nikos maliaras, some western european musical instruments and their byzantine origin, in:...

Greece as an intercultural pole of musical thought and creativitycr

ossr

oads aristotle university of thessaloniki - faculty of fine arts

school of music studies

ims regional association for the study of music of the balkans

International Musicological ConferenceJune 6-10, 2011

Conference Proceedings

Thessaloniki 2013

International Musicological Conference

Crossroads | Greece as an intercultural pole of musical thought and creativity

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

School of Music Studies

International Musicological Society (I.M.S.)

Regional Association for the Study of Music of the Balkans

Thessaloniki, 6-‐10 June 2011

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

Edited by

Evi Nika-‐Sampson, Giorgos Sakallieros,

Maria Alexandru, Giorgos Kitsios, Emmanouil Giannopoulos

Thessaloniki 2013

ii

Proceedings of the International Musicological Conference

Crossroads | Greece as an intercultural pole of musical thought and creativity http://crossroads.mus.auth.gr Edited by Evi Nika-Sampson, Giorgos Sakallieros, Maria Alexandru, Giorgos Kitsios & Emmanouil Giannopoulos E-Book design & editing: Giorgos Sakallieros Electronically published by the School of Music Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki http://crossroads.mus.auth.gr http://www.mus.auth.gr ISBN: 978-960-99845-3-9 © Copyright 2013, School of Music Studies A.U.Th. & the authors

Proceedings of Crossroads Conference 2011 – School of Music Studies, A.U.Th. / I.M.S.

533

Some Western European Musical Instruments and Their Byzantine Origin

Nikos Maliaras

Faculty of Music Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece [email protected]

Abstract. The Byzantine Empire and its Capital, Constantinople, executed great political and cultural influence to most central and Western European feudal principalities during the High Middle Ages. This influence was extended to music as well. It is well documented that the European modal system was either established in Byzantium or conveyed to Western Europe through the Byzantine Octoechos. Later researches, which have investigated Byzantine secular music, have found that this also applies widely to musical instruments. This paper argues on some of those cases and tries to establish some important facts as far as the actual history of some instruments is concerned. While reading the famous “Book of Ceremonies”, compiled by the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos in the 10th century, a scholar will definitely come across words like “nana”, “nanajia”, “ananajia”, “ajia” etc.1 They lye among the verses of secular songs in honour of the emperor and represented melismatic figures, that were sung like vocalisms. Such words constitute the textual basis of brief introduction melodies, called echemata, or intonation formulas.2 They were notated as graphic symbols and introduced the mode of the melody. The intonation formulas were different and exclusive to each mode and they implied the melodic organization of all melodies belonging to each certain mode.3 The primary function of those forms was melodic prepartion, which followed certain rules.4

An intonation formula could by all means exist independently; it was more often however followed by a brief melody. This melody could differ from time to time and functioned as a connecting part between the intonation formula and the actual liturgical melos that followed.5 The first intonation formulas appear already during the oldest written phase of Byzantine music, that is as early as in the 10th century.6 Thus, they coincide with information drawn from the secular songs of the “Book of Ceremonies”.

1 E.g. Constantine Porphyrogennetos, De Cerimoniis aulae byzantinae I, 78, 80, ed. Gilbert Dagron, L'Organisation et le déroulement des courses d'après le Livre des Cérémonies, Travaux et Mémoires 13 (Paris, 2000), 31, 33, 39, 41, 43, 87.

2 Still essential to this remains the study by J. Raasted, Intonation Formulas and Modal Signatures in Byzantine Musical Manuscripts, Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae, Subsidia 7 (Copenhagen, 1966).

3 C. Floros, Universale Neumenkunde 1 (Kassel, 1970), 282. 4 Raasted, 66. G. Amargianakis, “The Chromatic Modes”, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 32/7 (1982), 8.

5 In detail in Ol. Strunk, “Intonations and Signatures of the Byzantine Modes”, in Ol. Strunk, Essays on Music in the Byzantine World, ed. K. Levy (New York, 1977), 19-‐36.

