An important musical manuscript of Saint Iosif Naniescu
An important musical manuscript of Saint Iosif Naniescu

Summary/Abstract: In the context of the recent canonization of Metropolitan Iosif Naniescu in Romania, the present study points out his musical concerns reflected mostly in Manuscript 340 stored in the “Dumitru Stăniloae” Library of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Moldavia and Bukovina in Iași.The Holy Hierarch Iosif Naniescu was a performer with outstanding voice quality, a collector of musical manuscripts, who copied, translated in Romanian language and composed various chants needed for church services, who promoted and supported as Metropolitan both the psaltic chant on a single voice and polyphonic-harmonic singing, interpreted in mixed formula - for men and women. Ms. 340 takes the form of a miscellany, most files being written by Iosif Naniescu in 1835-1870 period. It contains hymns intended for Vespers services, Matins and Divine Liturgy, such as various chants for the Triodion period, the morning Doxastika (the eleven Eothina), the Great Answers, the Axion estin on more modes, the Koinonika etc. Most of the hymns from Ms. 340 have been takeovers or remakes of Greek and Romanian authors, and others, fewer, are compositions of Saint Iosif Naniescu, for example: Axion estin, mode 1, Great Answers, mode 8, etc.

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