Any interested person who has dealt with our church singing is almost certainly aware of what might be called a popular preconception that prevails against the chant books published in Russia by the Holy Synod. For whatever reasons, the system of so-called square notation in these manuals is supposedly "old Slavic" and, therefore, unduly difficult, even though the origin is not Slavic in the least, but purely Western. Such a notion betrays the simple bias of an unwillingness to explore the actual matter.
In addition, there are still other views that are incorrect and interfere with any proper understanding. These are based exclusively on mistaken hearsay about the general approach of Russian church singing, the facts behind its development, and the historical relationship of common practice to the governing body of the Holy Synod. Some persons, for example, are quite wrongly convinced that the large four-part choral style in use today represents an official standard prescribed by ecclesiastical decree, that liturgical singing by small ensembles, sometimes involving only one or two musicians, is to be merely tolerated (e.g., at weekday services, or in other cases when there is no choir) and that chanting in unison is altogether forbidden.
In truth, however, it is the choral polyphony that is merely allowed, and even then only conditionally, under ecclesiastical guidance.1 But before examining this more closely, let us turn our attention to the actual books and their square notation.
One often hears from those who sing at daily services that the chants recorded in these notes are alien-sounding, ponderous, too slow, and not infrequently reminiscent of a Gregorian usage that is different from the Orthodox.
This criticism of our established canonical chants is mostly the outcome of exposure to misguided performance. Basically speaking, to acquire a reading facility with this music is extremely easy, especially for those who are capable and know the regular European, or let us call it round italianate, notation. All in all, the square notes are considerably simpler: (a) they make use of only one clef (the alto clef); (b) there are no accidentals (sharps, flats, or key signatures) apart from the occasional upper B-flat; (c) there are no metrical indications (time signatures, bar lines, etc.); (d) there are no dynamic markings (loud, soft, slow, fast, etc.); (e) rhythmic designations are straightforward and only very rarely show any durations for values shorter that the eighth note. Since handbooks on the usage are already in ample supply, there is no need to dwell on further explanation. We can direct our attention to some of the errors that arise in actual practice.
It is known that the takt, or the whole note of the square system
corresponds to the familiar Italian whole note
whose value is taken to be four counts or strokes of the arm. Thus, in effect, two motions, one up and one down (giving the audible beat on a hard surface), become the equivalent of a single quarter note.
However, at the time when the five-line staff was first introduced into Russian church usage (mid-17th century), meter was reckoned differently. Here is what the deacon loanniki Korenev writes in his preface to the Musical Grammar (1681) by Nikolai Diletsky:2
Do you desire to learn the art of singing that is composed harmoniously and with dignity? You must first instruct your mind in the six-named designation [shestoimennom znamenovati], the hexachord of solmization, [i.e., do-re-mi-fa-sol-la, Ed.] which raiseth the voice with understanding, everywhere directing [it] upward or downward, in accordance with the words, in rapid or slow movement; they [i.e., the syllables of solmization, Ed.] are to be learned in conjunction with the raising of the hand and then with its descent called a takt [beat] and being written:Raising the hand upward or downward once, called a half-takt. is written:Of the so-called quarter notes, two per motion downward, there are four per takt, and they are written:
Hence, it follows that the whole note of the square system should be given not as
i.e., the relative duration of the square note is one half the value of its italianate transcription. The whole note is given not in four strokes, but only two (one audible beat with the Latin designation tactus), upward and downward, the latter concluding with the beat.
This alters the entire picture. If the duration of the square note is measured according to the system described by Korenev i.e., the half-note gets one stroke of the arm (either up or down) Then the znamenny melodies written in this notation acquire a certain mobility, and their supposed heaviness disappears. There is a purely psychological factor at play: a melody written in half-notes is generally slower in performance than when it is rendered in quarters, etc.
Another frequent mistake is the chanting from square notes in a metronome-like fashion. What happens is that the note values are kept exact and the tempo uniform. This is understandable in the case of those who are accustomed to the usual round notation and to its division into bars with symmetrical rhythms.
