Byzantine Chant: Tradition & Reform – Acts of a Meeting Held at the Danish Institute at Athens, 1993

The contributors to this volume use different approaches to uncover the early development and transmission of the tradition, its constancy and permutations. Although the roots of Byzantine chant go back to the early-Christian Church, neither the lyrics nor the incantation notes were written down until the 9th century, and many songs were not recorded until the 17th century, more than 200 years after the fall of Constantinople. Considerations include a recent attempt to establish a new date for the round notation , one of the earliest transcriptions and an ethnomusicological study of a religious chant from the island of Zakynthos that may provide clues to specific features of medieval Byzantine intonations. Other articles deal with aspects of Byzantine chants from the 12th century, through the fall of the Empire in 1453 and into the 20th century. Musical examples throughout the text underscore the authors’ theories and illuminate the beauty of the medium.