6 Compare K. Levy, “The Melodic Fabric of Byzantine Choral Hymns”, 17th International Byzantine Congress 1986, Abstracts of Short Papers, Washington D.C., August 3-‐8 (Dumbarton Oaks/Georgetown University), 193. See some examples of “martyriae” in manuscripts of the so called “palaeobyzantine” notation in Raasted, 92. Similar examples in the manuscript pages published by Oliver Strunk, Specimina notationum antiquiorum, Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae, Series Principalis 7 (Copenhagen, 1966); for example see plate 6 (manuscript Lavra Γ 67, fol. 53r), with modus indication.


534

This phenomenon does not only appear in Byzantium. We can come across similar words already from the first half of the 9th century in Western Europe. They are even earlier than those in the Book of Ceremonies. They are also meaningless words, very similar to the Byzantine ones. They read something like "noeannoe", "noeane", "noeagis", "anne" etc. They are mentioned in the theoretical treatise of Aurelianus of Reome7 and elsewhere, as being of Byzantine origin.8 This puts the existence of those intonation formulas in Byzantium earlier than the 10th century, probably in the 9th and possibly even earlier than that. It may be also noted, that Western European intonation formulas are often accompanied by a short melismatic prolongation (named with the Greek word "neuma"). It is notated in the manuscripts in the form of neumes, presicely as is the case with Byzantine intonation formulas since the 12th century.9

It is well known that the affiliation of Western European liturgical music to that of Byzantium does not confine itself solely to intonation formulas. The entire system of the Byzantine oktoechos, traditionally founded by Ioannis Damaskenos in the 8th century, was adopted almost unchanged in Western Europe, which was then experiencing a period of unification under Frankish Carolingian rule.10 Western European modes functioned with sterotype melodic formulas, 11 just like the Byzantine modes, and their names remained Greek during the entire Middle Ages (protus, deuterus etc). 12

On the other hand let me note that Western notation of the early phases is very similar to early Byzantine ekphonetic notation, whereas both systems function the same way, that is, by notating the distance between two tones rather than the tones themselves.

7 Musica disciplina VIII, IX, ed. Lawrence Arth. Gushee, Aureliani Reomensis musica disciplina, Corpus Scriptorum de re musica 21 (Rome, 1975), 82 ff.; see the text in M. Gerbert, De cantu et musica sacra a prima ecclesiae aetate usque ad praesens tempus, vol. I (St. Blasien, 1774), 41sqq.

8 S. L. Kunz, “Ursprung und textliche Bedeutung der Tonartensilben Noeane, Noeagis“, Kirchenmus. Jahrb. 30 (1935), 5-‐22; E. Werner, “The Psalmodic Formula Noennoe and Its Origin”, The Musical Quarterly 28 (1942), 93-‐99; M. Huglo, “Relations musicales entre Byzance et l'Occident”, Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Oxford 5-‐10 Sept. 1966, ed. J.M. Hussey, D. Obolensky, and St. Runciman (London, 1967), 269sqq.; Raasted, 154sqq., esp. 157; T. Baileys, The Intonation Formulas of Western Chant (Toronto 1974), 11sqq. A very clear explanation of this matter is to be found in M. Huglo, “L'introduction en Occident des formules byzantins d'intonation”, Studies in Eastern Chant 3, ed. E. J. Wellesz – M. Velimirovic (Oxford, 1973), 81-‐90. See also M. Huglo, “Les formules d'intonations «noeane noeagis» en Orient et en Occident. Aspects de la musique liturgique en Moyen Âge”, in Actes de colloques de Royaumont 1986, 1987 et 1988, ed. Chr. Mayer (Paris, 1991), 44sqq.; D. Cohen, “Notes, scales, and modes on the earlier Middle Ages”, in The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, ed. Th. Christensen (Cambridge 2008), 310-‐312; M. Markovits, Das Tonsystem der abendländischen Musik im frühen Mittelalter (Bern, 1977), 75sqq., 97sqq., 108sqq.

9 Huglo, “Introduction”, 83 and 87. 10This fact is also mentioned by Aurelian of Réomé, and also in a not widely known tonary of the year 800, which survived in the manusript Paris. Lat. 13159 and was published in the Revue Grégorienne 31 (1952), 176-‐86 and 224-‐33. S. Huglo, “Introduction”, 81sqq.

11See E. Wellesz, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography (Oxford, 1961), 325-‐329; Maria Alexandru, “Zur Analyse byzantinischer Musik. Eine historische Sichtung des Formelbegriffs”, Studia musicologica Academiae hungaricae 39/2-‐4 (1998), 155-‐185. On Western modes s. Bernhard Meier, Alte Tonarten dargestellt an der Instrumentalmusik des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, 2nd ed. (Kassel etc., 1994), esp. 14-‐20 and 185.