But one must not forget that the square notation is used to transcribe melodies that were originally written with staffless neumes (the kriuki), a system of musical writing developed especially for the chanting of words. The five-line (diastematic) system, whether square or round, is a system more suited for instrumental music. On account of this, the staff is incapable of transmitting the special level of nuance captured by the older staffless (neumatic) signs.
The archpriest D.V. Razumovsky (1818-89), founder of Russian liturgical musicology, once wrote the following:
While our explanation of the square notes is given here in terms of the regular round system, the approach is not absolutely accurate, but only approximate. Round notes signify fixed duration; the whole or full note always equals two half notes; the half note, in turn, equals two quarter notes. By contrast, in liturgical chant, the square notes have never stood for, and even now do not stand for, such strictly measured value. In what concerns the length of the square notes, one can only say that the whole (takt) is "long", quarter "short", and the half "medium". The duration of sound in ecclesiastical chant depends on the meaning of words as well as on their prosodic accentuation. One would immediately notice that, if applied to any given text of a sacred hymn, the strictly metered approach to the square notation would result in a disappearance of proper stress and a pronounciauon devoid of strength and meaning.
In other words, the assigned duration of square note values (e.g., half notes) is not always strictly kept: in one case it may be exactly a half note, in another, a somewhat longer or shorter length. This depends on the meaning of the underlying text; both text and melody, along with other variable factors, are at the root of the chant's expressive aesthetic. If, in general, one can say that "rhythm is the soul of music", then "words are at the very heart of music in liturgy". And the chant is no longer expressive if its notes are executed with mechanical accuracy, that is, if they are strictly measured, routinely distributed, and without the fine subtlety that flows from the message of the text. Such singing is soulless and monotonous.
Let us return to one of the points already made above, namely, that square notes are used to transcribe melodies originally written without recourse to the staff. In 1668, some distinguished masters of the old chant in Russia gathered to discuss the usage of notation. One of them, the monk Alexander (Stremoukhov), also called Mezenets, or "little finger", issued The Grammar of Znamenny Chant, a new treatise that was to express a certain consensus at the time.4 It contained the following statement about the emerging usage of square notes:
We, the Northern Russians [velikorossi], direct inheritors of the hidden ways of this writing [i.e. the kriuk notation, Ed.] of all of its variety of unwritten formulas [litsa], its accuracy of execution, power of expression, interpretation, and detail, we have no need for such writing [i.e. the square notes, Ed.].
As we have stated, a system of staff notation is incapable of capturing all the subtleties of rhythm and intonation expressed by the staffless symbols [kriuki]. Among the Russian neumes there are some symbols that are entirely different in form, yet whose transcription into modern notes (square or round) is nevertheless identical; in short, they are what we might call heteromorphic-isophonic.6 For instance, each one of the five following neumes
is given the transcription
whereas in actual performance their execution reflects various shades of distinction. In certain cases, one of them might have a longer or shorter time value. Or, it might receive a sort of accent or emphasis resulting in various effects, legato, stoccato, a reduction of the second note to a mere embellishment of the first, and so on. What all of this shows is that the staff notation simply cannot transmit many of the essential features of the music.
It is likewise useful to remember that neither the kriuki nor our regular notes bear autonomous sound value; they simply serve to remind the singer of the actual flow of the melody. On account of this, the historical loss of the staffless system eventually ushered in a decline of the original distinctions between the heteromorphic signs. These differences are impossible to convey either graphically or in words. They can only be learned directly from the voice of an instructor. And where might such instructors be found today?
As in some of my previous publications, I should like once again to stress that the liturgical usage of neumes, or kriuki, was in fact never forbidden in Russia. It only fell into disuse, mainly with the arrival of Western polyphony. An analogous downfall is all the more striking in the case of the square notation.
The assertion that the znamenny chant of the square-note editions is prohibited on account of its affinity with Old Believer singing is also completely without foundation! These books were always published "with the blessing of the Most Sacred governing Synod", a fact normally acknowledged in each publication.7 How could the Synod, therefore, forbid these chants? Such would have been appalling inconsistency!
