Author Description

"This is an exploration of the unique body of chant that flourished in Kievan Rus' from the 11th to 13th centuries. Known as Kondakarnoie Pienie, this complex repertory is preserved in only 5 manuscripts. The core of the investigation constitutes is an application and test of the transcription method of kondakarian musical notation as devised by Professor Constantin Floros, affirming and challenging his results, and is the culmination of nearly 40 years of research. In 10 chapters, the current study updates and expands dissertation work accomplished in the 1990s. In the ensuing years, previously inaccessible primary source material has become available, owing to global digitization initiatives undertaken by the major holdings, East and West. The new access has stimulated a critical reassessment of the original findings. We are now better able to affirm the stability of the repertory and musical style, as well as their placement within the broader context of liturgical documents, confirming or rejecting earlier results. While the dissertation addressed exclusively issues of musical palaeography, the current work positions the repertory in a broader historical and liturgical context and function, as well as examining issues of performance practice. The music presented is the chant cycles for the Vigils of the Forefeast, Christmas and Epiphany celebrations, a substantial body of comparable musical material that furnishes explicit evidence of the transplantation and absorption of Byzantine cathedral chanting practices by the medieval Orthodox Slavs. The projected outcome is a critical reassessment of the sacred musical traditions of the medieval Orthodox Slavs who emerged as a semi-autonomous cultural body under the umbrella of the Byzantine Empire at a critical time in their early history"--