CIX!

Hello chaps,

have two queries about chant books...

GALICIAN

Are the Lviv Irmologion and the Galician Octoechos (in Slavonic) available anywhere online as pdfs? Otherwise, are they still available to buy anywhere? I'm also looking for music for the DL in Slavonic - traditional Galician melodies.

ROMANIAN

Can anyone give me a list of what the standard books for Romanian Byzantine (and Slavic) Chant are? Someone in Romania's offering to send me a set, but I don't know what's available.

So far among the Byzantine books I know of the following:

Anastasimatar
Utrenierul
Vecernierul

What else is there? I imagine one for the DL, and something containing the variable chants through the year.

If anyone can tell me more about the Slavic-style music that the northern Romanians use, I'd be very grateful!

Many thanks in advance,

Edward

Ed - you can get a hard-bound copy of the 1904 L'viv Irmologion from Basilian Press in Toronto. It's not a high-demand item, so they may have to make one for you if it is not in stock. There may be a few bits on-line in places like http://www.synaxis.info (look at Psalom), or the Podoben Project, but I don't know of the entire book being posted as a pdf (it would be a huge file if it did exist).
FDD

From what I can gather, there are a bunch of chant traditions in modern-day Romania. There are local chant styles (like "Transylvanian chant" or "Banat chant"), but I didn't get to hear much of them during my trip last year. As far as I can tell, villages and small churches sing local chants, cathedrals often use choral music, and monasteries often (but not always!) use Byzantine chant.

Among many Orthodox, especially monastics, local chants are being used less and less, with modern Greek-style Byzantine chant becoming the norm. It is thought that Byzantine chant is "more Orthodox" than local chants, the logic being that because Transylvania was under Hungarian rule, and because many Romanians were part of the Unia, they couldn't "properly" train chanters in Byzantine music and thus developed their own, Western-style chants. Use of Byzantine chant also becomes a way to distinguish Orthodox from Greek Catholics.

So, I really don't have an answer to your question, but I hope my observations are relevant.

Perhaps the Romanian Greek Catholics in the US would have more information on local chants, or published volumes thereof. I'd be very interested in finding out more, too!

Dave

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I have in my possession (as a gift from a priest of the Romanian Catholic Eparchy of Canton, now gone to the Lord) a copy of the 1930 "Manecatul (Utrenia) si Inseratul (Vecernia)in felul cum se canta in Catedrala din Blaj, scris pe note liniare de Celestin Cherebetiu, preot, professor"

which, according to the inside cover page, was reprinted in December of 1958 by the ARCA as a commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the "violent communist suppression of the Unia in Romania."

This provides, in the Matins portion:

(1) The Lord is God (all 8 tones)
(2) Troparia for various major feasts
(3) By the waters of Babylon
(4) The penitential Troparia sung at Ps. 50
(5) The Hymn of Degrees in Tone 4
(6) "Let everything that lives and that breathes"
(in all 8 tones)
(7) The Katavasiai of Nativity of the Lord
(8) The Katavasiai of the Circumcision
(9) The Katavasiai of the Theophany
(10)The Katavasiai of the Annunciation
(11)The Katavasiai of Flowery Sunday
(12)The Katavasiai of Pascha
(13)The Katavasiai of Ascension (I think)
(14)The Katavasiai of Dormition
(15)The Katavasiai of the Cross
(16)Holy is the Lord our God (not in a tone)
(17)Exapostilaria (3)
(18)The Great Doxology (Tone 4)

Then, in the Vesper portion of the book:

(19) O Lord I have cried, with pripiv melody and one sticheron, the Dogmatikon,the first sticheron of the Apostichera, and the Resurrectional Troparia, in all 8 tones.

This music is neither prostopinije nor Byzantine chant. It is indigenous to the Romanians of Transylvania in the eparchy of Alba Julia/Fagaras.

(please forgive the fact that I don't know how to enter the proper diacritical marks for Romanian.)

Prof. J. Michael Thompson
Byzantine Catholic Seminary
Pittsburgh, PA

The Synaxis site that Diak linked has reprinted some messages from the Typikon Yahoo Group about Romanian chant:

http://www.synaxis.info/psalom/regional/1_Byzantine/1_info.html

Also, I know that the OCA Romanian Episcopate published a Vespers music book (in English) a few years back. I'm pretty sure that it used Romanian melodies.

Dave

Glory to Jesus Christ!

The book to which our colleague Chtec refers is "The Service of Vespers," published in 1999 by the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America in Grass Lake, MI. This music is Byzantine chant as sung in the Romanian Orthodox Church, adapted to the English language by Archimandrite Roman.

Prof. J. Michael Thompson
Byzantine Catholic Seminary
Pittsburgh, PA

The 1709 Lvov Irmologian is avaiable on-line at the Scanned Chant Books page of Jopi Harri's web site. I'm not sure how much this differs with the 1904 version.

But pack a lunch the file is over 80 megs and takes a while to come down.

i am not sure but you might check with St John of Kronstadt Press in Tennessee, and the Russian Orthodox Seminary at Jordanville, NY mikhail