Oktōēchos (here transcribed "Octoechos"; Greek: ;The female form exists as well, but means the book octoechos. from ὀκτώ "eight" and ἦχος "sound, mode" called echos; Slavonic: , Osmoglasie from о́смь "eight" and гласъ "voice, sound") is the name of the eight mode system used for the composition of religious chant in Byzantine, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Latin and Slavic churches since the Middle Ages. In a modified form the octoechos is still regarded as the foundation of the tradition of monodic Orthodox chant today.
From a Phanariot point of view, the re-formulation of the Octoechos and its melodic models according to the New Method was neither a simplification of the Byzantine tradition nor an adaption to Western tonality and its method of an heptaphonic solfeggio, just based on one tone system (). Quite the opposite, as a universal approach to music traditions of the Mediterranean it was rather based on the integrative power of the psaltic art and the Papadike, which can be traced back to the Hagiopolitan Octoechos and its exchange with Oriental music traditions for more than a thousand years.
Hence, the current article is divided into three parts. The first is a discussion of the current solfeggio method based on seven syllables in combination with the invention of a universal notation system which transcribed the melos in the very detail (Chrysanthos' Theoretikon mega). The second and third part are based on a theoretical separation between the exoteric and the esoteric use of modern or Neobyzantine notation. Exoteric ( = "External") music meaning the transcription of patriotic songs, opera arias, and traditional music of the Mediterranean including Ottoman makam and Persian music, while esoteric ( = "internal") points at the papadic tradition of using Round notation with the modal signatures of the eight modes, now interpreted as a simple pitch key without implying any cadential patterns of certain echos. In practice, there had never been such a rigid separation between exoteric and esoteric among Romaic musicians, certain exchanges—with makam traditions in particular—were rather essential for the redefinition of Byzantine Chant, at least according to the traditional chant books published as "internal music" by the teachers of the New Music School of the Patriarchate.
Transcribing theseis of the melos and makam music Unlike Western tonality and music theory, the universal theory of the Phanariotes does not distinguish between major and minor scales, even if they transcribed Western polyphony into Byzantine neumes. In fact, the majority of the models of the Byzantine Octoechos, as they are performed in Mediterranean churches by traditional singers, would lose their proper intonation and expression if they were played on a conventionally tuned piano. Exactly the familiarity with microtonal intervals was an advantage, which made the Chrysanthine or Neobyzantine notation as a medium of transmission more universal than any Western notation system. Among others, even Western staff notation and Eastern neume notation had been used for transcriptions of Ottoman classical music, despite their specific traditional background.
The transcription into the reform notation and its distribution by the first printed chant books were another aspect of the Phanariotes' universality. The first source to study the development of modern Byzantine notation and its translation of Papadic Notation is Chrysanthos' "Long Treatise of Music Theory." In 1821, only a small extract had been published as a manual for his reform notation, the was printed later in 1832.Nevertheless, the reception of Chrysanthos' Mega Theoretikon had already started before its late publication. Vasileios Nikolaides' "Theoretical and Practical Grammar of Music" (Iaşi 1825) which paraphrased and restructured the first 4 books of part I into 3 books, might serve here as an example (Sofia, Sv. Kyrill and Method National Library, Ms. gr. 90 ). Parts of this manuscript which had obviously been of particular interest like the trochos image of § 68 (lost between folio 16 verso and 17 recto), had been torn out. Based on manuscripts in Chrysanthos' leavings, there have been later publications in his name. Like the Papadic method, Chrysanthos described first the basic elements, the phthongoi, their intervals according to the genus, and how to memorise them by a certain solfeggio called "parallage." The thesis of the melos was part of the singers' performance and it also included the use of rhythm.
Chrysanthos' parallagai of the three genera ()
In the early Hagiopolitan Octoechos (6th-13th century) the diatonic echoi were destroyed by two phthorai nenano and nana, which were like two additional modes with their own melos, but subordinated to certain diatonic echoi. In the period of psaltic art (13th-17th century), changes between the diatonic, the chromatic, and the enharmonic genus became so popular in certain chant genres, that certain diatonic echoi of the Papadic Octoechos were coloured by the phthorai—not only by the traditional Hagiopolitan phthorai, but also by additional phthorai, which introduced transition models assimilated to certain makam intervals. After Chrysanthos' redefinition of Byzantine chant according to the New Method (1814), the scales of and of used intervals according to soft diatonic tetrachord divisions, while those of the and of the papadic had become enharmonic () and those of the chromatic ().
