The
Octoechos (
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
:
; Slavonic: Октоихъ,
Oktoikh, or Осмогласникъ,
Osmoglasnik)—literally, the book "of the Eight Tones"—contains an eight-week cycle, providing texts to be chanted for every day at
VespersVespers is the evening prayer service in the Western Catholic, Eastern Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran liturgies of the canonical hours. The word comes from the Greek εσπερινός and the Latin vesper, meaning "evening." The term is also in limited use in some Protestant...
,
MatinsMatins is the early morning or night prayer service in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Eastern Orthodox liturgies of the canonical hours. The term is also used in some Protestant denominations to describe morning services.The name "Matins" originally referred to the morning office also...
, the
Divine LiturgyThe Divine Liturgy is the common term for the Eucharistic service of the Byzantine tradition of Christian liturgy. As such, it is used in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches. Armenian Christians, both of the Armenian Apostolic Church and of the Armenian Catholic Church, use the...
,
ComplineCompline is the final church service of the day in the Christian tradition of canonical hours. The English word Compline is derived from the Latin completorium, as Compline is the completion of the working day...
and (on Sundays) the
Midnight OfficeThe Midnight Office is one of the Canonical Hours that compose the cycle of daily worship in the Eastern Orthodox Church...
. Each week begins a new
mode (Greek: ἤχος,
échosEchos is the name in Byzantine music theory for the melody type used in the composition of music. It is akin to a Western medieval mode or an Arabian maqam.-Overview and semantics:...
) or
tone (Slavonic: глáсъ,
glás' ), and within that mode texts are provided for each day of the week. The new mode begins with Saturday night Vespers.
Sometimes the word "Octoechos" will be used to describe a briefer volume that contains only the texts for the Sunday services. To distinguish the full version from the briefer one, the term
Paraklētikē (Greek:
Παρακλητική) can be used to describe the complete volume. The word
Paraklētikē comes from the Greek
parakalein (παρακαλείν), meaning, "to supplicate" (the more penitential texts are found on weekdays).
In addition to the standard melodies provided by the eight modes, there are also several "special melodies" (Greek:
Idiomelon, Slavonic:
Samoglasen), and the "pattern melodies" (Greek:
prosomoia, Slavonic:
podobny) which are based upon them. Each of these belongs to one of the tones and will be indicated in the superscription introducing some of the hymns in the Octoechos and other liturgical books.
Historical development
The origins of this book traditionally go back to the Monastery of
Mar SabbaSaint Sabbas the Sanctified , a Cappadocian-Greek monk, priest and saint, lived mainly in Palestine. He was the founder of several monasteries, most notably the one known as Mar Saba...
in
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands.As a geographical term, Palestine can also refer to 'ancient Palestine,' an area...
, with compositions by
St. John DamasceneSaint John of Damascus was an Arab Christian monk and priest...
(c. 676–749) and
St. Cosmas of MaiumaSaint Cosmas of Maiuma, also called Cosmas Hagiopolites , Cosmas of Jerusalem, or Cosmas the Melodist , was a bishop and hymnographer of the Eastern Church.-Life:...
(† 773). Other prominent hymnographers include Saint
Joseph the HymnographerJoseph the Hymnographer was a monk of the ninth century. He is one of the greatest liturgical poets and hymnographers of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He is also known for his confession of the Orthodox Faith in opposition to Iconoclasm. He is called "the sweet-voiced nightingale of the...
(810-886)
http://www.anastasis.org.uk/jo-hym.htm; Saint
Theophanes the BrandedTheophanes the Branded also called Theophanes Graptus or Theophanes of Nicea was a Byzantine monk and hymnographer.Next to Joseph the Hymnographer, Theophanes is the major contributor to the Orthodox liturgical book called the Paraklitiki .-Life:His Vita prima was recorded in the Life of Michael...
