1. Musical movements in Constantinople from the time of the Fall until the beginning of the 17th century

Byzantine musical history demonstrates as its most significant development the evolution of ecclesiastical music into a complete kind of musical civilization, with its own rules and characteristic ethos, with its own complex notation, with a great variety of styles, with different kinds of musical expression and rich melodies. The Byzantine Chant evolved into High Art, reaching its peak during the 13^th and 14^th centuries; its main characteristics are sophistication, long melismas, reformulation of the libretto and the inclusion of modes into the compositions, all elements constituting kalophonia (“beautified” music) and adding greater significance to the music in comparison to the text. This melismatic genre was served by four celebrated and marvelous composers, namely Ioannis Glykys, Nicephoros Ethikos, Ioannis Koukouzelis and Xenos Koronis. These four masters were the source for the composition of Byzantine music in all its forms for the following centuries. There were many other significant musicians – around a hundred – both their contemporaries and followers composing their works around the same time and until the Fall of Constantinople; all of the above produced their kalophonic compositions, thus marking the course and development of ecclesiastical music. One of the most distinguished among them was Ioannis Kladas, lampadarios of the charitable royal clergy and contemporary to the Ecumenical Patriarch Matthew I (1396-1410). His work includes the transcription of the Akathistos Hymn kontakion into the kalophonic mode.

Around the time of the Fall, the art of chant conquers new grounds of creativity and brilliance. Several factors contributed to the accomplishment of this feat: many cantors and masters lived during that time, all musical genres were cultivated – especially the priestly chant – the music books repertoire was stabilised, publication of musical manuscripts increased in order to cover the needs, the monastic ritual in Mass prevailed and most of its services were consolidated.

Greatest figure of the time was Manuel Chrysaphes, lambadarios of the charitable royal clergy from Silibria in Eastern Thrace, who produced impressive work both volume-wise and with regard to its artistic value. He beautified the sticheraric melody, adding in fact multiple compositions of his own, while involving himself especially with the composition of music for the basic services, Vespers and Matins, as well as Mass. His theoretical work should also be mentioned. He focused on matters regarding the octoechos (the eight modes of Byzantine music) and the vocal changes, which contributed to the comprehension of the art of chanting during the kalophonia period (14^th and 15^th centuries). Manuel Chrysaphes was a courtier and personal friend of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos. After the Fall he fled to Serbia, Sparta and Crete, thus bequeathing his knowledge on chanting to those places.

Around the same time another great musician lived and worked in Constantinople, Gregorius Bounis Alyates, who produced compositions, musical notation and theoretical work. Works by these two great composers, the last of the Byzantines, was kept in use for many years in the liturgy; it marked the course and evolution of the future art of chanting and was always the “base” on which all the post-Byzantine chants were built upon.

After the Fall of Constantinople and the seize of the Byzantine Empire, ecclesiastical music – which during the Byzantine period constituted the era’s “classical” music – survived as the music of the Orthodox Church; it kept its high art status in either a creative or static way, always following tradition, often including new pursuits and conceptions adapted to the needs of each period. All of these intrinsic characteristics culminated in the contemporary chanting tradition of the Orthodox Church. The Ottoman rule affected all the sections of intellectual life and ecclesiastical arts, including music. Both the Byzantine glory and the richness of expression of all arts died out, and with them so did the impressive way of executing the music by large choirs. The conquerors greatly restricted the celebration of Orthodox liturgies in Constantinople; consequently, interest in chanting waned and any kind of development in chanting ceased for quite a long time in what used to be the musical centre, Constantinople.

So, the years after the Fall, namely the second half of the 15^th and most of the 16^th centuries, the manuscript musical sources indicate that the Byzantine chanting tradition was merely preserved; at the same time, most musical activity was confined to transcribing several types of music books, as they were handed over by Byzantine notation scribes, and to chanting intruction. Constantinople was no longer inhabited by celebrated musicians, which meant that any developments in music took place in peripheral centres not yet invaded by the Ottomans (Crete, Cyprus), as well as in the monasteries of Mount Athos.

