musicologists had to shift to «historical» subjects; studying neumatic notation perfectly fitted the political situation. The result is that fundamental topics like modal theory, the melodic patterns system, style, local traditions and transmission, have not yet become shared fields among researchers. On the other hand, the neumatic notation is still the great mystery of Armenian liturgical music. There is too much speculation on this subject, which remains perfectly unknown although it is still used by church singers. 122

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Some historic facts and characteristic features will be enumerated before embarking on the subject of the neumatic notation and its relationship with oral transmission. The historical survey will be brief. We only need to keep in mind a number of characteristics, some of which are specific to this music, while others can be considered as general features of the world of modal music or church music. 1) Most of the lyrics of Armenian liturgical chants are in «prose». As is the case for the whole liturgy, the language is classical Armenian. 2) Although Western forms and techniques have been introduced during the 20th century, the structure of this music remains modal. The modal system can be considered as part of the Near Eastern modal family. Nevertheless, a specific oktoechos system is used; it is a formal grouping of sharagan modes rather than a rational classification. 3) The drone is always present in Armenian liturgical chant, even when it’s not sung. Being monophonic, the chanting is based on unequal temperament and tends to use natural intervals, especially in relation with the drone. 4) A large part of the repertoire is based on melodic patterns. This feature brings together a system of melodic variation according to the lyrics, and a system of tempo variation which is used for liturgical purposes. 5) Although notation systems have been used throughout history, the main transmission method has remained the oral tradition. These characteristics allow us to understand the musical system of the Armenian liturgy. However, the predominance of the oral tradition is the most important characteristic to consider for the study of the neumatic notation. From the point of view of their structure, there are three sorts of chants: 1) Recitative singing. Simple psalmody, litanies, Bible reading, etc. 2) Melodies that can be sung by a group. Most of these songs are of rapid or moderate tempo, but some slow tempo songs can also be included in this category. 3) Melismatic songs, only for solo singing. Neumatic notation has not been systematically applied to recitative singing. In this repertoire, a few neumes, especially those indicating long 123

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syllables, can be seen along with some intonational marks, like «stress» or «baris». Group melodies and melismatic songs are always written with neumes. Both groups can be reclassified according to another structural characteristic: 1) use of melodic patterns 2) specific melodies Neumatic notation has been used for both groups. Nevertheless, repeated neume combinations can be found only in songs using melodic patterns, and this is the repertoire which has come down to us without a break as a melodically homogenious group. The songs of this repertoire are called sharagan. Sharagan songs, grouped in canons according to the liturgical calendar, are organized in an oktoechos system. The Armenian oktoechos is a rather conventional system, as several different modes are grouped under one or the other of the eight modes. Few of these songs have specific melodies. The majority are based on melodic patterns which lengthen or contract according to their lyrics. Without resuming the history of sharagan songs, I will only mention that the oldest attested song in the present repertoire is from the 7th century and the oldest surviving manuscript in which we find the term sharagan is from 11th century. We need to consider the history of Armenian manuscript tradition in order to understand the present difficulties. Armenia, as a geographic region, has been a battlefield for neighbouring empires: Byzantium, Persia, Arabic invasions, Ottoman and Russian empires, not to mention the devastating Mongolian and Northern Caucasus invasions. Also, numerous rebellions during the Ottoman period made Anatolia an unstable region. This is the main reason why very few old manuscripts have survived. For example, there is only one New Testament manuscript from the 7th century. Armenian manuscript colophons are full of a specific kind of testimony: Armenian manuscripts were taken as hostage and sold back to Armenians in exchange for considerable amounts of gold. Musicological studies on Armenian liturgical chant have to deal with conditions resulting from History. Thus, the surviving chant tradition gains a crucial importance in all research fields, for the study of neumatic notation. There is a common consensus that Armenians used the neumatic notation from the 9th-10th century on. It is also accepted that the first 124

Observations on a «lost» language: the Armenian neumatic notation

period is that of an ekphonetic notation, but some manuscript fragments found in book bindings and attributed to 10th and 11th centuries contain a rather developed notation (figure 1). This is one of the fundamental questions which require research, but I must say that paleography is still not a well-established field in the study of Armenian neumatic notation. The Armenian neumatic notation was especially developed during the period of the Cilician kingdom, between the 12th and 14th centuries. Cilician music manuscripts contain many melismatic songs with complex and extended neumatic formulae. In manuscripts, there are also lists composed of numerous melodic pattern names, classified under the names of oktoechos modes. As for the sharagan repertoire, some «editions» became a reference and were copied until the 18th century. Meanwhile neumatic notation gradually became a system transmitted with difficulties, as the political and social situation FIGURE 1.—Fly-leaf from Madenataran, degraded in almost every region Institute of Manuscripts in Yerevan, where Armenians lived. Armenia. First two syllables of «Alleluia». While neumatic notation was still Probably from the 11th century. taught in certain monasteries according to the remaining knowledge of them, Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, became during the 18th century the political center of the Armenians. This also meant that the city became the center from which modernity and its intellectual production spread. In Istanbul, numerous ordained church singer groups retained the liturgical chant tradition, and the main transmission system was oral transmission, from master to student. Apparently, neumatic notation was little taught, and each master-singer had his own interpretation of it. From the beginning of the 19th century, modern studies on neumatic notation appear periodically. The first book which includes explanations 125