The Synodal chant books are obligatory, we should say, especially for chanting in the eight church tones [glasy].8 They are traditional or "canonical" anthologies of precisely this kind of melody. As early as 1772, the Holy Synod's decision to print these books and to furnish all dioceses with ample copies is an indication of the legitimate standing of their contents. All other publications of church music, even the four-part Lvov-Bakhmetev Obikhod (issued by the St. Petersburg Cappella under the minister of the Imperial Court) were only allowed by the Synod, but not prescribed.9 The melodies of the Synodal chant books were subsequently borrowed by many composers and have served as the basis for an evolving usage of choral settings.
I recall the times when the renowned cantors in Moscow, the so-called diaki, who normally stood on the left kliros in many churches throughout the city, would sing the stichera dogmatika in the Great Znamenny Chant [bolshoi raspev] from the Synodal square books, in unison. The Synodal Choir also frequently did the same. On weekdays, the Divine Liturgy in the Cathedral of the Dormition (Uspensky Sobor in the Kremlin), celebrated at the left side-altar (dedicated to the apostles Peter and Paul), was sung, again, from the square notation of the chant, three basses, in unison, gathered round a book in the middle of the church. As a fifteen-year old youngster, I would often attend these liturgies with the express purpose of hearing the singing, especially on my days off from school. There I would regularly encounter not only the pious old women, but often such well-known admirers and connoisseurs of the music as, for example, V.M. Metallov. Unison was also common for selections from Matins in the Cathedral as well as during Lent in the parishes. There never was and never could have been a prohibition of unison chanting! In those days, it was not always possible to have an organized choir, a situation all too familiar in our emigre churches, particularly on weekdays.
Thus, all the rumors and talk of unison chant being forbidden, and znamenny chant and square notation being prohibited as "non-Orthodox", are entirely unfounded and proceed from a fundamental ignorance on the part of those who make such statements. What was forbidden was the usage ofunrevised texts, ones that had not been approved by the commissions under Patriarch Nikon (17th century), but certainly not the melodies nor, as was stated above, the staffless znamenny notation!
The Synodal chant books assume special importance when, in the absence of even a modest choir, a service must be sung by one, two, or three people. In such instances, the variety of melodies in these books can be brought to compensate for the lack of a full harmonic sonority. Moreover, the usage becomes not only desireable, but simply indispensible, in order to prevent sundry melodic distortion and free-wheeling, self-styled improvisation. I once heard an unfortunate lone chanter forced to extemporize without music. For the Cherubic Hymn, of all things, he applied the tune of "Bystry kak volny vse dni nashei zhizni" ("As waves do the days of our lives swiftly pass").
Indeed, with a little experience, the square notation allows chanting in unison, in thirds, and even in three parts. In instances of two-part singing, one voice takes the main melody written in the book and is accompanied by the second voice singing a third above or below. (This depends on the interval structure of the chant. The Great Doxology, for example, sounds wrong and disconcerting if the main line is followed by an upper third; but, on the contrary, if accompanied by a third below, the result is wonderful and calm. A thorough discussion of such options would, however, lead us far beyond the scope of the present essay.) The same procedure is followed in the case of three parts, the lower or third voice also singing by ear and supplying the root of the chords implied by the Other two. In moments of uncertainty, this part simply merges with the middle. Needless to say, singers should try to review the selections beforehand; they should at all costs avoid the possibility of any disturbance or interruption during the service. Even the experienced singer would do well to prepare. All of this, however, is self-evident.
The contention that znamenny chant at slow tempos is reminiscent of Roman Catholic or "Gregorian" singing is not entirely without foundation. Although the two dialects are not immediate relatives, they are at the very least cousins: their common ancestor is the chant of the early Church. Both are based on a system of eight tones. In view of this, contemporary Russian church singing, when it breaks ties with the canonical repertory is not so much the twin brother of Western secular music as the very music itself, only in Church Slavonic garb! Over the course of more that two centuries, we have become so accustomed to the sound of our church singing and at the same time so ignorant ofits non-Russian secular counterparts that this virtual identity simply escapes us.
