Music

The only type of Byzantine music surviving to the present day is Orthodox Church chant and a group of songs in honor of the emperor, members of the royal family and high ranking church officials. Very little is known of secular music in the period. However, many Fathers of the Church and secular authors appear to condemn it, since in their view it did not cultivate the spirit.

Byzantine music was influenced both by ancient Greek and Roman music and by Jewish chant. It was originally coded by a system of limited expressive potential, which later evolved in Alexandria, Antioch and Ephesus. Early melodies were initially somewhat syllabic, i.e. one note corresponded to one syllable. From the 9th century, however, the first symbols indicating melodic variations appear. At the end of the same century Byzantine music was orchestrated and ceased to be monophonic.

The system of Byzantine musical notation underwent various stages before obtaining its final form in the late 12th century. This enables the expression of complex written melodic relations using a few specific symbols, thereby offering composers the potential to render a wide variety of rhythmic, melodic and dynamic musical variations. Nevertheless, the melodies of Byzantine music remain restricted, as its compositional framework consists of eight main melodic tones or modes, four authentic and four oblique. Sounds can be combined in various ways, but musical phrases are limited in range.

The most famous hymnographers of Byzantine music include Romanos the Melodist, who developed ecclesiastical hymns, making ​​them longer and more complex, and Kosmas the Hymnographer who introduced new hmyn types. The final form taken by Byzantine music is credited to John Koukouzelis, who placed great emphasis on melody and codified new chants into anthologies (for specific church services). This last phase of Byzantine music remains the basis of Orthodox Church hymnography to this day.