New CD--Byzantine Chant, English Liturgy

CAPPELLA ROMANA releases its highly anticipated 2-CD recording
THE DIVINE LITURGY IN ENGLISH
IN BYZANTINE CHANT--THE COMPLETE SERVICE
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11 July 2008--WASHINGTON, D.C. Cappella Romana is pleased to
announce the release of its much-anticipated recording of the Divine
Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in English set to Byzantine chant. The
recording will be launched formally at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese
of America's Clergy-Laity Congress in Washington, DC (July 13-18, 2008).
Available first online at <
http://www.cappella romana.org
>, the
recording will be distributed to Orthodox booksellers, retail and
online CD stores worldwide, and download services (iTunes, et al.).
A male ensemble led by Alexander Lingas chants the service’s hymns,
psalms, and responses in a resonant natural acoustic according to the
most authoritative Byzantine traditions, including works adapted from
Petros Peloponnesios (d, 1778), Nileus Kamarados (†1922), and St. John
Koukouzelis (d. ca. 1341).
The Very Rev. Dr. Archimandrite Meletios Webber (priest) and the Rev.
Dr. John Chryssavgis (deacon) render in full all of the litanies and
prayers of the entire Eucharistic assembly.
Issued with the blessing of His Eminence Archbishop +GREGORIOS, this
2-CD set employs the official translation of the Greek Orthodox
Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain.
Its two discs come in a beautifully printed package with a 40-page
booklet that includes an annotated English text of the Divine Liturgy,
as well as essays on Orthodox worship and Byzantine chant by the Very
Rev. Archimandrite Ephrem (Lash), Alexander Lingas, and John Michael
Boyer.
Produced by multiple Grammy-winner Steve Barnett, this landmark
recording of Byzantine liturgy in English also features noted cantor
and scholar Ioannis Arvanitis as Artistic Advisor and Guest Director
of the Sunday Communion Verse by St. John Koukouzelis.
John Michael Boyer (Protopsaltis of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of
San Francisco) prepared musical scores in Byzantine and Western
(staff) notations for this project under the guidance of leading
specialists in Orthodox liturgical music. These bi-notational scores
in English will be available for worship or study through
<http://www.cappella romana.org>.

This recording is part of an international research initiative
supported by major grants from the Virginia H. Farah Foundation, the
A.G. Leventis Foundation, the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius,
and the National Forum of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians. For more
information, visit <
http://www.cappella romana.org>.


A unique feature of this recording is that it makes use of the
resources of Byzantine Chant as they are meant to be used.
As many of you will be aware, Papa Ephraim of St Anthony's Monastery
in Florence, Arizona, has compiled a monumental catalogue of nearly
all the variant forms of each standard melodic phrase of each of the
eight modes, for each of the several literary-musical categories
(heirmoi, stichera, &c) of Byzantine chant, a work of about a thousand
pages:
(http://www.stanthon ysmonastery. org/music/ Formula.htm
). Here we see
the compositional principles of the chant set forth (in the
Chrysanthine psaltic neumation): the prosody of the text phrase--the
syllable count and the placement of stressed syllables in the
phrase--determines which melodic variant is to be used from the list
proper to the given mode and genre.
Thus Byzantine Chant is able to provide a consistent system with
constant melodic motion, in contrast to such chant systems as the
Lesser Znamenny Chant, the Kievan Chant, the Grecheskii Rospev and the
Bolgarski Rospev, and the Petropolitan Common Chant, as found in
East-Slavic sources. All of these consist of "phrasal" or "formulary"
melodies that employ stretches of recitative, expanded or contracted
as necessary, to accommodate the melody to the prosody of the text
phrase. This is obviously a simpler and less labor-intensive solution
to the problem of adaptation, but it is not the solution proper to
Byzantine Chant.
Until fairly recently, adaptations of Byzantine Chant to English
usually started with the Byzantine melody of a given text and set
about applying it to the English translation, which had a totally
different prosody, by fiddling with the melody. The result was a
melody that violated rule after rule of authentic Byzantine
composition, but was more or less recognizable to anyone who knew the
Greek original (cringe as cognoscenti might at the numerous
transgressions) .
More recently, this sort of ersatz-byzantinism has been avoided by
using "metered" translations- -that is, translations designed to mimic
the scansion of the Greek, so that the melody could be preserved
unaltered. This saved the melody, but often at the expense of the
text, which had to be padded with words not in the Greek, or
paraphrased, or otherwise contorted to get it into the right metric
pattern.
Papa Ephraim has shown us that it is not necessary to distort either
text or melody, if those responsible for producing English liturgical
texts set to Byzantine chant will follow the rules, and use the
variant of the melodic phrase in question that corresponds to the
prosody of the English text and not to that of the Greek original.
This is in fact what is done in traditionally Orthodox countries that
sing Byzantine Chant to some language other than Greek (Arabic,
Slavonic, Romanian, &c): see the thorough discussion in "Concerning
Adaptation" (
http://www.stanthon ysmonastery. org/music/ Adaptation. htm).

The result is not a byzantinoid musical contraption on the one hand,
nor a Byzantine setting of texts that have sometimes had to behave
like a contortionist on the other, but an authentically Byzantine
setting of the unaltered text of the Thyateira translation (better
known in the United Kingdom than in North America).
The same procedure can be applied to any other translation; apart from
lifting the burden of making the text replicate the scansion of the
Greek, the principles underlying this recording leave us no closer to
a consensus in that much-controverted area. Thyateira is widely
regarded as the most accurate rendering into contemporary English, and
is unconstrained by any preexisting metrical requirements, so it was a
good choice for the purposes of the recording.
I do not have to praise those responsible for this CD to anyone
familiar with Cappella Romana; let me say only that they uphold the
standards that have won this group its large and growing enthusiastic
audience. While it obviously breaks new ground, the recording is in
concord with the best current work in adapting Byzantine Chant to
English (to be persuaded of this, one need only read the article
"Concerning Adaptation," cited above).
You will hear in this CD something old and new at once, and something
very worth listening to.


(taken from a mail sent to several mailing lists)