12See in detail C. Floros, “Über Beziehungen zwischen der byzantinischen und der mittelalterlichen Choraltheorie”, in Miscellanea musicae. Rudolf Flotzinger zum 60. Geburtstag. Musicologica Austriaca 18 (1999), 125-‐139; Φλώρα Κρητικού, “Οι τρόποι πριν τον 9ο αιώνα: το ρεπερτόριο των λατινικών λειτουργικών ύμνων”, Μουσικολογία 19 (2007), 265-‐276.


535

Moreover, in both cases neumatic notation in its early stages served merely as a memory aid to chanters who had to chant an already familiar melody. In addition to that, according to many scholars, a number of Byzantine liturgical melodies of the 9th and 10th centuries where adopted, translated and used widely within the Latin liturgical repertory.13 The same is the case with certain liturgical texts, the most famous example being the phrase "Κύριε ἐλέησον", “God have mercy on us”, which is chanted in the Greek language to the present day.

We are able to observe a procedure taking place during the period in which Byzantium and its civilization exercises an important influence upon Western Europe. During this period, Byzantium functioned as a cultural center. We believe that the adaptation of several Byzantine prototypes by Carolingian princes and mainly Charles the Great was not unrelated to political purposes. It is well known that one of the ideals proposed by Charles in order to achieve political unification of his vast state was his intention to claim the title of the Roman Emperor. He argued that he was presently in possession of all territories once consituting the hard core of the ancient Roman Empire as well as of Rome itself. Charles also directly claimed the throne of Constantinople, arguing that it was vacant, since it was in the possesion of a woman, Irene the Athenian, Leo’s IV widow and Constantine’s VI mother. During these proceedings it was inevitable that Charles was leading his state to a conflict to the Emperor of Constantinople, who was the legitimate holder of the title of the Roman Emperor. In the year 800, Charles the Great was crowned emperor by the Pope in Rome and demanded international recognition of his authority as well as the parity of his title with that of the Byzantine Emperor. It is in my view certain that Charles’s adoption of Byzantine constitutions, such as the liturgical music system of the Oktoechos, is closely related to those claims of his. 14

Apart from political relations, rivalities or conflicts on the level of political or religious authority, the medieval world also knew simple human contacts between peoples of the time. Those contacts developed through trade, journeys, even wars. Those contacts influenced many aspects of everyday life. One of them is music life and musical instruments. However, many of us scholars on music often neglect to study those relations and influences. For the most, we merely study certain musical phaenomena that influenced Western Europe through some neighbouring Arab principalities that had occupied Spain and certain parts of Southern Italy during the High Middle Ages. We therefore tend to forget that, at least through the 12th century, the role of cultural radiation to neighbouring peoples was held by the Byzantine rather than the Arabic

13The most important studies on this are made by Floros, Universale Neumenkunde and Einführung in die Neumenkunde (Wilhelmshaven, 1980). His statements are repeated in his more recent study “Beziehungen”. Also see Ol. Strunk, “The Influence of the Liturgical Chant of the East on That of the West”, in Strunk, Essays, 152sqq.; Strunk, “Intonations”, 35sq.; Huglo, “Relations”, 279; Ew. Jammers, “Abendland und Byzanz 2, Kirchenmusik”, in Reallexikon der Byzantinistik A1 (Amsterdam, 1969), 167-‐227: 187sqq.; Chr. Hannick, “Die byzantinische Musikkultur im europäischen Kontext”, in Byzanz. Das "andere" Europa, ed. P. Segl, Das Mittelalter 6.2 (Berlin, 2001), 59sqq.; Chr. Troelsgård, “Tradition and Transformation in Late Byzantine and Post-‐byzantine Chant”, in Interaction and Isolation in Late Byzantine Culture. Papers Read at a Colloquium Held at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 1-‐5 Dec. 1999, ed. J.O. Rosenqvist (Istanbul, 2005), 165. In Chr. Troelsgård, “The musical structure of five Byzantine stichera and their parallels among Western antiphons”, Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen-‐Âge Grec et Latin 61 (1991), 3-‐48, one can find some more similar cases.

