page_title: Byzantine music
section_title: Reception of the cathedral rite
hierarchical_section_title: Byzantine music / The Slavic reception / The Kievan Rus' and the earliest manuscripts of the cathedral rite / Reception of the cathedral rite
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Вид на Благовещенский монастырь с набережной (ул. Советская)
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: In the Primary Chronicle (Повѣсть времѧньныхъ лѣтъ "tale of passed years") it is reported, how a legacy of the Rus’ was received in Constantinople and how they did talk about their experience in presence of Vladimir the Great in 987, before the Grand Prince Vladimir decided about the Christianization of the Kievan Rus' (Laurentian Codex written at Nizhny Novgorod in 1377):
  On the morrow, the Byzantine emperor sent a message to the patriarch to inform him that a Russian delegation had arrived to examine the Greek faith, and directed him to prepare the church Hagia Sophia and the clergy, and to array himself in his sacerdotal robes, so that the Russians might behold the glory of the God of the Greeks. When the patriarch received these commands, he bade the clergy assemble, and they performed the customary rites. They burned incense, and the choirs sang hymns. The emperor accompanied the Russians to the church, and placed them in a wide space, calling their attention to the beauty of the edifice, the chanting, and the offices of the archpriest and the ministry of the deacons, while he explained to them the worship of his God. The Russians were astonished, and in their wonder praised the Greek ceremonial. Then the Emperors Basil and Constantine invited the envoys to their presence, and said, "Go hence to your native country," and thus dismissed them with valuable presents and great honor. 
  Thus they returned to their own country, and the prince called together his vassals and the elders. Vladimir then announced the return of the envoys who had been sent out, and suggested that their report be heard. He thus commanded them to speak out before his vassals. The envoys reported: "When we journeyed among the Bulgars, we beheld how they worship in their temple, called a mosque, while they stand ungirt. The Bulgarian bows, sits down, looks hither and thither like one possessed, and there is no happiness among them, but instead only sorrow and a dreadful stench. Their religion is not good. Then we went among the Germans, and saw them performing many ceremonies in their temples; but we beheld no glory there. Then we went on to Greece, and the Greeks led us to the edifices where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We know only that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations. For we cannot forget that beauty. Every man, after tasting something sweet, is afterward unwilling to accept that which is bitter, and therefore we cannot dwell longer here.
  There was obviously also an interest in the representative aspect of those ceremonies at the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople. Today, it is still documented by seven Slavic kondakar's:
  Tipografsky Ustav: Moscow, State Tretyakov Gallery, Ms. K-5349 (about 1100)
  Two fragments of a kondakar’ (one kondak with notation): Moscow, Russian State Library (RGB), Fond 205 Ms. 107 (12th century)
  Troitsky-Lavrsky Kondakar’: Moscow, Russian State Library (RGB), Fond 304 Ms. 23 (about 1200)
  Blagoveščensky Kondakar’: Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia (RNB), Ms. Q.п.I.32 (about 1200)
  Uspensky Kondakar’: Moscow, State Historical Museum (GIM), Ms. Usp. 9-п (1207, probably for the Uspensky Sobor)
  Sinodal’ny Kondakar’: Moscow, State Historical Museum (GIM), Ms. Sin. 777 (early 13th century)
  South-Slavic kondakar’ without notation: Moscow, State Historical Museum (GIM), part of the Book of Prologue at the Chludov collection (14th century)
  Six of them had been written in scriptoria of Kievan Rus' during the 12th and the 13th centuries, while there is one later kondakar’ without notation which was written in the Balkans during the 14th century. The aesthetic of the calligraphy and the notation has so developed over a span of 100 years that it must be regarded as a local tradition, but also one which provided us with the earliest evidence of the cheironomic signs which had only survived in one later Greek manuscript.
  In 114
caption: Blagoveščensky monastery at Nizhny Novgorod
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