www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship The Kliros Znamenny chant- easy for you?

Within the Ruthenians in Europe and America I am wondering where znamenny chant is commonly used.

I know little about znamenny chant, but it occasionally appears within service music in my parish. It apparently crosses ethnic and jurisdictional boundaries. It appears to pre-date the what-is-now frequent preference within many slavic churches, that of 4-part harmony settings of a more traditionally western origin (19th century Russian composers, their descendants, etc.)

Unlike most of the music associated with prostopinije, znamenny can sound extremely melismatic as opposed to lyrical. In other words, it has less of what a westerner might call an easily singable melody. A setting of "In You O Woman Full of Grace" comes to mind. It also appears to be more difficult to harmonize it. Maybe that's why other types of music are used more often, for 4-part as well as unison congregational singing?

It also appears less often in services, making it harder to establish in the collective memory of the congregation.

Thoughts, ideas, observations on znammeny anyone?

Jim Sprinkle, cantor
St. Thomas BC Church, AZ

Certainly the Znamenny chant is older, predating any of the polyphonic chant styles. And yes, it is very melismatic. One can definitely hear the influence of older Byzantine and Bulgarian chants in the rising and ascending melisma.

There is some varation regarding the singing - some say it should be strictly monophonic, some say it can be sung with an eison or a one-note lower line, not really harmony, but an "anchoring" line similar to that done sometimes in the older Bulharski chant.

I use Znamenny chants still quite a bit- "Waters of Babylon" is easily sung congregationally and is loved in our parish during the pre-Lenten time. Archpriest Roman Galadza has made some wonderful English settings of the Dogmatika at Vespers that I use.

But certainly for the Western ear, they are not as intuitive as the later polyphonic styles, and in many if not most places, Catholic and Orthodox, those melodies are now rendered in samohlasni melodies instead.
FDD

If memory serves me correctly, Church of The Nativity in Erie (Old Believer), PA uses znamenny chant exclusively. While they publish one of the best prayer books in print I've wondered why they haven't published a znamenny chant book. I have been told the Erie community is one of the few Old Believer parishes that regularly uses English.
Couple the knowledge of English and znammeny chant and that makes for one spectacular book that could benefit our Christian community as a whole.

Pyrohy, that is correct. The new Octoechos from Erie has a companion instructional CD for singing their settings of the Znamenny Octoechos melodies, and it is wonderful.

Also Valaam has produced some CDs with their outstanding renditions of Znamenny and other traditional chants in both English and Slavonic. "Taste the Fountain of Immortality" is a great recording.
FDD

The irmosy in Bokshai, except for those for the Nativity of the Lord, Theophany, and Meeting of the Lord, are almost all either znamenny chant or simplifications of znamenny chant. (Sloan Rolando has pointed out in a recent article that Bokshai's versions are not always the best for znamenny) Anyone who lives near an Old Believer parish can verify this by singing some of them for an Old Believer and seeing if he recognizes them; usually he will. This is one among a number of reasons why the current neglect of mattins is so unfortunate; it was the place where one could still hear a deal of znamenny chant within prostopinije.

But the loss of prostopinije is not one but two centuries old. Bokshai lacks the znamenny melodies for dogmatika, stichera theotokia, and many festal stichera, that were present in the old irmologia, can still be found in the Irmologion of L'viv, and were still in the manuscript irmologia written by Juhasevych in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

There is much to be said for reviving these melodies, on condition that the community is already competent in all the samohlasen tones etc. Sing the stichera on "Lord, I cry" to the samohlasen melody and to any podobny that may be prescribed, with the entire congregation participating; then have the kliros singers (who, of course, will have practiced in advance) sing the doxastikon, if there is one, and the dogmatikon, to the znamenny melody from the Irmologion of L'viv, and you will see what I mean.

This parallels the way the liturgical structures consisting of stichera (Lord, I cry; Lauds; Aposticha at Vespers & Mattins) are sung: simpler, mostly syllabic melodies are used for the stichera, but more elaborate melodies come in for doxastica, theotokia, and dogmatika. It has a fine and edifying effect. Try it and see. And let's do everything we can to revive Mattins.

Stephen

The parish in Erie has transposed the music for the Divine Liturgy and most other services into English, retaining znammeny chant - but apparently does not make it available, which seems odd.

The znammeny notation is difficult, but once one learns to manage it, the chant itself is not so difficult - and there are some nice CDs coming from Russia (mostly) from which one can learn how to sing these materials in Church-Slavonic.

Unfortunately there are at least three different varieties of Znammeny chant, depending on whether we are discussing the Priestist Old-Ritualists or this or that group of Priestless. The Priestists are the largest, and have recently republished chant books which are both beautiful and helpful.

There's a nice CD of the Divine Liturgy well-sung by a trio and served by a priest with a good voice; it's available from Vladimir Marosan.

Since Znammeny chant is not really harmonized, even a scant handful of good chanters can chant this music in a way that is stunningly beautiful.

Incognitus