, Bishop of Nicaea (c. 775-845)
http://www.anastasis.org.uk/theophan.htm; Paul of
AmoriumAmorium was a city in Phrygia, Asia Minor which was founded in the Hellenistic period, flourished under the Byzantine Empire, and declined after the Arab sack of 838. Its ruins are located near the village of Hisarköy, Turkey....
;
Metrophanes of SmyrnaMetrophanes of Smyrna was a Christian bishop, Metropolitan of Smyrna, in the ninth century. He was a leader of the Ignatian bishops at the time of the Photian schism .-Life:...
; as well as numerous anonymous authors.
The Oktoechos was the very first book printed (
incunabulumIncunabulum is the Latin for "swaddling clothes" or "cradle" and can refer to "the earliest stages or first traces in the development of anything." In printing, an incunabulum is a book, or even a single sheet of text, that was printed — not handwritten — before the year 1501 in...
) in Cyrillic typeface. It was published in Cracow in 1491, by
Schweipolt FiolSchweipolt Fiol from Neustadt an der Aisch in Franconia was a German-born 15th century pioneer of printing in Eastern Europe....
, a German native of
FranconiaFranconia is a region of Germany comprising the northern parts of the modern state of Bavaria, a part of southern Thuringia, and a much smaller region in northeastern Baden-Württemberg called Heilbronn-Franken...
. There are only seven known copies of this first publication remaining, the only complete one being in the collection of the
Russian National LibraryThe National Library of Russia in St Petersburg, known as the State Public Saltykov-Shchedrin Library from 1932 to 1992 , is the oldest public library in Russia...
.
In the
Russian ChurchThe Russian Orthodox Church ; or The Moscow Patriarchate , also known...
a special singer's Octoechos developed in the second half of the fifteenth to early sixteenth centuries, containing not only the text but also musical notation. The first printed edition, the
Oktoikh notnago peniya, sirech' Osmoglasnik, using square notation, was published in 1772. It contained the hymns in Znamenny Chant, as well as the "pattern melodies" mentioned above, that belong to each of the Eight Tones.
Use
The cycle of the Octoechos is a part of the
Paschal cycleThe Paschal cycle in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, is the cycle of the moveable feasts built around Pascha . The cycle consists of approximately ten weeks before and seven weeks after Pascha. The ten weeks before Pascha are known as the period of the Triodion...
(moveable cycle) of the church year; that is to say, it is dependent upon the date of
PaschaEaster is the most important annual religious feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to Christian scripture, Jesus was resurrected from the dead on the third day from his crucifixion...
(Easter). During
Bright WeekBright Week or Renewal Week is the name used by the Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches of the Byzantine Rite for the period of seven days beginning on Pascha and continuing up to the following Sunday, which is known as Thomas Sunday...
(Easter Week), one of the eight tones is used each day of the week (excluding the Seventh or "Grave" Tone). Then, beginning on Thomas Sunday (the Sunday after Pascha), the First Tone is used for the entire week, and the cycle continues uninterrupted, one tone per week, until
Palm SundayPalm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast which always falls on the Sunday before Easter Sunday. The feast commemorates an event mentioned by all four Canonical Gospels , , , and : the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the days before his Passion...
of the following year. It should be noted that
Holy WeekHoly Week in Christianity is the last week of Lent and the week before Easter...
has no tone assigned to it (the natural order of things is interrupted), while Bright Week has all tones assigned to it (the Resurrection is the sum of all joy).
The Octoechos is not used at all from
Lazarus SaturdayLazarus Saturday, in the Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite, is the day before Palm Sunday, and is liturgically linked to it...
(the day before Palm Sunday) through Thomas Sunday. It is not used on major feast days when they fall on weekdays. It is always used on Sunday, unless a Great Feast of the Lord occurs on that day.
The hymns of the Octoechos (the moveable cycle) will be combined with hymns from the
MenaionThe Menaion refers to the annual fixed cycle of services in the Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches...
