After Iconoclasm two streams of theoretical writing about music may be distinguished: one concerned with the transmission of the ancient musical thought, and another with the practice of contemporary liturgical chant. Ptolemy, Cleonides, Aristoxenus, and Aristides QuintiUianus were among the ancient theorists whose works, as part of the quadrivium, continued to be copied and remained current among Byzantine intellectuals (Mathiesen 1999: 644). Michael Psellos did much to advance the assimilation of ancient musical thought, commenting upon and summarizing early authors in several of his own works (Matheisen 1999: 644-55). Byzantine interest in ancient theory climaxed during the Palaiologan period with the musical treatises of George Pachymeres (c. i242-nc. i3io) and Manuel Bryennios (c.1300), both of which feature discussions of the Octoechos (Mathiesen 1999: 65668; Richter 1998: 167-78). The juxtaposition of ancient and contemporary music is not unique to Pachymeres and Bryennios, but may also be found in Nicholas Mesarites’ description of music lessons at the Church of the Holy Apostles (Downey 1957: 866, 895-6) and the fourteenth-century Hagiopolites treatise (Raasted 1983). The relation of classicizing theory to Byzantine performance is unclear, but scholars no longer {pace Wellesz 1961: 62-3) automatically reject the possibility of dynamic applications of ancient musical thought (Troelsgard 1988). Unquestionably practical materials for instruction in Byzantine chanting, however, are not lacking (examples in Tardo 1938 and Gertsman 1994). The simplest are descriptive lists of neumes (notably the so-called Papadike), exercises {methodoi) in solmization (metrophonia) and modulation {parallage), diagrams of the modes, and didactic songs (some of the most important are studied by the contributors to Troelsgard 1997). Extended treatises on various aspects of Byzantine chanting include those of ps.-Damascenos (Hannick and Wolfram 1997), the Hieromonk Gabriel of Xanthopoulos (Hannick and Wolfram 1985), and Manuel Chrysaphes (Conomos 1985b).
World History
