Conference Agenda

This paper examines the archival and documentary sources of the Byzantine chant tradition preserved within the five Albanian (Arbëreshë) communities of Sicily, founded between the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries after successive waves of migration from different areas of the southern Balkans, including present-day southern Albania, Epirus, the Morea, and neighbouring regions, following the fall of Constantinople in 1453. These communities form an ethno-linguistic minority culturally positioned at the crossroads between East and West, and between written transmission and ritual orality. The study considers liturgical manuscripts held in libraries and ecclesiastical archives, handwritten transcriptions from the late nineteenth century onwards, historical sound recordings, and documentation produced through field research conducted by the author since the early 1990s. Particular attention is devoted to the bearers of traditional knowledge—papades (in Greek, priests), cantors, and members of the community of the faithful—understood through UNESCO concepts of Intangible Cultural Heritage and Living Human Treasures, as custodians of skills and memories transmitted orally and through practice. Within the Greek-Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Piana degli Albanesi, these figures have ensured the continuity of a chant tradition combining Greek-Byzantine liturgical forms with paraliturgical and devotional practices shaped by long-term interaction with the surrounding Latin environment. Of special interest are paraliturgical repertoires, including devotional chants mainly in Arbëreshë, but also in Italian and Greek, which often preserve materials no longer transmitted in neighbouring Sicilian communities.

The superficial and, in many cases, incomplete catalogues of Byzantine music manuscripts in Cyprus constituted the primary impetus for the development of a project aimed at their systematic and analytical cataloguing. Technological advancements, together with the demands of the contemporary scholarly environment, led to the incorporation of digitization as an integral component of the overall plan. This addition not only significantly enhanced the potential benefits of the project but also strengthened its scholarly impact and long-term research value.

The implementation of the project was carried out on the basis of a clearly defined hierarchy of libraries, accompanied by on-site assessments of specific needs and parameters unique to each collection. This structured approach allowed for the effective adaptation of the methodology to the particular characteristics of each library.

The present paper offers an overview of the methodology employed at the various stages of the project, which was carried out over different periods in Cyprus. These stages include the initial design and parameterization of the project, the successive phases of implementation, presentation and approval procedures for digitization, the digitization process itself, and the detailed cataloguing of the musical manuscripts. Particular emphasis is placed on the integration of subcategories of interdisciplinary interest, as well as on the final production of printed catalogues encompassing the various collections.

At the same time, and following a parallel trajectory, the paper presents a comparable project of analytical cataloguing conducted in another monastic setting of exceptional scholarly significance, namely the Monastery of Pantokratoros on Mount Athos. Within the framework of a broader, long-term programme dedicated to the systematic cataloguing of musical manuscripts preserved in the libraries of Athonite monasteries, this specific cataloguing effort yielded particularly significant and noteworthy musicological findings.

Study Group for Byzantine Music Palaeography “Chrysorrhemon”, School for Music Studies, A.U.Th.

This presentation investigates the cycle of nine kalophonic pieces born out of the old Byzantine sticheron Βηθλεὲμ ἑτοιμάζου, in the plagal of the fourth mode, during the Palaeologan Renaissance (1261-1453). It starts from the kalophonic cycle as neumated in late Middle-Byzantine notation, with the manuscript of the Gritsani Collection no 7 from the library of the Holy Metropoly of Zakynthos (middle of 15^th cent.) serving as a dux, and as testified also in other manuscripts containing kalophonic chants, such as Sinai 1234, 1250, 1251, 1253-55 a.o. The old notation will be compared to the transcriptions by Chourmouzios Chartophylax in the analytical neumatic notation of the New Method, from his autograph of the Metochion Sancti Sepulchri 729 (first half of 19^th cent.). Continuing some previous research on the matter, the presentation will refer to the sourcing of the kalophonic style, to issues of critical edition –both traditional and with the use of digital means-, to transnotations and transcriptions on staff, and to musicological analyses of the cycle. We will focuss on the last piece of the cycle, the so-called anagrammatism Adam ananeoutai, by St John Koukouzeles, the most outstanding Byzantine composer (ca. 1270- before 1340).

The musical examples will be interpreted by members of the Study Group ‘Chrysorrhemon’, and of the Byzantine Women Choir ‘St Anysia’ from the Greek Society for Music Education