Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva: The early octoechoi: Sources, liturgy and chant repertory. After manuscripts until the thirteenth century Cover Image
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Светлана Куюмджиева: „Ранните осмогласници - извори, богослужение и певчески репертоар. По ръкописи до XIII век"
Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva: The early octoechoi: Sources, liturgy and chant repertory. After manuscripts until the thirteenth century

Author(s): Boyka Mirceva
Subject(s): Music
Published by: Институт за изследване на изкуствата, Българска академия на науките

Summary/Abstract: Cor. Mem., Prof. Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva authored the first ever book in Bulgarian dealing with the formation and history of a major liturgical book in Orthodox practice, Octoechos. The best part of her book studies in detail and systematizes the sources of the eight church modes repertory, retracing the changes in the structuring and restructuring of this repertory, its relation to the liturgical calendar, its spread from Jerusalem to the Monastery of Stoudios in Constantinople and the development of the system of genres. The repertory is explored in three aspects: changes in the liturgical calendar, changes in the content of the repertory and changes in the genres in different copies of books with order of services in eight tones that later on formed an individual book, Octoechos. The study is based on about 90 manuscript with diverse liturgical books of chant repertory: octoechoi, parakleses, menaia, triodia, pentecostaria, kontakia seeking first of all to establish the repertoire, the content and the structure of the early Octoechos. The narrative in each of the parts follows this pattern: in the first place, the content of the calendar and its specifics occur- ring in the manuscripts of the group are considered, followed by the issues of the singing material and the genres. Each of the manuscripts is presented individually according to a certain pattern: type of the manuscript, detailed content of each successive folio, feasts, liturgical practice and hymnographic material. A commentary is made at the end of each of them. Using this very effective pattern, Svetlana Kuyumdzhieva achieves on many occasions well-grounded revision of the existing definition both of the type and dating of a manuscript and the particularities of its repertoire, of the influences it is under and the trends it shows. Looked in development through generalizing the specifics of liturgical calendar, the content and arrangement of the hymnographic material in the context of the development and the particularities of local liturgical practice, all the manuscripts thoroughly studied by the author from the earliest Georgian Iadgari to the ultimately structured Byzantine Octoechos of the eighteenth century very clearly and with reason arrive at conclusions about the gradual formation of contemporary Octoechos as an individual liturgical book.

  • Issue Year: 2014
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 100-104
  • Page Count: 5