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of neumes is The Book of Music of the church singer Krikor Kabasakalian (1740-1808), published in 1803. The book is a mirror of its time: Kabasakalian describes briefly the Armenian oktoechos, makes modal comparisons with Classical Ottoman music, and compares Armenian and Greek neumes. Nevertheless, his neume descriptions are so brief that one might think that, compared to us, church singers knew much more about them in the 1800s. Kabasakalian carried out another more detailed work on neumes, but it was not published and was later lost. We only have a description of the manuscript in a review1. The second document is a notebook of the minutes of the meetings of the Musical commission established by Istanbul Armenian Patriarchate2. The meetings were held from 1873 to 1875 in Istanbul. During these meetings dedicated to the examination of sharagan melodies, Yeghia Dndessian (1834-1881), the first modern Armenian musicologist, expressed his views on sharagan melodies taking as reference their neumatic transcriptions. The minutes contain some information which shows that eighty years after Kabasakalian’s book, musicians still knew a lot more than us about neumatic notation. Three decades later, Father Gomidas (1869-1935) having carried out research for several years on neumatic notation, had found clues to reading this notation, but he never had the opportunity to write down his findings, having been deported in 1915 and having lost his intellectual abilities as a result. All three were interpreting the neumes according to the knowledge of their time. Kabasakalian belongs to the «old school» which was not acquainted with the scientific mind of the West, and his explanations remain in an abstract sphere, with no concern about the reader’s knowledge. On the contrary, Dndessian and Father Gomidas apply a methodical approach. They know the melodic patterns and bring them to the forefront, although their aim is not the same. Dndessian is studying the neumes in order to «correct» melodies and to ensure the coherence of the sharagan repertoire, while Father Gomidas is using his knowledge of the 1 2

Hantes Amsorya, 3 (1895), pp. 65-68; 4 (1895), pp. 123-124; 12 (1895), pp. 353354 (Review of Vienna Mekhitarist congregation, in Armenian). In preparation for publishing. 126

Observations on a «lost» language: the Armenian neumatic notation

repertoire to research the neumatic notation system itself. Notwithstanding, we understand from their work that the significance of the neumes and the neumatic system is literally unknown to them. So, when I say «they knew more than us», we can imagine how little we know about the Armenian neumatic notation today. As for the traditional church singers, probably not every one of them was able to recognize this system but, as learning by memorizing was much more widespread than it is today, the neumes signified much more than they do in our days. The question which remains is: what was lost? The use we make today of neumatic notation is mainly based on our knowledge of present melodic patterns. Two contemporary scholars, Robert Atayan and Nigoghos Tahmizian, have studied the history of Armenian neumatic notation, made inventories of neumes, and tried to explain some of them by melodic motifs taken from a still used official edition of sharagan melodies3. All these efforts haven’t been enough to modify our questioning: what was lost? What was the «key»? In fact, was there a «key»? It is obvious that the first thing we would think of is our perception of the system itself. From the point of view of semantics, we could probably say that the inner meaning is present, since the music to which the neumatic notation refers is still alive for a considerable part, both in practice and in transcriptions. I say «probably», considering the strong possibility that the changes in, for example, sharagan repertoire, as global as they might have been, have caused a shift in the structure of melodic patterns comparing to the structure which was rendered by neume series. Therefore we could be encountering two systems running alongside each other, one of them remaining invisible to us. Having studied the modal system, the oktoechos, and performed the melodic patterns for a long time, I am tempted to examine the system as something new, never studied. Nevertheless, some historic elements, especially information related in the 19th century accounts, remain valuable. Here, I will note some basic observations. 3

Robert Atayan’s and Nigoghos Tahmizian’s numerous articles have been published in several scientific reviews of Armenian SSR, as Panper Madenatarani, Lraper, Badmapanasiragan Hantes, etc. 127

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Both manuscript and printed sharagan books provide a single piece of information concerning the mode of the song: the abbreviated name of the mode, written in Armenian characters according to the oktoechos system, placed next to the songs. This means, of course, that we must know the modes with their interval structures. Another abbreviated mention gives the place of the song in the given canon.