Not far back we noted the historical attitude in Russia towards the Lvov/Bakhmetev Obikhod, namely, that the Synod did not prescribe its usage but merely granted an allowance with reservations. Here is the text of the directive no. 4222, dated May 31, 1833:
...use of selections from the aforementioned books is to be limited primarily to the Divine Lilurgy of St. John Chrysostom, the Office for the Dead (panikhida), and wherever there is a closer adherence to the ancient chant presented in the publications of the Holy Synod; (2) the abbreviations and omissions in the newly-published books must not be taken as a standard for altering the church ordo (typikon), which must continue to be observed as before...10
The directive also enumerates the many departures of the Cappella Obikhod from the traditional practice which was still common knowledge in those days. To list just a few, we might mention: (a) the rapid choral recitation of the Vespers prokimenon for Sunday "The Lord is King...", instead of the appointed chant melody; (b) a similar approach substituting for the prayerful and compunctionate melodies of the stichera dogmadka, the frequently heard hymns in praise of the Mother of God and affirming the Incarnation; (c) the exclusion of all but one (in the fourth tone) of the amiphons from the eight-tone cycle (Oktoechos, or Osmoglasnik) appointed for singing before the Gospel at Matins...and there were many other innovations along these lines. Finally, upon acceptance by the Synod, copies of the Obikhod were sent to all dioceses "for the sole purpose of conducting services in the presence of the Imperial family" (Synodal directive no. 3902, dated April 22, 1848). Thus, a usage was stipulated only for cases with the tsar or high royalty in attendance, and this again was the extent of the book's alleged universal or "mandatory" institution.
The fact of the matter is that the Obikhod, compiled by Major General A.F. Lvov, Director of the Imperial Cappella, and his assistants, was based on a practice in the court churches, where services were usually severely abbreviated and the singing significantly simplified. The Imperial Cappella was primarily a secular and not an ecclesiastical institution; it was the tsar's personal choir and was under strictly secular administration. Although fine musicians, leaders of the Cappella were familiar with church singing only insofar as it was used in the locations they served and in the surrounding parishes of St. Petersburg. Represented by its directors (Bonnyansky, an active state counsellor, Lvov, and Bakhmetev, both army generals), the Imperial Cappella took upon itself to by-pass the Synod and to direct and regulate a musical usage at large. Out of respect for the tsar, the Synod did not hinder the distribution of the Obikhod. At the same time, however, it did not completely endorse its contents.11 In the eyes of church leaders, the books originally published by the Synod had to be kept as the authoritative standard. Again, I repeat, the well-known publication of the Imperial Cappella did not account for situations with the single cantor (diak) or the incomplete church choir, it was intended for a full, four-part ensemble with mixed voices. The Synodal editions, by contrast, were intended precisely for this type of singing. In view of a declining church usage in our day, their overwhelming importance comes before us once again.
A further reason behind the erroneous evaluation of znamenny chant lies in the fact that its melodies, as well as those of all the other indigenous Russian chants in general, are expected to yield that which they must not and, therefore, cannot yield, namely, the stylistic features and melodic qualities characteristic of secular vocal music, not so much of the Russian folk song as of Western European music, with its measured symmetrical beat ("rhythm is the soul of music"), its balance in all parts of composition, and above all, its harmony based on triads (a chordal accompaniment to the rhythmically unduladng melody).
But we must not overlook the fact that secular vocal music is normally based on rhymed texts where each line of a stanza adheres to a stable, measured structure (meter, or pulse) and to an accordingly regular number of syllables. The melodies of the znamenny chant, on the other hand, are applied to the Church Slavonic whose texts differ in syllabic metrical structure and never have a regular pattern of alternating accented (strong) and unaccented (weak) syllables. In other words, in the absence of meter or count, the texts are conceived in terms of a free (asymmetrical) pulse.
Let us consider, for example, the last sticheron of "Lord, I have cried..." in Tone 3, from the service on Saturday evening (i.e.. Great Vespers of Sunday, Ed.):
Tvoim krestom, Khriste Spase, (8 syllables) Smerti derzhava razrushisia, (9 syllables) I diavolia prelest'uprazdnisia, (11 syllables) Rod zhe chelovecheskii veroiu spasaemyi (14 syllables) Pesn' Tebe vsegda prinosit. (8 syllables)
(By Thy Cross, 0 Christ Savior. the dominion of death hath been destroyed, And the deception of the devil hath been abolished; The human race, saved by faith, Doth ever offer Thee a hymn.)
