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HYMNOGRAPHY

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1. Psalmodic or Stichologic Genre

REPERTOIRES (Scores) – SOURCES (printed & manuscript)

Introduction

This melodic genre is performed responsorially, as a liturgical dialogue between a single person (a reader whose appointed duty it is to read psalms, who is traditionally given the title of "Psalmist") and a group of singers (choirs or congregation). The pattern of performance is similar for all the psalms in this genre: the reader concludes various portions of the psalms by lifting up his voice, and the chanters repeat the final phrase and add a refrain. Depending on the tradition, the melodies for this genre are sung either according to the 8 Tones (in the Byzantine tradition), or they are sung according to common or composed melodies which have no basis in the 8-Tone system (the majority of Slavic traditions). The repertoire includes (but is not limited to):

• Vespers: the opening Psalm 142
• Vespers: the First Kathisma
• Vespers: the 4 Psalms "Lord, I have cried" (Psalms 140, 141, 129 and 116) — NOTE: In the Znamenny Chant tradition, there are separate melodies in each of the 8 Tones for the 4 Psalms "Lord, I have cried" in the stichological genre, but in almost all the other East Slavic chant repertoires these psalms have lost their separate function and are sung in the sticheraric genre (i.e. they use the same melodic formulas for singing the stichera which follow them).
• Matins: the sung Kathismata at Festal Matins (only in the Russian Old Rite)
• Matins: the Polieleos Psalms (134 and 135, including Ps. 136 on the pre-Lenten Sundays)
• Matins: the Praises (Psalms 148, 149 and 150)

Note that the psalmody sung during the Divine Liturgy is not sung according to the performance principles of this genre, so in these cases the Psalms are classified differently (mostly under the Anomalistic Genre, unless sung with melodies from another genre).

1) Byzantine Chant Tradition (etc.):

[information coming soon]

2) Great Russian Znamenny Tradition (pre-Nikonian tradition):

[information coming soon]

3) Southwestern Russian Chant Traditions:

[information coming soon]

4) Modern Great Russian Chant Traditions:

[information coming soon]