After this intermission of more than a hundred years – a period for which information is scarce – a renaissance period for Byzantine chanting begins in Constantinople; many people contribute to this process, both anonymous and celbrated musicians, not only with regard to notation and instruction, but mainly by chant composition (original music). The place where this revival in music occurred was the Great Church of Christ, the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The patriarchal church kept the pre-Fall tradition as the ark where the liturgies upheld the ancestral musical tradition and where chanting maintained the religious discipline of church-goers.

Main representatives for the post-Byzantine art of chanting and reformers of the chanting tradition were the officials of the Great Church, as well as most intellectual clerics of the patriarchal court. The first celebrated Protopsaltes (Precentor) of the Great Church in the post-Byzantine period was Theophanis Karykes, who also served as an Ecumenical Patriarch for a brief period in 1597. Theophanis Karykes was the first to eponymously set the music to Hermologion, thus introducing a whole new genre of national or external chants, meaning the prolonged sections that echo the chant of a nation or a prefecture. His work reflects the novel musical tendencies that appear around the end of the 16^th century, as well as the disengagement from established and traditional forms.

2. The revival of chanting tradition in Constantinople in the 17th century

The privileges awarded by the Ottoman conquerors to the Orthodox Church combined with the political stability since the beginning of the 17^th century had a positive impact to the art of chanting within the Great Church of Christ. At the same time, the Mother Church, namely the Ecumenical Patriarchate, took an active interest for the upkeeping and preservation of the ancestral musical legacy, despite the fact that the ecclesiastical chorals, even those of the Patriarchal Church, had ceased to be executed by large choirs and in such majestic a manner. Ecumenical Patriarchs, however, supported and encouraged the efforts of Constantinopolitan cantors, thus recognising the great significance of ecclesiastical music in the lives of common folk in general and the fulfillment of their religious duties.

Consequently, from the beginning of the 17^th century chanting re-enters a course of artistic development, prime and renewal. This glorious and impressive course was paved by an exceptional personality in music, Georgios Raidestenos. He was lambadarios and later on Precentor (ca. 1629‑1638) of the Great Church, who introduced and established a strong chanting tradition and created the circumstances for new compositions in several genres. His work was followed, established and recorded by his students and a variety of brilliant 17^th century musicians.

The first one to mark the reformed chanting type during the Ottoman occupation was Panagiotis Chrysaphes (+ December 25^th, 1685), a student of Georgios Raidestenos and his successor as Precentor in the Great Church, also known as Chrysaphes the Younger. His most significant addition to the development of the art of chanting was the new beautification in the Sticheraric melody, the Anastasimatarion and the Hermologion (heirmoi of bishopric feasts and canons of the Easter Week), with reformed and embellished musical structures, as they were sung by Constantinopolitan cantors of his time.

Equally important in the reformation of the chanting tradition were three other brilliant musicians – Germanos, Bishop of New Patras; Balasios, priest and nomophylax of the Great Church and Petros Bereketis, cantor in the church of St Constantine of Samatya in Constantinople.

Germanos, Bishop of New Patras, was a student of Chrysaphes the Younger in Constantinople. Driven by eclecticism and aiming to consolidate chanting tradition by the combination of established forms and the new elements that prevailed in the Constantinopolitan oral tradition, he composed the most melodic creation of the art of chanting, the beautified Sticherarion. The same spirit, however, can be traced in the way he treated the other genres of ecclesiastical music, while he was also attributed with the introduction of the new genre of kalophonic heirmoi, which was mainly cultivated by his students Balasis and – chiefly – Petros Bereketis.

Balasis produced a corpus of work rich in both volume and significance, appertaining to the reformed tradition of his time and the patriarchal circle. This great man served the court of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in many ways, while due to his extensive knowledge and education he was included among the wisest men of the time. Notable are his efforts towards the simplification of musical notation in order to efficiently record the structure and melody in most detail. Balasis was the first to undertake the task of analysing and interpreting the old abridged notation (1670), which was later taken over and intensified by a multitude of musicians – interpreters who concluded the deed in 1814.