In his Mega Theoretikon (vol. 1, book 3), Chrysanthos did not only discuss the difference to European concepts of the diatonic genus, but also the other genera (chromatic and enharmonic), which had been refused in the treatises of Western music theory. He included Papadic forms of parallagai, as they had been described in the article Papadic Octoechos, Western solfeggio, as well as another solfeggio taken from Ancient Greek harmonics. The differences between the diatonic, the chromatic, and enharmonic genus (gr. ) were defined by the use of microtones—more precisely by the question of whether intervals were narrower or wider than the proportion of the Latin "semitonium," once defined by Eratosthenes. His points of reference were the equally tempered, the just intonation, as it had been used since the Renaissance period, and the Pythagorean intonation, as it has been used in the diatonic genus of the Carolingian Octoechos since the Middle Ages.In fact, the later equal temperament of whole and half tone (200 and 100 C') comes closer to the Pythagorean tuning (9:8 = 204 C' and 256:243 = 90 C') than the just intonation. The latter needs three different intervals (9:8 = 204 C', 10:9 = 182 'C, 16:15 = 112 'C), while the soft diatonic "small tone" (ἐλάχιστος τόνος) is much larger (88:81 = 143 C') in comparison with the Western half tone, whether equally tempered or Pythagorean. In his first chapter of the third book (Mega Theoretikon), Chrysanthos defined the of the diatonic genus according to his new Greek solmisation of seven syllables. The latter's tetrachord πα—βου—γα—δι or κε—ζω—νη—Πα was divided by the forementioned intervals (α'—β'—γ'—δ' = 12:11 x 88:81 x 9:8) which made up a pure octave. In his opinion the Latin solmisation re—mi—fa—sol (10:9 x 16:15 x 9:8) had an intonation different from la—si—ut—re (9:8 x 16:15 x 9:8), because the fifth re—la according to just intonation was diminished. This concept of just intonation was probably taken from Zarlino.
Parallage of the diatonic genus Chrysanthos had already introduced his readers to the diatonic genus and its phthongoi in the 5th chapter of the first book, called "About the parallage of the diatonic genus" (). In the 8th chapter, he demonstrates how the intervals can be found on the keyboard of the tambur.Chrysanthos' chapter "About the diapason system" (Μερ. Α', Βιβ. α', κεφ. η' Περὶ τοῦ Διαπασῶν συστήματος, p. 28) introduced into the chord lengths as mentioned (note 26) and recognised in a schematic representation of the tetrachord (12+9+7=28).
Hence, the phthongoi of the diatonic genus had been defined according to the proportions, as they were later called the "soft chroa of the diatonic genus" (). For Chrysanthos, this was the only diatonic genus, as far as it had been used since the early church musicians, who memorised the phthongoi by the intonation formulas (enechemata) of the Papadic Octoechos. In fact, he did not use the historical intonations, he rather translated them in the Koukouzelian wheel in the 9th chapter () according to a current practice of parallage, which was common to 18th-century versions of Papadike, while he identified another chroa of the diatonic genus with a practice of ancient Greeks:Chrysanthos (1832, Μερ. Α', Βιβ. α', κεφ. θ' Περὶ τοῦ Τροχοῦ, p. 28, § 66). The pentachord, which was also called wheel (), contains four intervals which we regard as certain tones [, and 2 ], but according to the ancient Greeks they had been three whole tones [3 ] and the difference leimma [256:243]. The four intervals spanned five phthongoi: means here the fifth-equivalent for the protos: α'] for us, but according to the ancient (Greeks) .
In Chrysanthos' version of the wheel, the Middle Byzantine modal signatures had been replaced by alternative signatures which were still recognised by enechemata of the former parallage, and these signatures were important because they formed a part of the modal signatures () used in Chrysanthos reform notation. These signs had to be understood as dynameis within the context of the pentachord and the principle of . According to Chrysanthos' signatures (see his kanonion), the of and were represented by the modal signature of their kyrioi, but without the final ascending step to the upper fifth, the tritos signature was replaced by the signature of phthora nana, while the signature of (which was no longer used in its diatonic form) had been replaced by the enechema of the , the so-called "" () or former , according to the New Method the heirmologic melos of the .
In the table at the end of the trochos chapter, it becomes evident, that Chrysanthos was quite aware of the discrepancies between his adaption to the Ottoman tambur frets which he called diapason (), and the former Papadic parallage according to the trochos system (), which was still recognised as the older practice. And later in the fifth book, he emphasised that the great harmony of Greek music comes by the use of four tone systems (diphonia, triphonia, tetraphonia, and heptaphonia), while European and Ottoman musicians used only the heptaphonia or diapason system:.Chrysanthos (1832, p. 219, § 454).But among those, the diapason is the most perfect and it pleases the ears more than the others, hence, the diapason system is favored and the only one used by European and Ottoman musicians, so that they tune their instruments only according to this system.
Until the generation of traditional protopsaltes who died during the 1980s, there were still traditional singers who intoned the Octoechos according to the trochos system (columns 3–6), but they did not intone the according to Pythagorean tuning, as Chrysanthos imagined it as a practice of the Ancient Greeks and identified it as a common European practice (first column in comparison with Western solfeggio in the second column).