14See also N. Μαλιάρας, Βυζαντινά μουσικά όργανα (Αθήνα, 2007), 379sqq.


536

civilization. We also tend to overlook the fact that Byzantium was also connected to Western Europe through common Christian faith. I would therefore now like to stress upon certain musical instruments used both in Byzantium and Western Europe and follow their early history through texts and iconographical sources. An Islamic writer of Persian origin, who lived during the 9th century, Ibn Khurdadhbih, refers to an instrument used by the Byzantines which beared the name of lura or lyra. The Persian writer connects this instrument to the Arabic rabab, which is a bowed instrument.15 The name of lyra, given by this oriental writer is a valuable piece of information because this name is not mentioned in Byzantine sources; they use the name of lyra or lyre only to make a symbolic or metaphoric reference to the ancient Greek lyre, which is an entirely different instrument.

It is well known that bowed instruments originated in Central Asia and reached Byzantium very early through trade contacts to the Islamic world.16 It is often stated that European regions came to know bowed instruments mainly through Arab presence in Spain. However, the form of the Arabic bowed instrument, the rabab, is very different, if compared to most forms of bowed insruments used at this early phase in Western Europe. On the contrary, they present great similarity to bowed instruments used in Byzantium.

We do not possess any textual evidence about Byzantine bowed instruments, but we do possess several depictions. They show a middle sized instrument with two main forms. Both are considerably distant from the Arabic rabab and we can conclude that they developed in Byzantium, after the Byzantines borrowed the bowing technique from the Arabs. The pear shaped form is nearly identical to the rebec, which is the earliest Western European bowed instrument (see Pict. 1, Pict. 2, Pict. 3).

Picture 1. Byzantine bowed instrument. Tracing of a fragment from Paris. suppl. gr. 1335 (late 12th cent.), fol. 258v.

15This passage is cited in an English translation by H.G. Farmer, Ninth Century Musical Instruments (London, 1931), 56.

16See Λ. Λιάβας, “Οι δρόμοι του μεταξιού και οι δρόμοι του δοξαριού”, in Συμπόσιο: Το μετάξι στη Δύση και την Ανατολή, Αθήνα, Μάιος 1991 (Αθήνα, 1993), 88sqq.


537

Picture 2. Cretan lyra (modern).

Picture 3. Medieval rebec (made after medieval prototypes).

On the contrary, the rabab has a considerably different form and carries a sound board which is usually made of leather (Pict. 4).17

Picture 4. Rabab (modern, North-‐Western Africa).

17See I. Woodfield, The Early History of the Viol (Cambridge, 1984), 17, 21, 37; Jordi Ballester i Gibert, “Influencias del rebec europeo sobre el rabel hispánico a finales de la Edad Media en la Corona de Aragón”, Anuario musical: Revista de musicología del C.S.I.C. 60 (2005), 22.


538

I therefore tend to believe that the Byzantine lyra and not the Arabic rabab is the immediate ancestor of most types of the Western European rebec. It is also quite probable that the Arabic rabab was the direct ancestor only to the Spanish type of the rebec, which we observe in the famous manuscript of the Cantigas of Santa Maria (13th century) (Pict. 5).18

Picture 5. Spanish type of the rebec (similar to the Arabic rabab; Tracing of a fragment from Cantigas de Santa Maria Manuscript, Códice de los músicos, El Escorial

B.I.2, 13th cent.). I also believe that this same Byzantine instrument survives until our day, using the same name. We can still meet it in Crete and it was present in the entire Aegean Sea as well as in Macedonia an Thrace just a few decades ago. An interrelation among the rebec and the lyra which led to the great similarity of those instruments is also thinkable.

The second form of Βyzantine bowed instruments is lenghtier and waisted. It reminds of the later medieval vielle or fiddle. I think it might be very possible that this waisted form

18See some images in Woodfield, figs. 4, 5, 9 and 14 (pp. 22, 23, 27, and 35 respectively) as well as fig. 3. For some images of bowed instruments included in the Cantigas see D. Franke – E. Neubauer, Museum des Institutes für Geschichte der Arabisch-‐Islamischen Wissenschaften. Beschreibung der Exponate I, Musikinstrumente (Frankfurt am Main, 2000), 140; also see H.G. Farmer, Islam, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, Lfg. III/2 (Leipzig, 1966), fig. 101 (p. 107). Also see a late 14th cent. image from Aragon, fig. 102, p. 109.