Last in the series of the four exceptional 17^th century composers was the Constantinopolitan Petros Bereketis. His visionary musical inspiration, his systematic and versatile work had a great impact. That is why it was collected, codified and published in a single manuscript collection, Apanta (Omnibus Book), the first one ever produced. This great composer completes a creative period in the art of chanting and introduces a new era, during which new forms and tendencies prevail. Their main characteristic was the turn towards the composition of shorter versions in all musical genres, in order to compress the time of Mass.

Around that time Constantinople is inhabited by many musicians with an active artistic presence and contribution to the propagation of musical instruction. This means that Constantinople once again becomes the basic centre for post-Byzantine ecclesiastical music. The quest for music and passion for knowledge lead many music-lovers from Athos, Salonica, Sinai, Lesbos and other peripheral centres to the capital of the Ottoman Empire, where they were to be instructed by patriarchal music masters. Consequently, a great musical movement takes place in Constantinople, including the composition of basic music books, the reformed beautifications, the first attempts in interpretation, the establishment of the kalophonic heirmoi genre, the composition of slow doxologies, the reformation of the assonance system – mainly with regard to the use of four-strings, the development of theoretical research and the increased production of manuscripts. All of the above lead the art of chanting to its artistic peak.

3. Ecclesiastical music in Constantinople during the 18th century

During the first half of the 18^th century, ecclesiastical music in Constantinople appears to be in a halt, compared to the previous creative period. A simple research in manuscript sources reveals the fact that the sublime and versatile work of the four brilliant 17^th century musicians remains as the basic material, although older Byzantine chants also appear to have been used for liturgical purposes. The Sticherarion, divided in fact in other books (Anastasimatarion, Doxastarion), the Hermologion, the Kalophonic Hermologion, the Priestly, the Mathematarion are the new compositions that are widely diffused along with older and established compositions.

Petros Bereketis was still alive in the beginning of the 18^th century. At the same many musicians arrive in Constantinople from various areas, in order to be instructed by the patriarchal music masters. Among them are: Athanasius, metropolitan of Tyrnovos initially, and subsequently of Adrianople (Edirne), who also served as Ecumenical Patriarch (Athanasius V) for a brief period of time between 1709 and 1711; Antonius, priest and economus of the Great Church; Pavlos the canstritius, student of Bereketis and official of the Great Church; Panagiotis Halatzoglou, lambadarios initially and, later on, Precentor of the Great Church.

Since the middle of the 18^th century, a new period of development begins for ecclesiastical music. With regard to chanting, a new quadrumvirate of musicians prevails in Constantinople (Ioannis Trapezountios the Precentor, Daniel the Precentor, Petros the Peloponnesian the lambadarios and Iakovos the Precentor). These men marked one of the most glorious pages in the history of domestici, lambadarios and precentors of the Great Church. Specifically, they established and finalised the chanting tradition of the Orthodox Eastern Church that has prevailed up to this day; moreover, they greatly contributed to the development of the analytical graphic notation of the compositions and to the creation of the necessary conditions in order for the notation problem to be permanently resolved. These music masters, along with many more great ecclesiastical composers established a new way of chanting in all genres by abiding to the demand of their time for the composition of shorter versions, in order to compress the time of Mass. While attempting to interpret the complex notation system, they also recorded their own short compositions in the new system and abridged older ones, in order to maintain them in liturgy. The lambadarios Petros the Peloponnesian deserves an honorary mention, since the greatest part of the repertoire chanted in our days during Mass and other liturgical gatherings is his own either in composition or in interpretation, recording or editing in general. In addition he did not confine himself in chanting, but was successful in the composition of external music as well, while he was also a tambour and ney (string and wind musical interuments, respectively) virtuoso. Blessed with exceptional musical inspiration, hard-working, talented and brilliant, he left his mark in his own time, but also following ones; that is the reason why he is considered not only one of the greatest musicians of the 18^th century, but of the Ottoman period in general. His student and follower was Petros Byzantius, well-known composer and interpreter, as well as productive code-writer.

