Acoustic analysis of selected sacred buildings in Szczecin

The aim of this study was to assess acoustically selected sacred buildings located in Szczecin. The research part contains the research methodology and the results obtained. The research was carried out using two methods. The first one is the integrated impulse response method, where, using a bursting balloon, the time of sound pressure drop was measured at selected points of the object. In the interrupted noise method, the sound pressure drop was measured after the noise generated by the omnidirectional loudspeaker had ceased. Reverberation time was calculated for the results obtained, which is the main and basic parameter determining the interior acoustics. On the basis of the above-mentioned measurements, the reverberation indicators for the temples were also calculated. When analyzing the components of the reverberation indicator, it was noticed that poor acoustics in the sanctuary concerns speech, while interior acoustics is good for the reception of organ music. In the analyzed church, the reception of liturgical music is also better than the reception of speech, but the differences between these values are small.

The Liturgical Singing Tradition of the Old Believers Priests of the Village of Koida (Based on the Materials of the Pushkin House Expedition in 1975 and 1976)

В 1975 и 1976 годах состоялись фольклорные экспедиции Института русской литературы в с.Койда Мезенского р-на Архангельской области, в ходе которых были записаны разнообразные в стилевом и историческом отношении духовные стихи, а также богослужебные песнопения. До настоящего времени коллекция звукозаписей, хранящаяся в Фонограммархиве ИРЛИ, не становилась предметом специального изучения. В ходе исследования удалось атрибутировать гимнографические тексты, выделить особенности распевов и духовных стихов, выявить их источники, частично реконструировать условия звукозаписи. На основе материалов более поздних фольклорно-археографических экспедиций ИРЛИ были восстановлены сведения о жизни старообрядческой общины, которая принадлежала к белокриницкому согласию. Коллекция богослужебных песнопений в музыкальном отношении разнообразна: она содержит пение «по напевке», «на глас», распевы письменной традиции, памятогласие. Внебогослужебная лирика представлена популярными духовными стихами позднего происхождения, за исключением эсхатологических стихов, распевы которых опираются на богослужебную традицию гласового пения. In 1975 and 1976, the Institute of Russian Literature (the Pushkin House) arranged expeditions to the village of Koida, Mezensky District, Arkhangelsk Region, during which spiritual verses and liturgical chants diverse in style and history were recorded. Until now, the collection of sound recordings (32 items) stored in the Phonogram Archive has not been a subject of special study. In the course of the research, it has become possible to attribute hymnographic texts, to highlight specifics of the chants and spiritual verses, to identify their sources, and partially reconstruct conditions of the sound recording. The materials of later folklore and archaeographic expeditions, provided the following information: facts about the life of the Old Believer’s community that belonged to the Belokrinitsky concord, the names of mentors, forms of mentoring and transmitting the singing tradition. The chants and spiritual verses were recorded from two significant performers — mentors Nadezhda Malygina and Nikandr Malygin. The collection of chants is diverse and contains oral and written versions of chants, mnemonic (pamyatoglasie). Non-liturgical music is represented by popular spiritual poetry of late origin, except for eschatological verses, the melody of which is similar to the chant.

Arno Nadel (1878–1943): A Contributor to Modern German-Jewish Identity from Vilnius

The phenomenon of Arno Nadel (1878–1943) is presupposed by his extremely diverse activities in art, scholarship, and musical journalism. A music arranger, musicologist, music journalist and collector, composer, choirmaster, pianist and organist, as well as a poet, playwright, painter and translator, Arno Nadel was born in a religious Jewish family in Vilnius and spent his first twelve years there. Having lived and studied in Königsberg for five years, in 1895 Nadel settled in Berlin, one of the largest centres of German Jewish cultural life before the National Socialists came to power in 1933. Nadel was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943. So far, his creative legacy has not been studied in Lithuania. The aim of this article is to bring Nadel back on the horizon of multinational Lithuanian cultural history and to review his contribution to the formation of modern German-Jewish identity in the context of Nadel’s Vilnius origins and his diverse musical activities. Nadel’s original compositions, arrangements of traditional Jewish liturgical music and folk songs, research in and texts about Jewish music contributed to a new approach towards cultural connections between the Jews of Eastern Europe and Germany, and were important for the development of German Jewish music in the first half of the twentieth century, as well as for the documentation and renewal of Jewish liturgical music. Although Arno Nadel composed music in a variety of genres himself, it was his work as a scholar and arranger of Jewish music and as a musicologist that received the most attention among his contemporaries and in the articles written after the Second World War.