(the fixed cycle), which contains the texts for the saints whose commemorations are determined according to the day of the calendar year. When more of the service is chanted from the Menaion, less of the Octoechos will be used; when less material is found in the Menaion, more from the Octoechos will be used. Since the services from the Octoechos on weekdays tend to be penitential, days on which more of the Octoechos is used are more penitential in nature. For this reason, services to monastic saints in the Menaion tend to be simple services, so that more hymns from the Octoechos will be utilized.
Most liturgical texts are not printed with either
staff notationIn standard Western musical notation, the staff or stave is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces, each of which represents a different musical pitch, or, in the case of a percussion staff, different percussion instruments. Appropriate music symbols, depending upon the intended effect,...
or
neumeA neume is the basic element of Western and Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff notation...
s; rather, only the tone is named, and the chanter is expected to know the appropriate melody and apply it extemporaneously to the text.
Themes
In the Orthodox liturgical tradition, each day of the week has a distinct theme:
- Sunday—the Resurrection of Christ
- Monday—the Holy Angels
- Tuesday—St. John the Baptist
John the Baptist was a mission preacher and a major religious figure who led a movement of Baptism at the Jordan River in expectation of a divine apocalypse that would restore occupied Israel...
- Wednesday—the Cross
The Christian cross is the best-known religious symbol of Christianity. It is a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It is related to the crucifix and to the more general family of cross symbols...
and the TheotokosTheotokos is the Greek title of Mary, the mother of Jesus used especially in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches. Its literal English translations include God-bearer and the one who gives birth to God. Less literal translations include Mother of God...
- Thursday—the Holy Apostles and St. Nicholas
- Friday—the Cross and the Theotokos
- Saturday—All Saints
All Saints' Day , often shortened to All Saints, is a solemnity celebrated on November 1 in Western Christianity, and on the first Sunday after Pentecost in Eastern Christianity in honor of all the saints, known and unknown.In terms of Western Christian theology, the day...
and the departed
These themes are developed primarily in the texts of the Octoechos.
Nomenclature
The names ascribed to the eight tones in the texts of the
Octoechos (and other books) will differ between the Greek and the Slavic usage:
| Greek |
Slavic |
| First |
First |
| Second |
Second |
| Third |
Third |
| Fourth |
Fourth |
| Plagal of the First |
Fifth |
| Plagal of the Second |
Sixth |
| Grave |
Seventh |
| Plagal of the Fourth |
Eighth |
In the Greek usage, the first four tones are referred to as the "authentic" (
authentes or
kyrioi) modes, and the last four are "
plagalA plagal mode is a musical mode, and one of four Gregorian modes whose range includes the octave from the fourth below the tonic, or final, to the fifth above...
" variations on them. The latter term comes from the
Medieval GreekMedieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek is a cover term for all forms of the Greek language that were spoken and written during the time of the Byzantine Empire...
plagios, "oblique" (from
plagos, "side"). The plagal modes have a range from the fourth below to the fifth above their final tone. These modal structures do not carry over into the Slavic tones, which are melodic compositions. (See the article
OctoechosOctoechos is the fundamental structure for classifying and describing modes in Byzantine music.-Origins and early theory:...
for further information on the development of the Greek modes.)
Syriac Usage
The
Syriac Orthodox ChurchThe Syriac Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church based in the Middle East, with members spread throughout the world. It parted ways with Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism over the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which the Syriac Orthodox Church rejects. It is a major...
also makes use of a system of eight modes (
makamIn Turkish classical music, Mevlevi music, and some Mosque music, a system of melody types called makam provides a complex set of rules for composing...
s). Each hymn (Syriac:
qolo, plural:
qole) is composed in one of these eight modes. Some modes have variants (
shuhlophe) similar to the "special melodies" mentioned above. Only skilled chanters can master these variants.
The modal cycle consists of eight weeks. Each Sunday or Feast day is assigned one of the eight modes. During the weekday offices, known in Syriac by the name
Shhimo, the 1st and 5th modes are paired together, so are the 2nd and 6th, the 3rd and 7th, and the 4th and 8th. If a particular Sunday makes use of the 1st mode, the following Monday is sung with the 5th mode, Tuesday with the 1st mode, etc., with the pair alternating every day of the week (see the table provided in
Guide to the Eight Modes in the External Links below).