The Ecumenical Patriarchy officially sees to the preservation and propagation of ecclesiastical music by establishing patriarchal music academies. In 1727 the First Patriarchal Music Academy is founded – as a musical tutorial – by the Ecumenical Patriarch Paisius II, for the instruction in three forms, namely the Priestly one, Sticheraric and the Anastasimatarion one. Documents of the time record that Ioannis Trapezountios was appointed as master and taught there for many years. In 1776 the Patriarch Sophronius founded the Second Patriarchal Music Academy, which is connected to the great chanting revival of the time, while many of the leading contemporary musicians appear to have studied there. Celebrated composers and cantors such as Daniel, Petros the Peloponnesian and Iakovos the domesticus taught there. In 1791 the Third Patriarchal Music Academy was established by the Patriarch Neophytus VII, who appointed Iakovos the Precentor and Petros Byzantios the lambadarios as teachers of ecclesiastical music.

Around the same time, the patriarchal church becomes the model of liturgical tradition and style in both Constantinople and other centres. Moreover, the chanting hierarchy with its various officials was established and remains so up to our time.

The last great musician of the 18^th century was Iakovos the Precentor. He composed music for the Doxastarion using parts of the old Sticherarion, aiming to keep slow sticheraric melodies in the liturgy without excluding “the new established forms”. Iakovos was a leading intellectual of his time; he recorded patriarchal chanting tradition in formal structure and, encouraged by the Patriarch, corrected errors found in liturgical books due to typographical negligence. During his tenure as Precentor he succefully opposed the complex alphabetic notation system suggested by Agapios Paliermos, which was close to being accepted by the Patriarchate. His stance had a positive impact on the evolution and simplification of the ecclesiastical music notation.

4. Introduction of the New Method – appliance of musical typography

The first two decades of the 18^th century are considered the most creative ones in the history of the art of chanting during the Ottoman rule. In this time a great variety of musicians are active in Constantinople and so are many eponymous and anonymous music books scribes, who record and popularise the new musical material, as it had formed after the turn towards shorter chanting compositions. Most notable are four musical personages: the doctor-philospher Vasileios Stephanou or Stephanides, who was mainly known as a theorist and who tried to reconnect ancient Greek theory to ecclesiastical music; Georgios the Cretan, a student of Iakovos and a teacher himself of Gregorius and Chourmouzios; Apostolos Constas the Chiot, the most copius of code writers, who published more than 120 manuscript codes and composed the first ever complete and systematic theoretical book about old-style chanting; Manuel the Byzantine the Precentor, a follower of the chanting tradition introduced by Iakovos, who detached himself from the attempts for reformation that took place in his time.

Two incidents, however, decisevely defined the course of the art of chanting, helping it to prevail up to this day and preserve the living tradition of the Orthodox Church; the first one is the conception and establishment of the New Method of analytical musical notation (1814) and the second was the invention of musical typography and the publication in Bucharest (1820) of the first printed book on chanting (Petros the Peloponnesian’ Anastasimatarion) by Petros the Efesios, a student of three great teachers.

The conception, establishment and application of the new notation system, the most accurate means for achieving maximum fidelity when transcribing the old abridged compositions, was achived by three grand masters: Gregorius the Precentor, Chourmouzios the Chartophylax and the archimandrite Chrysanthos. These three great treachers and musical masters of the modern history of the art of chanting undertook the instruction of this New Method in the Fourth Patriarchal Music Academy, founded and established in 1815 under the tenure of the Patriarch Cyril VI. The school remained open for six years, until 1821, and instructed a great number of music teachers who had come to Constantinople to study music according to the New Method, and who propagated chanting to many cities in Asia Minor, Greece and the Danubian Principalities.

The establishment and implementation of the New Method created new circumstances regarding the instruction of chanting, the copying of music books and the ability to engrave musical typographical types, in order to begin the publication of printed music books. A few years after the introduction of the new system, one of the first graduates of the Patriarchal Music Academy, Petros the Ephesian, went to Bucharest and managed to publish the first ever printed book of ecclesiastical music (1820). Four year later, in 1824, one of the three grand masters, Chourmouzios the Chartophylax, published his two-volume collection of the Anthology Treasury, the first music book printed in Constantinople.

The establishment of the New Method resulted in the conclusion of reformative procedures initated by patriarchal circles since the middle of the 18^th century. The New Method, with its convenient way of notating the compositions combined with the inexperience of new composers who were unversed in the old style of composing and its ruels, brought about many changes in the quality of musical creation. Among the last of the great musicians of Constantinople during the 19^th century, the following should also be included: Constantine the Precentor (1821‑1855), Ioannis the Precentor (1831‑1866), Stephanos the lambadarios (+1864), Gerogios Raidestenos II (+1889) and Georgios Violakis the Precentor (+1911).