FIGURE 2.—Ms. 1576 of Madenataran (Erevan), fols. 142b, 143a (dated from 1328). Canon of the Sunday of the Tabernacle. On the left, inside the motif, mentions of «Third Voice» and «Patrum». On the right, in the margin, downwords, mentions of «opera», «miserere» and «de cælis». All belong to the same canon and are in the same mode.

Once we know which mode is used, we look at the neumes. As the oktoechos is conventional and each «name» contains more than one mode, we also need to distinguish visually the specific mode, because there is no mention in the book for that. Some neumes are more specific to one mode than to another; this is the only way to distinguish the modes. The next step is to recognize the melodic pattern to use for a given song. We examine the way the neumes succeed each other, and the situation of long syllables4. This 4

I am using a version of Sharagan printed in 1853 in Constantinople and reprinted several times since then. 128

Observations on a «lost» language: the Armenian neumatic notation

is the point where we can act only according to oral tradition. The accuracy of our reading depends on the consistency of the transmitted melodic patterns. Figures 3, 4 and 5 show the first verses of three different sharagan, all in the 1st Voice mode. Most of the neumes are common to the whole oktoechos. In figure 4, on the second line, the the neume combination shown with an arrow helps to deduce that the song is in «tartzevadzk2 « mode. These two neumes, used separately on the 3rd line of figure 5, indicate that the song is in the 1st Voice principal mode. This is one of the empiric methods to distinguish not only different modes of the oktoechos, but also their modal variations.

FIGURE 3.—First verse of a sharagan in the 1st Voice principal mode and its rapid tempo melody.

Traditionally, final and intermediary final motifs are fixed for each mode. The fact that the same neume series can be found for the final 129

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motif of songs in different modes is to be considered according to this feature. An inventory of motifs using the words «God of our Fathers», which is repeated in every Patrum sharagan and in every mode may help us to see if there was a relationship between melodic motifs and corresponding neumes.

FIGURE 4.—First verse of a sharagan in the 1st Voice «tartzevadzk’» / »/ (strophé/turning about) mode and its rapid tempo melody.

FIGURE 5.—First verse of a sharagan in the 1st Voice principal mode.

There are specific neume combinations for each mode which are recognizable as such, but there are also similar combinations which are, of course, sung differently according to the mode. Examples 6 and 7 illustrate this situation. (Ex. 1st Side mode, 844 & 243). 130

Observations on a «lost» language: the Armenian neumatic notation

FIGURE 6.—Patrum end of a sharagan in the 1st Side principal mode.

FIGURE 7.—Patrum end of a sharagan in the 1st Side tartzevadk’ mode.

Figure 8 shows the two tempo variations of a same song. There is a unique neumatic combination. There is no need to have different neumes to make tempo variation. Tempo is not a reference, as there is a tempo variation system.

FIGURE 8.—Patrum end of two tempo versions of a sharagan in the 2nd Voice principal mode.

FIGURE 9.—First verse of a sharagan in the 3rd Side mode. 131

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There is another clue to establish the level of pertinence between the neumes and the melodic patterns in use: in rapid tempo songs, we notice sentences or syntagmatic units with a short syllable followed by a long syllable and five short syllables. In numerous songs the neume composition corresponds to the known melody. The example below is entirely composed of four such units. Many sharagan songs have melismatic melodies which are sung as solos. The neumatic notation of these songs in manuscripts can be either complex or simple. In the present state of our knowledge, it is almost impossible to find indications in both cases. Figure 10 shows a Patrum verse with a relatively simple neumatic composition, yet, the melody is not a result of regular tempo variation.

FIGURE 10.—Patrum verse in the 4th Side mode and the same verse in Ms 1576 of Madenataran, fol. 172b (dated from 1328).

As in every tradition, melodic patterns of sharagan songs must have undergone changes over the course of History. Merely the fact that the repertoire is still based on a recognizable melodic patterns system shows that the change has occurred slowly. This is the main element which allows us to study such a little known system, as is the Armenian neumatic notation. All we know today about the khaz, or neume notation is to distinguish the signs which are to be sung on double time units, and neume 132

Observations on a «lost» language: the Armenian neumatic notation

compositions which are sung even longer, without any idea of corresponding melodic motifs. Yet, a century ago, the whole composition of neumes in a verse was considered in order to distinguish the melodic patterns. However, this situation brings forth a question which could be a research topic: were the neumatic compositions/series read only according to known melodic patterns? Or did the neumes signify formulae for motifs? Can we imagine the process that made some neumes gain similar meanings over time? Or, did that happen simply because some melodic motifs had changed to become similar? And, how can we take benefit from the fact that numerous melismatic sharagan melodies exist with their variants, although they are usually considered as useless for the study of neumatic notation? Many questions which, all put together, go far beyond the possibilities of solitary researchers, as has been the case until now. Enduring and persistent team work is necessary. In this particular case, the inventiveness of the individual remains of crucial importance, as it has been the fundamental vehicle in the development of this art.

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