539

functioned as a prorotype for the fiddle, since the differences from the Arabic rabab are obvious in this case as well.

The usage of the ancient Greek word lyra or lyre for a different Byzantine instrument, mentioned by Ibn Khurdadhbih means that although this ancient instrument was no longer in use, its name survived to be given to a new instrument. The lyra survives with this name until today and I might also mention that the name of lyra was used during the Renaissance in Italian for one of the vielle’s descendants, the Lira da braccio.19

Let us now turn to another set of musical instruments, those used in military situations. Apart from trade or culture, those instruments could be seen during war conflicts. During such conflicts, soldiers could become acquainted with military musical instruments used by the opponent. The battles between the Byzantines and the Saracens as well as those between the latter and Western European military forces during the Crusades made an exchange of musical instruments between conflicting nations possible. Apart from their use during the war, those instruments were also used for ceremonial purposes in honour of military or political leaders throughout the Middle Ages.

Which is the usage of military instruments in European ceremonial during the middle and later Byzantine centuries and what are the differences or similarities to Byzantine reality? We can find a lot of Western European medieval images depicting a straight conical bugle which is very similar to the Byzantine tuba. We can also find a great number of the curved boukinon, which is in wide use in the Byzantine military. I would however like to draw your attention to a special type of straight trumpet depicted in a small number of Byzantine images. It has a cylindrical bore and a wide bell, instead of a conical bore typical in most Byzantine bugles. (Pict. 6).20

Picture 6. Byzantine bugle with cylindrical bore. Tracing of a fragment from Matr. Gr. Vitr. 26-‐2

(12th cent.), fol. 217r.

19See Margaret A. Downie, “The Modern Greek Lyra”, American Musical Instrument Society Journal 5/6 (1979/80), 163; Mary Remnant, “Rebecs, fiddle and Crowd in England”, in Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 45 (1969), 18; P. Bec, Vieles ou violes? Variations philologiques et musicales autour des instruments à archet du Moyen Âge (Paris, 1992), 341sqq. and elsewhere.

20Holy Cross Ms 42, fol. 33r, from the 11th cent.; “Skylitzes matritensis” Ms (Matrit. Gr. Vitr. 26-‐2), from the 12th cent., foll. 145 and 217r; see Μαλιάρας, fig. 84, 8 and 108 respectively.


540

This instrument can also be found in arabic images of the later Middle Ages which are younger than the Byzantines and it is also used nowadays, bearing the Arabic name of nafir (Pict. 7).

Picture 7. Arabic cylindrical bugle (nafir). Tracing of a fragment from Paris. Arab. 5847, fol. 19 (late 10th cent.).

It appears that this instrument is rather a development of the older Byzantine conical bugle than a creation of the Arabs. The latter may have become acquainted to the conical tuba during their wars against the Byzantines from the 7th century onwards. Before that, the Arabs only used drums, bells and other percussion instruments.21 This conical bugle gradually changed its shape and formed a variation, culmitaning later to a new instrument. This is the straight cylindrical trumpet, ancestor to the slide trumpet, the clarion trumpet of the Renaissance and the modern valve trumpet. I must admit however that this cylindrical instrument was not very popular in Byzantium. It is rarely found in images and must have not been in wide use.

This instrument became increasingly popular in medieval Western Europe after the Crusade period. (Pict. 8).

Picture 8. Western European buisine (Tracing of a fragment from Cantigas de Santa Maria

Manuscript, Códice de los músicos, El Escorial B.I.2, 13th cent.).

21See Μαλιάρας, 185sqq.


541

The Crusades brought Western Europeans in close contact not only to the Orient but with Byzantium as well, and they deeply influenced European civilization. There are numerous references of the usage of this new cylindrical trumpet among texts of the Latin historians of the period, the first dating immediately after the First Crusade. It bears the name of the buisine, a word very close to german Posaune, or trombone. Therefore we can safely reach the conclusion that the Western European long cylindrical trumpet is not only of Arabic provenance but has a strong Byzantine influence as well. We might even say that the distant history of this instrument shows a closer relation to Byzantium than to the Arabs.