In 1866 the Fifth Patriarchal Music Academy was founded by initiave of the Ecumenical Patriarch Sophronius II, financial ifficulties, though, prevented it from producing impressive work. Two years after, in 1868, the Sixth Patriarchal Music Academy was established, under the tenure of the Patriarch Gregorius VI, demonstrating significant activity. The school operated by way of an integral statute and the best representatives of the contemporary art of chanting as teaching staff, namely Stavrakis Gregoriades, Georgios Raidestenos, Stephanos Byzantius, Joasaph the Russian, Panagiotis Keltzanides, Onuphrius Byzantius and others. These masters started from 1869 onwards to publish previously unreleased work of older composers in the Musical Library series. In 1872, however, the process was terminated and the academy ceased to operate.

Previously, specifically in the year 1863, the Ecclesiastical Music Association was founded in Constantinople, aiming to promote music instruction, while the Greek Music Association was established in 1880.

The same year, Georgios Violakis redacts and publishes in the Patriarchate, the Mass ritual that had prevailed in all Grecophone lands. In addition, 1881 was the year the Patriarchate established a Music Committee to tend to several issues concerning music and to preserve authentic ecclesiastical chanting. The Committee re-defined the tonal intervals, the different composition genres and the specific characteristics of each mode and publuished a manual for the teaching of all of the above titled Elemenatary instruction in ecclesiastical music. A few months after the conclusion of the signifant work produced by 1881 Patriarchal Music Committee, the Seventh Patriarchal Music Academy operated for a brief period of time, attended by students of the Great School of the Nation and the Patriarchal Elementary Academy of Fener.

Subsequently, the burden of preserving and propagating the art of chanting was undertaken by various musical or literary associatons (the “Orpheus” Musical Association and others) that had been established in Constantinople, drawn around them a significant philharmonic audience and developed a notable activity in printing with publications like "Ekklisiastiki Alitheia".

The Ecumenical Patriarchate saw into the protection of the art of chanting from alterattions and impetuous fusion with either western or eastern elements by founding music academies and issuing publications. These publications contained directions that emphasised the need to preserve the authentic chanting legacy, they regulated the uniformity of rituals, they defined the chants ought to be sung in churches, they indicated the musical publications and books cantors ought to use. At the same time they renounced new notation systems, such as the one devised by Georgios the Lesbian (ca. 1840) and the introduction of harmonised ecclesiastical music in the two Greek churches of Vienna.

In the end of the 19^th century and the year 1899, the Ecclesiastical Music Association of Constantinople founded a music school, which demostrated significant activity. Its director was Georgios Papadopoulos, the Great Protecdicus of the Great Church of Christ and the teaching staff included Constantine Psachos, Aristeides Nicolaides, Neleus Kamarados, Iakovos Nafpliotis, Petros Philanthides and others.

Up to this day the Patriarchate has not ceased to support ecclesiastical music. Chanting is supervised by the Committee of Ritual and Ecclesiastical Music and is served by the official cantors and their assistants. In an array of extraordinary cantors, with excellent voices and a marvelous musical perception that have been recognised as such by common sentiment, it suffices to mention Iakovos Nafpliotis, Eysthathios Viggopoulos, Constantine Priggos, Thrasyvoulos Stanitsas, Vasileios Nicolaides and the present precentor of the patriarchal church, Leonidas Asteris. The composition of the Liturgicals for the octoechos (eight-modal) cycle of Sundays should be considered as the most important contribution by all of the above to 20^th century chanting. Outstanding performers themselves, they introduced the series of Liturgicals, many times by imitation of makams (Arabian music compositions) that prevailed even in the patriarchal curch. The patriarchal church as well as the rest of the Orthodox churches in Constantinople, have become arks, where ecclesiastical music has been preserved during the 20^th century with the presence of great precentors and lambadarios serving as vehicles for the spirit of the Orthodox chanting tradition.