The ecclesiastical year starts with
Qudosh `Idto (The Consecration of the Church), a feast observed on the eighth Sunday before
ChristmasChristmas , also referred to as Christmas Day, is an annual holiday celebrated on December 25 that commemorates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The day marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days. The nativity of Jesus, which is the basis for the anno Domini...
(
Yaldo). The 1st mode is sung on this day. The following Sunday makes use of the 2nd mode, and so on, repeating the cycle until it starts again the next year. The cycle is interrupted only by feasts which have their own tones assigned to them. Similar to the Byzantine usage, each day of Easter Week has its own mode, except the Syriacs do not skip the 7th mode. Thus, the Sunday after Easter, called New Sunday (
Hadto) is in the 8th mode rather than the 1st.
In one type of hymn used by the Syriac Church, the
Qole Shahroye (Vigils), each of the modes is dedicated to a theme: The 1st and 2nd modes are dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the 3rd and 4th to the saints, the 5th and 6th to penitence, and the 7th and 8th to the
departedWherever there is a belief in the continued existence of man's personality through and after death, religion naturally concerns itself with the relations between the living and the dead. And where the idea of a future judgment or of Purgatory obtains, prayers are often offered on behalf of the dead...
.
The primary collection of hymns in the eight modes is the
Beth Gazo d-ne`motho, or "Treasury of Chants."
Armenian Usage
In the
Armenian Apostolic ChurchThe Armenian Apostolic Church is the world's oldest National Church and is one of the most ancient Christian communities. Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion in 301 AD, in establishing this church...
, the system of eight modes is referred to as
oot tzayn (eight voices). Although there is no structural relation between the Greek and Armenian modes, the division into "Authentic" and "Plagal" modes is parallel. In Armenian terminology, the "Authentic" modes are referred to as "Voice" (
Tzayn) and the "Plagal" modes are called "Side" (
Koghm), and are utilized in the following order:
| Greek |
Armenian |
| First |
First Voice |
| Plagal of the First |
First Side |
| Second |
Second Voice |
| Plagal of the Second |
Second Side |
| Third |
Third Voice |
| Grave |
Third Side |
| Fourth |
Fourth Voice |
| Plagal of the Fourth |
Fourth Side |
This order is important, because it is the order in which the modes are used liturgically. Instead of using one tone per week, the Armenians use one tone per day. Easter Sunday is always the First Voice, the next day is First Side, and so on throughout the year. However, the cycle does not actually begin on Easter day, but counts backwards from Easter Sunday to the First Sunday in Lent, which is always Forth Side, regardless of what mode the previous day was. Each mode of the
oot tzayn has one or more
tartzwadzk‘ (auxiliary) modes.
The
Sharagnots is the book which contains the
Sharakan, or
Sharagan (
CanonsA canon is a structured hymn used in a number of Eastern Orthodox services. It consists of nine odes, sometimes called canticles or songs depending on the translation, based on the Biblical canticles. Most of these are found in the Old Testament, but the final ode is taken from the Magnificat and...
), hymns which constitute the substance of the musical system of Armenian liturgical chant in the eight modes. Originally, these were
PsalmsPsalms is a book of the Hebrew Bible , included in the collected works known as the "Writings" or Ketuvim.-Etymology:...
and Biblical
CanticleA canticle is a hymn taken from the Bible. The term is often expanded to include ancient non-biblical hymns such as the Te Deum and certain psalms used liturgically.-Roman Catholic Church:From the Old Testament, the Roman Breviary takes seven canticles for use at Lauds, as follows:*...
s that were chanted during the services. A
Sharagan was composed of verses which were interspersed between the scriptural verses. Eventually, the
Sharagan replaced the biblical text entirely. In addition, the eight modes are applied to the psalms of the Night office, called
ganonaklookh (Canon head). the Armenian Church also makes use of other modes outside of the
oot tzayn.
External links