16 Facts About Byzantine music

The ecclesiastical forms of Byzantine music are the best known forms today, because different Orthodox traditions still identify with the heritage of Byzantine music, when their cantors sing monodic chant out of the traditional chant books such as the Sticherarion, which in fact consisted of five books, and the Irmologion.

Byzantine music did not disappear after the fall of Constantinople.

Byzantine chant was added by UNESCO in 2019 to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage "as a living art that has existed for more than 2000 years, the Byzantine chant is a significant cultural tradition and comprehensive music system forming part of the common musical traditions that developed in the Byzantine Empire".

Byzantine music was influenced by Hellenistic music traditions, classic Greek music as well as religious music traditions of Syriac and Hebrew cultures.

Term Byzantine music is sometimes associated with the medieval sacred chant of Christian Churches following the Constantinopolitan Rite.

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The melodic neume notation of Byzantine music developed late since the 10th century, with the exception of an earlier ekphonetic notation, interpunction signs used in lectionaries, but modal signatures for the eight echoi can already be found in fragments of monastic hymn books dating back to the 6th century.

Nevertheless, Byzantine music is modal and entirely dependent on the Ancient Greek concept of harmonics.

Secular Byzantine music existed and accompanied every aspect of life in the empire, including dramatic productions, pantomime, ballets, banquets, political and pagan festivals, Olympic games, and all ceremonies of the imperial court.

Byzantine music needed a kind of mass propaganda to justify the imperial violence against the public.

Middle Byzantine music version allows to recognise the exact steps between the neumes.

Byzantine music thus commanded them to speak out before his vassals.

Integrative role of Middle Byzantine music notation becomes visible that a lot of echemata were used which were not known from the sticherarion.

Ottoman Byzantine music is a synthesis, carrying the culture of Greek and Armenian Christian chant.

Byzantine music's work was continued by his students Lycourgos Angelopoulos and Ioannis Arvanitis who both had a quite independent and different approach to the tradition.

Byzantine music published some essays where he explained the role that his teacher Simon Karas had for his work.

Byzantine music studied the introduction of the New Method under the aspect which were the Middle Byzantine neumes that had been abandoned by Chrysanthos, when he introduced the New Method.