Greek-Romanian manuscript nr. 107 from the “Dumitru Staniloae” Ecumenical Library of the Metropolitan Church of Moldavia and Bukovina in Iasi –an instance of the practice of bilingual church musicin Moldova at the end of the 18th century

Abstract

The present paper is part of a larger project, intended to catalogue the fund of musical manuscripts from the “Dumitru Staniloae” Ecumenical Library of the Metropolitan Church of Moldova and Bukovina of Iasi and aims to highlight the repertoire and musical semiography of Ms. 107, which can be classified as a small scale Anthologhion in terms of the type of musical collection. What sets it apart from the rest of the codices in the Ecumenical Library of the Metropolitan Church of Moldavia and Bukovina (abridged as LMCMB) of the Iasi manuscript fund is the exegetical, transitional medio-Byzantine musical notation, characterized by a small number of cheironomic signs. Ms. 107 is not dated, its Romanian copyist is not named. The repertoire of Ms. 107 consists mostly of chants for the service of the Divine Liturgy, such as The Sunday Cherouvikon Hymn, The Sunday and festive Koinonika. Some important chants from the Matins Service are also included, among which the Blessings and Polyeleoi should be mentioned. There are only two chants from the Vespers service, both in Romanian, namely Gladsome Light in the 2nd mode and the famous Moldavian Anixandaria by Iosif Monahul [Iosif the Monk], in the plagal of the 4th mode. The authors are classical Greek composers before the Chrysanthine reform (1814): Petros Lampadarios, Petros Byzantios, Nikiphoros Kantouniaris, as well as lesser names such as Anastasios, Vasiliu Stefanos Byzantios. The practice of bilingual Greek-Romanian liturgical chanting is an element of interest in this manuscript, as shown by two chants in this manuscript, first in Greek and then in Romanian: Blessings of the Resurection in the plagal of the tetraphonic 1st voice (leaves 2v and 5v respectively) and the Polyeleos Servants of the Lord, the plagal of the 1st voice (leaves 9v and 25), both of which are Petros Lampadarios’ compositions. Another special element is that although the author of the manuscript is Romanian, the content of the manuscript is mostly in Greek; it had been written in Moldova, most likely in the last decades of the Phanariotes’ rule (around 1790-1810), characterized by the supremacy of Greek culture in the Romanian Principalities (Bucescu, 2009, vol. II, p. 112).