Dear Adrian (from Gillian)
Thursday, 21 March 2024 19:59
Within the Western Latin church there are other similarly ancient types of chant; Ambrosian (from Milan) and Mozarabic (Iberian peninsula) being the two most common. But Gregorian was the most systematic, academic and theoretical (and Roman) but has a similar heritage to the other forms. Remember all this took place before the schism and Rome’s ‘falling away’ from the Church, so techinically they are all Orthodox! Pope Gregory I did not flex in the way later popes did, so is considered quite Orthodox. The Byzantine chant that you heard on Mt Athos has some regional variations across the Greek Eastern Church and because of the Orthodox dislike of novelty, named composers and Liturgy as performance art, it has remained largely unaltered over time. The only Orthodox jurisdiction to buck this trend were the Russians who in the 17th and 18th Century were heavily influenced by Catholic polyphony, but managed to turn it into something better (IMHO).
Here is some Romanian Byzantine (Psalm 50 – Greek numbering)
compare to the Roman Catholic Miserere which is also psalm 50. This one is the one that was tweeked my Mozart a few centuries later to make it a bit more spicey (those really high notes are his)
The older I get the more I appreciate the Byzantine. Liturgy means the work of the people, Byzantine chant is more organic and less professional and polished. Go into any Orthodox church and there are chanters who can sing like these Romanians (it is not just the monks), they are not professional musicians, there is no snobbery, they are ordinary people from all walks of life ……
Dear Gillian (from Adrian)
On Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 06:15:42 PM GMT+2, Adrian Chan-Wyles PhD wrote:
When I flew to Greece, (immediately after the 911 New York terror attacks in 2001) – the Airports and the aeroplanes were virtually empty. We could sit where we liked on both leagues of the journey. Meanwhile, I visited Mount Athos by boat and talked with the monks – and discovered the numerous roadside shrines (shaped like UK telephone boxes) dotted around the place – which anyone could enter.
An icon of Christ was always hanging upon the wall – depicting him as a Middle Eastern-looking man – whilst incense could be lit and prayers written-down, etc. On Sundays, the radio stations played endless melodious (devosional) music – that sounded to me just like monastics singing the glorffication of Christ (as if the words and music were lifting the singers – and the listeners – into the spiritual realm).
At the time I thought this was Gregorian Chant – but given that Greece is an Orthodox country – this analysis cannot be correct. Therefore, my question is this – did Pope Gregory I (540-604 CE) copy an already existing Orthodox Christian (monastic) practice – falsely claiming he had invented it – presenting this to the world as the Catholic practice of “Gregorian Chant”?
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 