page_title: Byzantine music
section_title: The kontakaria and asmatika written in Middle Byzantine round notation
hierarchical_section_title: Byzantine music / The end of the cathedral rite in Constantinople / The kontakaria and asmatika written in Middle Byzantine round notation
caption_attribution_description: English: Alleluiaria of the plagios tetartos with psalm 91 (F-Pn fonds grec, Ms. 397, f.43r)
context_page_description: Byzantine music is the music of the Byzantine Empire. Originally it consisted of songs and hymns composed to Greek texts used for courtly ceremonials, during festivals, or as paraliturgical and liturgical 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 sticherarion, which in fact consisted of five books, and the heirmologion.
  Byzantine music did not disappear after the fall of Constantinople. Its traditions continued under the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which after the Ottoman conquest in 1453 was granted administrative responsibilities over all Orthodox Christians. During the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, burgeoning splinter nations in the Balkans declared autonomy or "autocephaly" against the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The new self-declared patriarchates were independent nations defined by their religion.
context_section_description: The reason, why the psaltikon was called “kontakarion”, was that most parts of a kontakion (except of the refrain) were sung by a soloist from the ambo, and that the collection of the kontakarion had a prominent and dominant place within the book. The classical repertoire, especially the kontakion cycle of the movable feasts mainly attributed to Romanos, included usually about 60 notated kontakia which were obviously reduced to the prooimion and the first oikos and this truncated form is commonly regarded as a reason, why the notated form presented a melismatic elaboration of the kontakion as it was commonly celebrated during the cathedral rite at the Hagia Sophia. As such within the notated kontakarion-psaltikon the cycle of kontakia was combined with a prokeimenon and alleluiarion cycle as a proper chant of the divine liturgy, at least for more important feasts of the movable and immovable cycle. Since the Greek kontakarion has only survived with Middle Byzantine notation which developed outside Constantinople after the decline of the cathedral rite, the notators of these books must have integrated the cheironomiai or great signs still present in the Slavic kondakar's within the musical notation of the new book sticherarion.
  The typical composition of a kontakarion-psaltikon (τὸ ψαλτικὸν, τὸ κοντακάριον) was:
  prokeimena
  alleluiaria
  eight hypakoai anastasimai
  kontakarion with the movable cycle integrated in the menaion after hypapante
  eight kontakia anastasima
  appendix: refrains of the alleluiaria in octoechos order, rarely alleluia endings in psalmody, or usually later added kontakia
  The choral sections had been collected in a second book for the choir which was called asmatikon (τὸ ᾀσματικὸν). It contained the refrains (dochai) of the prokeimena, troparia, sometimes the ephymnia of the kontakia and the hypakoai, but also ordinary chant of the divine liturgy like the eisodikon, the trisagion, the choir sections of the cherubikon asmatikon, the weekly and annual cycle of koinonika. There were also combined forms as a kind of asmatikon-psaltikon.
  In Southern Italy, there were also mixed forms of psaltikon-asmatikon which preceded the Constantinopolitan book "akolouthiai":
  annual cycle of proper chant in menaion order with integrated movable cycle (kontakion with first oikos, allelouiaria, prokeimenon, and koinonikon)
  all refrains of the asmatikon (allelouiarion, psalmodic allelouiaria for polyeleoi, dochai of prokeimena, trisagion, koinonika etc.) in oktoechos order
  appendix with additions
caption: Psalm 91:2–3 ᾿Αγαθὸν τὸ ἐξομολογεῖσθαι τῷ κυρίῳ καὶ ψάλλειν τῷ ὀνόματί σου with the alleluiaria in echos plagios tetartos (allelouia refrains written in red ink before the echos plagios section) in a kontakarion about 1300 (F-Pn fonds grec, Ms. 397, f.43r)
exif: {}