A Contribution to the Study of the Beginnings of the Orthodox Slavonic Musical Culture
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4312/mz.4.1.21-27Abstract
The beginnings of the Orthodox Slavonic Musical culture date from the time of the conversion of the Slavonic peoples to Christianity in the ninth century. The Apostles of the Slavs, the brothers SS. Cyril and Methodius from Thessaloniki, and their pupils, especially SS. Clement and Naoum (early tenth century) translated a number of liturgical books from Greek into the Olid Church Slavonic. Some of these, e. g. the Oktoechos, were used for singing, but neither Byzantine nor Slavonic manuscripts with musical notation have been preserved from that time. Therefore, only indirect evidence is available: a number of quotations concerning singing and musical practices found in the old biographies and chronicles serve as important sources for research, although they do not help us to reconstruct the earliest melodies. The Old Slavonic liturgical manuscripts without notation written both in the older Glagolitic and the younger Cyrillic alphabets contain signatures for the Modes. Some of these manuscripts are listed and their relevance for our research is pointed out. Next are mentioned the Slavonic liturgical manuscripts with notation and their relationship to the Byzantine manuscripts. Thanks to the results obtained by Miloš Vellimirović and this author it was possible to conclude that the final phrases of Slavonic Hirmoi and Stichera with notation – found in Russian manuscripts from the twelfth century – are similar if not identical with the Byzantine versions. Concerning the beginnings and the history of the Serbian Chant no manuscript with notation has been found before the middle of the fifteenth century. Three conclusions were arrived at: a) for the beginnings of the Orthodox Slavonic Musical culture the oral tradition was widely spread; b) the Byzantine influence must have been predominant in the first phase of the melodic transmission; c) original hymns in honour of Serbian saints are especially noteworthy because there are no Byzantine models for them.Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Downloads
Published
01.12.1968
How to Cite
Stefanović, D. (1968). A Contribution to the Study of the Beginnings of the Orthodox Slavonic Musical Culture. Musicological Annual, 4(1), 21–27. https://doi.org/10.4312/mz.4.1.21-27
Issue
Section
Articles
License
Copyright (c) 1968 Dimitrije Stefanović

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors are confirming that they are the authors of the submitting article, which will be published (print and online) in journal Musicological Annual by Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Aškerčeva 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia). Author’s name will be evident in the article in journal. All decisions regarding layout and distribution of the work are in hands of the publisher.
- Authors guarantee that the work is their own original creation and does not infringe any statutory or common-law copyright or any proprietary right of any third party. In case of claims by third parties, authors commit their self to defend the interests of the publisher, and shall cover any potential costs.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.