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Music in the Orthodox Church by Josie Long The hymnody of the Orthodox Church is theologically the richest in the world. One can learn about the life and doctrine of the Church, and the lives of the saints, by listening to and contemplating the hymns of the Church. In his work, Byzantine Sacred Music, Constantine Cavarnos states: “The aim of this music is not to display the fine voices of the chanters, or to entertain the congregation, or to evoke aesthetic experience…. The aim of Byzantine sacred music is spiritual. This music is, in the first place, a means of worship and veneration; and in the second place, a means of self-perfection, of eliciting and cultivating man’s higher thoughts and feelings of opposing and eliminating his lower, undesirable ones. “Its use as a means of worship consists in employing it to glorify God, and to express feelings of supplication, hope, and gratitude, and love to Him. Its use as a means of veneration consists in employing it to honor the Holy Virgin and the rest of the Saints. Its use as a means of cultivating higher thoughts and feelings and opposing the lower ones is inseparable from these. There is not one kind of music employed as a means of worshipping God and honoring the saints, and another kind employed for transforming our inner life, but the same music, while having as its direct aim the former, incidentally leads also to the fulfillment of the latter.” [1] Orthodox music is sung in one of eight tones. “A tone is a group of set melodic formulas that forms the basis for Orthodox chant. There are two basic forms of the tones, Byzantine and Slavonic.” [2] The eight tones are rotated throughout the weeks of the year. If for one week the tone of the week is tone 1, the tone for the following week will be tone 2, and so forth. The tone in which a particular hymn is chanted, or sung, can also be dependent upon the feast of the day or the saint being commemorated. Most of the services at St. John are sung by the clergy and the chanters in the modern, or contemporary, Byzantine chant. The Divine Liturgy is sung by the priest and the choir. The choir uses different types of music, some Byzantine chant and some Slavonic chant, and some hymns with four-part harmony. All hymns are based either on either a Byzantine tone or a Slavonic tone. And, as is common practice in Orthodox churches, our musical instruments are our voices. The congregation is encouraged to join in singing with the choir on familiar pieces—music is provided for the services of Great Vespers on Saturday evenings and the Divine Liturgy on Sunday mornings. 1. Constantine Cavarnos, Byzantine Sacred Music, copyright
1956, 1974 reprinted edition, pp. 9,10 |
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Hear the music of Orthodoxy as sung by the St. John Ensemble (click on Tone), and view sheet music (click on "Sheet music"): Resurrection Troparion: Apolytikion of the Nativity Note: Sheet music files are in .pdf format: click here to download the free viewer from Adobe. Music files are in .mp3 format and may require download first before they play without skipping. |
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Josie Long is the choir director at St. John. Please speak to
Josie if you are interested in singing in the choir.
Hear
Tone 1;