In medieval Europe, the buisine was mainly used as a military and a ceremonial instrument. As early as in the 13th century one can find evidence connecting the buisines to ceremonies conducted by European princes, kings or feudal lords, who considered this instrument as a symbol of power, authority, wealth and prestige. In its ceremonial use it is often combined with certain kinds of percussion instruments and woodwinds of the shawm family.

We can find these same insruments, bugles, shawms and drums at roughly the same period of time and in the same ceremonial usage in Byzantium. We can draw information from the work De Officiis, written around 1330 by the Byzantine writer Pseudo-‐Codinos. He describes the same instruments in similar functions.22 Pseudo-‐Codinos makes a clear distinction between instruments with a great, penetrating sound on the one side, and instruments sounding more discretely, which he calls “fine” instruments.23 It is roughly the same distinction we come across to in the West at the same time. Musical instruments intended to play indoors had a fine and discrete sound and in French they were called “bas”, or “low”.24 These included several types of guitar, harp, psaltery or lute and some bowed instruments, such as the rebec, the vielle as well as the recorder, the crumhorn, and the transverse flute. Such are the instruments called “fine” by Pseudo-‐Codinos. On the other hand, there were instruments intended to play outdoors in ceremonies. They had a great far-‐reaching sound and they were called “haut”,25 or “high” instruments, referring not only to their loud sound but also to the “high” social position of the persons attending the ceremonies those instruments participated in. Those instruments included the horn, the tuba or trumpet, the shawms, the drums, the cymbals etc.26

22Pseudo-‐Codinos, De Off. III, ed. Traité des offices. Introduction, texte et traduction par Jean Verpeaux, Le Monde byzantin 1 (Paris, 1976), 172-‐173.

23Pseudo-‐Codinos, De Off. IV (ed. Verpeaux), 197. 24From the beginning of the 14th cent. See E.A. Bowles, “Haut et bas. The Grouping of Musical Instruments during the Middle Ages”, Musica disciplina 8 (1954), 119; Id., “Unterscheidung der Instrumente Buisine, Cor, Trompe und Trompete”, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 18 (1961), 68.

25See Catherine Homo-‐Lechner, Sons et instruments de musique au Moyen Âge. Archéologie musicale dans l'Europe du VII au XIVe siècle, Collection des Héspèrides -‐ Archéologie-‐Histoire (Paris, 1996), 41; Bowles, “Haut et bas”, 14; D. Hofmann-‐Axthelm, “Instrumentensymbolik und Aufführungspraxis. Zum Verhältnis von Symbolik und Realität in der mittelalterlichen Musikanschauung”, Basler Jahrbuch für Musikpraxis 4 (1980), 60.

26See Bowles, “Haut et bas”, 121sqq.; P. Tröster, Das Alta-‐Ensemble und seine Instrumente von der Spätgothik bis zur Hochrenaissance (1300-‐1550). Eine musikikonographische Studie (Tübingen, 2001), 255; Chr. Page, “German Musicians and Their Instruments. A 14th Century Account by Konrad of Megenberg”, Early Music 10 (1982), 192-‐200.


542

The last instrument I should like to refer to, as far as the early phases of its European development is concerned, is the organ. This instrument has unfortunately not been investigated in a way that would reveal the actual role of Byzantium in this development. The organ of the Hellenistic and Roman period, the famous hydraulis, was well known in certain regions of Western Europe since the days of the Roman Empire, but it was completely forgotten after that. On the contrary, it seems that this was never the case with Byzantium, where it continued to be used through the circus factions in the Byzantine hippodrome. In the 8th or early 9th century the Byzantine organ became an important part of the imperial ceremonies and developed to an important imperial symbol. The earliest piece of information concerning the reappearance of the organ in Western Europe after late antiquity is the gift of an organ by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine V to the Frankish King Pepin in the year 757. It seems that this instrument deeply impressed the Frankish King, which was the purpose of the gift. It was an ideal means of demonstraing the wealth and splendour of the Byzantine court as well as its technical progress. This fact has widely been considered as the beginning of the return of the organ to the West. 27

In any case, Pepin’s organ does not seem to have had a long life in the West. It might seem improbable to the modern scholar, it is however true, that the son and successor of Charles, the emperor Louis I the Pious needed to order an imperial organ to be costructed by a well known Greek technician who lived in Venice. This organ was constructed in the year 826. The fact is mentioned in many textual sources. I believe that this moment (and not the gift of Constantine to Pepin) was the actual time when the organ returned permanently to Western Europe. Latin sources referring to the organ in the court of Louis also mention that this organ was made according to Byzantine models. They also mention the intention of the court of Aachen to exceed Constantinople in splendour and prestige. Ermoldus Nigellus, a Latin chronographer of that time writes:

“Even the organ, which has never been constructed in the Frankish State, and due to which the state of the ancient Pelasgians (= Greeks) was boasting so much, and through which Constantinople believed it should overcome you, emperor, now is possessed by the palace in Aquisgranum: This is perhaps only a sign to those who should bend under the auhority of the Franks, because the most important element of splendour and glory is now taken away from them.”28

This is a clear reference that the organ was not a mere musical instrument but an object which the Byzantines were very proud of. The acquisition of it through the Frankish court in Aachen would elevate Western prestige to an equal if not higher level compared to the Byzantine court. This means the following: The usage of important Byzantine imperial symbols lies whithin the efforts of the Frankish monarch to upgrade his state to the status of the traditional empire at the Bosporus and to accomplish his above mentioned claims to the title of the Roman Emperor. One of the most important of those imperial symbols seems to have been the organ.

It might seem odd enough, but it is true that the Frankish monarch achieved his goals! Indeed he upgraded the prestige of his court so much, that Theophilos, an emperor who

27See in detail on this in Μαλιάρας, 376sqq. 28See this passage in Ermoldus Nigellus, In honor. Hludov. 2520-‐2525, d., Ermold le Noir, Poème sur Louis le Pieux, édition et traduction par E. Faral, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1964), 192.


543

ascended the Byzantine throne three years later, in 829, needed to order the construction of even more luxurious organs, which should be made of pure gold. This is mentioned by most historians an chronographers of the period. Those new organs were destructed by Theophilos’ son Michael III and reconstructed probably by the Emperor Leon VI at the end of the 9th century. We find them again in the palace in the middle of the 10th century taking part in imperial ceremonies described in the Book of Ceremonies by Constantine Porphyrogennetos. They are also mentioned and commented upon by Liutprand of Cremona in his famous and arrogant description of his visit to Constantinople around 950.29

How do things go on with the organ in the West? I will try to briefly state my conclusion on this. The organ began its Western career exactly like in the East: It was an imperial ceremonial symbol.30 However, imperial power collapsed in the West shortly after the death of Louis I in the middle of the 9th century. The young Carolingian Empire and its imperial symbols ceased to exist. The organ, an impressive symbol of splendour and power was then easily adopted by the power that practically took the position of the Empire: That ist, the Catholic Church. Higher Church officials seem to have placed this symbol of pomp and power in their cathedrals soon after the collapse of the Frankish Empire. A letter by Anno von Freising in the year 873 refers to that.31 After that its presence widespreaded gradually through the centuries to every small or big church throughout Western Europe. The musical role of the early church organ in medieval Europe is the same as the role of the Byzantine imperial organ. It introduced the chant of the congregation responding to the priest, exactly as it introduced the acclamations of the demes in Byzantine hippodrome and court ceremonial. And one might say, it is not essentially different even until today, the monumental organ preludes by Bach beeing only one example of the mainly introductory role of the pipe organ in Christian religious ceremonies.

29On this facts see the sources and other material in Μαλιάρας, 344sqq., 349sqq. 30See D. Schuberth, Kaiserliche Liturgie. Die Einbeziehung von Musikinstrumenten, insbesondere der Orgel, in den frühmittelalterlichen Gottesdienst (Göttingen, 1968), 81sqq.; E.A. Bowles, “The Organ in the Medieval Liturgical Service”, Revue Belge de Musicologie 16 (1962), 14; Jammers, 218sqq.; E.A. Bowles, “The Symbolism of the Organ in the Middle Ages. A Study in the History of Ideas”, in Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music. A Birthday Offering to G. Reese, ed. La Rue (New York, 1966), 33; J. Perrot, L’orgue de ses origines hellénistiques à la fin du XIIIe siècle. Étude historique et archéologique (Paris, 1965), 305sqq.

31See P. Williams, “The Meaning of Organum. Some Case Studies”, Plainsong and Medieval Music 10/2 (Oct. 2001), 116sqq.; Williams however disputes the value of this piece of information.

nikos maliaras, some western european musical instruments and their byzantine origin, in:...

Documents