Byzantine Theoretical Treatises on Music in comparison with the Theoretikon Mega tes Mousikes by Chrysanthos of Madytos

Studying the Theoretikon Mega tes Mousikes one can state, that the ambition of Chrysanthos of Madytos was to preserve the old Byzantine tradition to a certain extent, but also to take into account the development of liturgical music during the last three hundred years. With the alterations in liturgical chant, music theory had to be revised and refounded on a new basis. (...)

Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces

This book is the first comprehensive study that reevaluates music’s role in the relationship between the French state and the Catholic Church at the end of the nineteenth century. As the divide between Church and State widened on the political stage, more and more composers began writing religious—even liturgical—music for performance in decidedly secular venues, including popular cabaret theaters, prestigious opera houses, and international exhibitions: a trend that coincided with Pope Leo XIII’s Ralliement politics that encouraged conservative Catholics to “rally” with the Republican government. But the idea of a musical Ralliement has largely gone unquestioned by historians and musicologists alike who have long accepted a somewhat simplistic epistemological position that emphasizes a sharp division between the Church and the “secular” Republic during this period. Drawing on extensive archival research, critical reception studies, and musical analysis, this book reveals how composers and critics from often opposing ideological factions undermined the secular/sacred binary. From the opera house and niche puppet theaters to Parisian parish churches and Montmartre’s famed cabarets, composers and critics from opposing ideological factions used music in their effort to craft a brand of Frenchness that was built on the dual foundations of secular Republicanism and the heritage of the French Catholic Church.

Liturgical Music in the Jewish Tradition

Music in the Jewish tradition is based on long-standing historic traditions and the influence of changing cultural surroundings as communities moved to new locations. This chapter begins by discussing textual sources, including biblical passages that describe the role of music in Jewish life and rabbinic sources that state music’s role during the ancient Temple service. Various regional traditions developed ranging from ancient Israel to communities throughout the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Spain, Europe, and the Americas. This chapter describes the practices of known liturgical musical traditions in Jewish communities of the last two hundred years, as these sources and documents allow us to best determine liturgical music in these contexts. The chapter focuses predominately on two main traditions—Ashkenazi and Sephardi/Mizrahi and three musical practices: cantillation, chant, and song.

Romanian-Greek manuscript inventory number 27 Anthology – An Account of the activity of the copyist Chiril Monahul from Bisericani Monastery (Neamt County)

This paper is a fraction of an ampler project aimed at classifying and studying the entire collection of musical manuscripts from the “Dumitru Stăniloae” Ecumenical Library of the Metropolitan Church of Moldavia and Bukovina of Iasi. This documentary collection consists of a number of 32 musical manuscripts, in Chrysantine notation mainly originating from the 19th century. Manuscript 27 was created in 1846 by Cyril the Monk from the Bisericani Monastery (Neamt county) – he was a psalter, composer and copyist of great talent. He wrote other two manuscripts, ms. inventory numbers 23 and 31/49, which are in the “Dumitru Stăniloae” Ecumenical Library of the Metropolitan Church of Moldavia and Bukovina of Iasi. His own creation (with the mention “by the writer”) in Ms. 27 contains the first psalm, Blessed is the man in the plagal of the 4th mode, the troparia God is with us in the plagal of the 4th mode, the polyeleos Good word in the 4th mode legetos, the doxastikon of the Easter, The day of Ressurection, the plagal of the 1st mode and two heirmoi of the Holy Week. These are chants that are remarkable through their fluidity and expressiveness, as they retain the specific psaltic melodic formulas and reveal a balanced analytical musical writing. The liturgical music in Manuscript 27 consists of various chants, from those performed during the Vespers to the Matin and the Liturgy. Following analysis of the manuscript’s repertoire, I discovered that the main source of Ms. 27 is the first three volumes of the Anthology by Nektarios Frimu, published in Neamț (3rd volume, 1840) and Iași (1st and 2nd volume, 1846). Cyril the Monk, the copyist of Ms. 27, selected works from these sources, and introduced along the self-authored chants mentioned earlier, chants by other lesser-known authors, such as Nechifor (The Blessings of the Ressurection, the plagal of 1st mode in Greek) and Calinic (troparia from the chant Lord is with us, the plagal of the 4th mode in Romanian and the polyeleos The Lord’s servants, the plagal of the 2nd mode, in Greek). Besides, among the chants in Romanian, the manuscript records chants in Greek (by established Greek authors), which are proof of the continuous practice of the Greek chanting in Moldavia, long with that in Romanian, in the period before the Reforms (1863-1864) introduced by Alexandru Ioan Cuza, the ruler of the Romanian Principalities.