As we can see from this example, the rhythmic structure of any one of the phrases is distinct from that of its neighbors.9 With the rhymed texts of poetry, however, we have an entirely different case. And it is upon this very type of text that secular vocal music is based. Let us take, for example, the first stanza of the well-known Legend of Christ with music by Tchaikovsky. Although it is religious in content, the composition belongs to the category of secular music; it is liturgical neither in text nor in function.
Byl u Khrista-Mladentsa sad, I mnogo roz vzrostil On v'nem, On trizhdy v'den' ikh polival Chtob splest' venok Sebe potom. (A garden Baby Jesus had Where many a rose He tended fair And watered thrice each day to weave A wreath of flowers for His hair.)
This is an example of complete rhythmic symmetry. The text is in iambic tetrameter and each line of the stanza contains eight syllables. Such an approach does not occur and is unimaginable in the liturgical context. To expect from znamenny singing the kind of uniformity of rhythm or pulse, which we find in secular music, would be tantamount to a requirement that the texts of the divine services be written in measured poetry.
Hence, the melodic structure of znamenny chant is based not on symmetry and meter, but on a systematic approach to the use of formula. Much in the manner of the text itself, which is divided into separate segments, the melody of a hymn consists of a chain of so-called popevki, or independent, but structurally fixed phrases attached to the various groupings of the underlying poetry. These short motifs are characteristic in each tone and in each group of tones. If we were to take the eight tones together, there would be found approximately three hundred such motifs.
What we have stated in this extremely brief and simplified description already shows that it would be fundamentally wrong to expect parallels in musical form between secular vocal music and that of the texts in liturgy. When we enter into church, we come into the midst of a special world of sacred music whose focus is not symmetrical, measured rhythm but poignancy of word and prosody of text.
Many readers might think that I advocate an abolition of choral singing and an abandonment of the compositions by our religious composers. That would be an entirely mistaken conclusion. I have in mind primarily cases when, in the absence of a properly organized choir, the service is sung by one, two, or three people, or by a choir in which one or another part is missing. After all, church worship with reverence and understanding is possible with only one cantor. On the other hand, even with a full choir, the beauty of a service is spoiled if, worshipping the idol of four-part harmony, the "choir" attempts selections that exceed its abilities. I know of an instance when the choir in a certain church disbanded for various reasons, leaving the priest with no alternative but to teach the remaining people the singing in two or three pans from The Church Singer's Companion (Sputnik psalomshchika), an official chant book with the square notation published by the Holy Synod. Soon, however, the priest was forbidden to continue and was asked to have the choir, consisting of maybe three people, sing what was "familiar". At the same time, it was stated that the music in this book was of the "Old Believer kind" and was, therefore, "inadmissable". How well such a "choir" sings is unimportant; what matters is that it sing the "familiar", "traditional" four-part compositions by Bortnyansky, Archangelsky, Vinogradov, and others and all of this with so few members! The outcome is not hard to imagine. Frankly, I must state that the well-blended singing of two voices in thirds from the music in The Church Singer's Companion was significantly better and more prayerful than the off-key, stumbling, and strained performance of "familiar pieces", suffering from lapsed harmonies (due to the absence of necessary pans) and, at times, degenerating into cacaphonous improvisation.
It is in such instances that the square-note editions become essential, as it were, containing a most accurate record of the Russian chant tradition. Owing to them, it is possible to avoid all the carelessness and lack of discipline in conducting and singing the services that inevitably result, either from an attempt to sing four parts in the absence of necessary forces, or from the use by one or two voices of the Bakhmetev Obikhod, which is conceived for the full sound of a mixed choir.
In connection with this, there arises the matter of teaching the chant to the children. The study of liturgical singing is inseparable from the classroom study of church service in a general curriculum of the parochial school catechism. Here, the issue of instilling an appreciation of the traditional chants acquires special significance. The students must be given a means to find appropriate music on their own. In other words, they must be taught the square notation as found in the The Church Singer's Companion. It was in pointing out to Lvov the novelties of the Cappella Obikhod that Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow once wrote to the Synod concerning what would have been unreasonable to establish and to root in church practice, namely, the use of improper singing that departs from tradition. One should not forget: church singing is an integral expression of divine worship and not a random element brought in from the outside.