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4. Canonarchal / Responsorial Genre

REPERTOIRES (Scores) – SOURCES (printed & manuscript)

This melodic genre is performed responsorially, as a liturgical dialogue between a single person (bishop, priest, deacon, canonarch, cantor, reader, etc.) and a group of people (choirs or congregation). All the melodies for this genre are sung according to the 8 Tones, and include:

• Prokeimena,
• "God is the Lord",
• "Alleluia" (instead of "God is the Lord", and before the Epistle reading),
• [in the Znamenny Chant system:] the final phrases of Troparia, Kathisma (Sedalny), Kontakia and Oikoi, or:
• [in the Southwestern and modern Muscovite systems:] a number of complete melodic repertoirs for Troparia, Kathisma (Sedalny) and Kontakia, including prosomoia (podobny) for this category of hymns,
• "Holy is the Lord our God" on Sundays,
• Exaposteilaria (Idiomela, Automela and Prosomoia melodies)
• various other short phrases that use the "prokeimena" melodies.

A) Responsorial Refrains:

a) Prokeimena,
b) "Alleluia" (instead of "God is the Lord", and before the Epistle reading),
c) "Let every breath praise the Lord" (at Matins),
d) [in the Znamenny Chant system:] the final phrases of Troparia, Sessional Hymns (Kathisma), Kontakia and Oikoi,
e) "Holy is the Lord our God" on Sundays,
f) various other short phrases that use the "prokeimena" melodies

B) Complete Melodies:

g) "God is the Lord",
h) [in the Southwestern and modern Muscovite systems:] a number of complete melodic repertoirs (generic formulas for each Tone) for Troparia, Kathisma (Sedalny) and Kontakia,
j) [in the Southwestern Russian systems:] Automela/Samopodobny and Prosomia/Podobny melodies for Troparia, Sessional Hymns and Kontakia,
k) [in the Byzantine and Znamenny Chant systems:] Hypakoe,
l) Exaposteilaria (Idiomela, Automela and Prosomoia melodies)

1) Byzantine Chant Tradition (etc.):

[information coming soon]

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

The pre-Nikonian tradition did not have a separate genre for Troparia and Kontakia melodies. The traditional practice for non-festal services, still observed by the Old Believers today, is for the reader to intone the Troparia (Apolytikia) and Theotokia, the Sessional Hymns, and the Kontakion and Oikos; the choir chants (repeats) the final phrase using the Prokeimenon melody. (One will notice that the texts of the final phrases of the Kontakia and their accompanying Oikoi are usually the same.)

For the Great Feasts, there are special Great Znamenny Chant settings of the Troparia and Kontakia; these were all composed during the medieval expansion of the repertoire (or during post-Nikonian times). (While there are Great Znamenny Chant melodies for the Sunday Resurrectional Troparia and Theotokia, it is interesting to note that to this day there do not exist any settings of the Resurrectional Kontakia in the Great Znamenny Chant.)

Most church musicologists agree that singing Troparia to Stichera melodies (even the Small Znamenny Chant melodies) is technically an inauthentic practice of mixing musical genres, and thus should be avoided. There are certain exceptions for using the Small Chant Stichera melodies, however, which are deemed more acceptable, such as the Troparia (from the Canon at Matins) sung at the Beatitudes. On feasts it is traditional in some Old Believer communities to sing the Troparia at the end of Vespers, at Matins on "God is the Lord" and after the Great Doxology, and at the Liturgy according to the Small Chant melodies for Stichera; other parishes, however, follow a more authentic practice of singing these festal Troparia according to the Great Chant melodies (if the choir is well trained and the congregation does not mind the extra time involved).

There is no solid manuscript evidence to connect the neumatic Prokeimena chant with any Byzantine origin, but there is ample textual evidence to at least build a case around the continuity of the liturgical tradition from a theoretical Byzantine prototype. (In pre-medieval times there was a Kontakarion notation accompanying some of the Kontakia, directly translated from Greek sources, but it never caught on either in Russia or Greece, and we are left with very little conclusive knowledge of transcribing the notation. It has been suggested that this was a last vestige of the development of the "Cathedral Rite" typikon, which was supplanted soon after by the "Jerusalem Typikon".)

3) Southwestern Russian Chant Traditions:

Steven, please help with this section.

The Carpatho-Rusyn and Galician chant traditions likewise do not possess a genuine Znamenny repertoir of chant melodies for Troparia, Sedalny and Kontakia, and thus a variety of more-or-less complete melodic repertoirs were introduced to cover this genre of hymns.

Questions: Are these "Bulgarian" melodies? What are their origins? When did they appear on the scene? Are there different "raspevy" used for this genre of hymns? Where did the Russian "Greek" Chant originate, and where did it first come into use in Russia or Southwestern Russian? (Kiev?)

In addition to this system of melodies, quite a variety of Podobny melodies for Troparia, Sedalny and Kontakia entered into the repertoir of Southwestern Russia. (ELABORATE, PLEASE. What are the "raspevy", and where did they originate?)

See also:

Carpatho-Russian Podobny for Troparia, Sedalny and Kontakia (Please take a look at this page and feel free to help improve or expand the information. It would be great to cover Galician and Kievan traditions, in addition to the C-R tradition.)

The Russian "Greek Chant" Resurrectional Troparia in the 8 Modes

Nikolov's Bulgarian Chant Troparia (Lesser Chant Set)

4) Modern Great Russian Chant Traditions:

Please also help with this section.

The modern Russian chant traditions have evolved significantly since the displacement of the Znamenny repertoir. For the most part, the modern traditional choral repertoir is based on the systems of melodies that were imported into the Muscovite Church from Kiev following the reforms of Patriarch Nikon. This includes:

• the Kievan Chant (and "Abbreviated Kievan Chant") melodies for stichera, which are a regional variant of the Small Znamenny Chant;
• the so-called "Greek" Chant (and "Abbreviated Greek Chant"), which is a system of Troparia melodies somewhat based on simplified Byzantine Chant melodies for Troparia (without the difficult Byzantine scale tonalities);
• and the so-called Russian "Bulgarian" Chant (and "Abbreviated Bulgarian Chant"), which is a simplified version of the Southwestern Russian "Bulgarian" Chant melodies for Troparia (see above).

For more information, see: SOURCES OF TRADITIONAL OBIKHOD TONES by Stephen Reynolds

See also the introduction to the Sticheraric Genre: f) Automela/Samopodobny and Prosomia/Podobny melodies for Troparia, Sessional Hymns and Kontakia.