Talk:Byzantine music

message: Surely this article should be at Byzantine Chant, and not Byzantine music? The article has barely any mention of secular Byzantine music. While instrumental music of the Byzantine era is largely lost, a good portion of the Modern Greek folksong repertory may well date to the Byzantine era. I propose this article be retitled Byzantine Chant, and a separate Byzantine Music page be set up. InfernoXV 19:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a brief discussion of music in the first section (mostly saying we don't know much about it), but, yes, the rest is chant. I would favor the rename (minus that section), and if you know much about how the folksongs come from Byzantine secular music, adding that to that section and making a new article at Byzantine music. (Note the convention is to have chant and music lowercase in such titles). Rigadoun  (talk) 20:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoa...  Go slow there.  In the first place, the reason it is mostly devoted to chant is because that is what we have the most knowledge of.  On the second place, if the article needs more on the non-chant front, the answer is to add it (or wait for others to) NOT to "disappear" the subject from the encyclopedia.  And thirdly, section 1 (the one you want to excise) us one of the best written, most cogent pieces I've ever seen on Wikipedia.108.54.57.244 (talk) 03:30, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The whole article is not bad, but ahistoric, too short and poor in content and the little torso needs an entire revision (I was already asked to do it, and I reworked the beginning and I restructured the whole article according to a chronological order). The idea with Byzantine music is probably more correct from a historical point of view (since the article is not only about church music today, but also about the music at the Byzantine court). The section "extent" etc. is very problematic. It is mainly a repetition of the section "instruments", and since Jerusalem is at least as important as Constantinople (at least for Constantinople alone), I disagree with the private opinion of the author that Byzantine music should be focussed on Constantinople (it might be probably true for a narrow understanding of "Byzantine rite"). The history of Byzantine music was quite different in Italy, Greece, Egypt, Caucasus (Armenia and Georgia), and Syria (I am not talking about various regions of Greece like Thessaloniki, Athos, Peloponnese, Chios, Crete, Cyprus etc. which should be also mentioned here), and it is nothing else than ignorant to exclude all these local traditions from the article. An article about Byzantine music should also include the Slavic reception since Cyril and Methodius, the Kievan Rus', because these are the earliest notated sources of the Byzantine rite in the narrow sense which have survived. Hence, Slavic Orthodox traditions today have an equal interest in this article to learn about their roots and we should also try to fulfil the expectations of readers who are coming from this background. --Platonykiss (talk) 16:15, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Byzantine music or Byzantine chant? 

message: I would appreciate some more references on this point. The biblical refs given seem to refer to angels speaking/calling/making sounds rather than singing. Perhaps an old translation issue? Philip Howard (talk) 23:30, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It is indeed a central idea of Orthodox celebrations which already formed an important part of the Byzantine concept (a court ceremony which makes you feel like being in heaven which later caused the crisis of iconoclasm, there are many Greek theological terms which do require a very sophisticated translation indeed), but I am not a fan of this way to write the article, but we do things together here, and until things are not absolutely wrong and requires a revision, as it also happens from time to time, I will leave it unchanged. Platonykiss (talk) 15:38, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Medieval Period/Angelic origin of chant 

message: What's the point of the Greek translation (Βυζαντινή Μουσική) of the title? I think it's widely recognized that the word Byzantine is a late Western name of the empire and everything connected with it. Unless Byzantine music somehow was an exception, this wrongly suggests that the English title is translated from the original Greek in parentheses. 98.210.235.191 (talk) 10:34, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No, you didn't understood it, it is not a translation, but it must be there because it is used (in Greece-Greek) and referenced in something that has to do especialy and with the Greek culture --Desposius (talk) 22:31, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not agree (please see above for the reasons), but the term μουσική is indeed of Greek origin. It was used as an alternative term to ἁρμονικαὶ, in English translated "harmonics", to make a difference between the Pythagorean science of mathematics and the discussion of contemporary music like the music of the Byzantine period. It was used as a loanword in Arabic treatises to talk about the authochtonous music theory concerned with Arab music and likewise in Latin (Boethius was already practical and innovative enough to choose the title "De institutione musica"). The English word "music" in its very simple meaning derived from the Latin translation "musica", and is the translation of the translation, if you like. Platonykiss (talk) 10:14, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greek translation 

message: It is cited in the article that O Monogenes Yios is ascribed to Emperor-Saint Justinian I, but in the article of O Monogenes Yios, the hymn is ascribed to Patriarch-Saint Athanasius of Alexandria. So, it can be concluded that at least one article is incorrect! (I am guessing this one) 75.73.114.111 (talk) 13:36, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a very common confusion between a troparion of the second antiphon which was attributed to Justinian (the christological symbolon), and the earlier Athanasian symbolon. At the end both are simply ascriptions, nothing more, the article about it does explain it. --Platonykiss (talk) 18:11, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem with O Monogenes Yios 

message: I deleted a certain period in this edit for several reasons:
* The phrase in question was already criticised during a discussion with other readers. I tried to explain the message behind it, but it was criticised as too detailed by the user Elizium.
* "Historians agree" are weasel words, please try to be more precise, but not here.
* The discussion is too specific and footnotes should be avoided at the beginning, but there is now a whole section dedicated to the topic.
* The link to the page of the Patriarchate dedicated to Byzantine chant is already present in this article, but not very useful as a reference concerning the synthesis of the ethnic names for tropes used by the harmonikoi and for the eight-mode system used in the Hagiopolites.
It is obvious that the edit was done by some former author who wishes to restore the old version and tries this not for the first time. Please accept that it has been already improved for these very reasons. You are also welcome to join the discussion which was started on my talk page. I hope you might finally accept these changes after some consideration, but please do move forward and not backwards. It is a complex topic and unreflected sentences like these do not serve anyone. Platonykiss (talk) 13:45, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beginning