3
"Treasury of Melodies", "Songs" or "Chants".
[6]
How is the Beth Gazo used? Each hymn in the entire
Syrian Orthodox liturgical system is associated with what one might
call a "title", or more accurately a heading that
indicates the melody with which the hymn is to be chanted. The title is
usually of the form cal qolo
d-… "as the melody of …" and has little,
if anything, to do with the subject matter of the hymn itself.
The Beth Gazo contains a listing of all such qole.
Under each qolo, melodies of eight different modes are given,
analogous to the eight-mode Gregorian chant system. To add to the
richness of this system, some modes have variants of their own
called shuhlophe - only the skilled can master
them. The melodies are not documented using musical notation;
rather, by texts that the cleric associates with melodies learned
by tradition. Shuhlophe, on the other hand, are not
documented but are transmitted orally from malphono to
talmidho. An experienced cleric, of course, need not consult
the Beth Gazo. He would have already memorized the hundreds
of texts it contains along with their respective melodies including
shuhlophe. Such music masters, alas, are hard to
come by today!
[7]
Earlier versions of the Beth Gazo contained thousands of melodies.
Barsoum4
laments the loss of a "huge and rare" manuscript of
the Monastery of St. Abraham in Midyat, due to the turbulent years
of the First World War during which the Syrian Orthodox faithful
were under much persecution. A few manuscripts representing
portions of the original Beth Gazo survive and were used in a modern
edition.5
Today, at most a thousand melodies survive. These are gathered in
an abridged version initially published by
Dolabani6
in 1913. We lament the fact that some of the melodies in the
abridged version are unknown and presumed lost.
[8]
The abridged version of the Beth Gazo consists of the
following types of hymns (the term "hymn" is used here
loosely and does not indicate a madrosho):
- Qole shahroye "vigils". It is not clear what
the term shahroye refers to. According to
Barsaum7,
either such qole were originally sung during vigil hours
(shahro), or they were sung by a group of people belonging
to the order of shahroye "vigilants" (the same
term is used in Latin, vigiles). The first two modes are
dedicated to the Virgin, the 3rd and 4th to the saints, the 5th
and 6th to penitence, and the 7th and 8th to the departed.
- Gushmo (pl. gushme) "body" each of
which consists of eight modes. These are recited during the
daily offices known as shhimo.
- Sebeltho (pl. seblotho) dmadroshe
"ladder". It is this category that seems to have mostly
inherited Ephrem's madroshe tradition. Two of these follow
the eight-mode system. The rest have one melody each.
- Phardo (pl. Pharde) "single". These
are short hymns divided into eight collections corresponding
to the eight modes. Within each collection, each hymn has its
own invariant melody.
- Qonuno yawnoyo (pl. qonune yawnoye) "Greek
canon". These are divided into eight collections
corresponding to the eight modes as well.
- Mawrbo (pl. mawrbe) "magnificat".
Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, these are divided into eight
collections corresponding to the eight modes.
- Qole ghnize "mystic hymns". They exist in
the printed edition in eight modes; the melodies of most seem
to be lost, alas!
- Takheshphotho rabuloyotho "litanies of Rabula".
Attributed to Rabula, these are divided into eight
collections corresponding to the eight modes.
- Tborto (pl. tborotho) "broken". They
fall into three categories: those attributed to St. Jacob [of
Serug], St. Ephrem and of St. Balay. Each of them follows the
eight-modal system.
- Quqlion (pl. quqalya) "cycles".
These are cycles from the Psalms and follow the eight-modal
system.
[9]
What makes the Beth Gazo even richer is the existence
of various schools of music within the Syrian Orthodox tradition.
Two main traditions are identified: East and West. The former
represents the school of Tagrit and is only known to the Syrian
Orthodox of modern day Iraq. The latter is practiced by the rest
of the Syrian Orthodox Church and, in turn, has its own schools of
music.
[10]
Of the Western schools, the School of Mardin is by far the most
popular and is considered the norm. This is due to the fact that for
hundreds of years, the patriarchal seat was located at Deir
al-Zacfaran near Mardin.
The second largest school (in terms of practice) is
that of Tur cAbdin. Presently,
it is used in Tur cAbdin and
in the Diaspora with communities originating from that region. Another
tradition, which is preserved to some extent, is that of the School
of Edessa. It is mainly used today among the Edessan community,
presently living in Aleppo, Syria. Diarbaker (in Turkey) and
Sadad (a village in Syria) have their own traditions as well; the
former is not preserved well enough. The school of Harput (in
Turkey) is another endangered tradition. With its inhabitants
scattered in the four corners of the world with no substantial
community in one particular place, it is only preserved in a
recording made by the late Cor-Episcopos Abd al-Nur Samuel of
Harput. India has developed its own tradition, which one might
call the Malankara school of music; this tradition may have been
derived from the school of
Mardin.8
[11]
Syriac music suffers from the lack of scholarly attention. H.
Husmann9
published, in musical notation, the body of
shhimo and qole shahroye based on
recordings by the late archbishop Mor Cyril
(Qorillos) Jacob for the former and his brother
Malphono Asmar Khouri for the latter. Recently,
G. Y. Ibrahim published the tradition of Mardin,
also in musical notation made by Nuri
Iskandar10
of Aleppo, based on recordings made by the late Patriarch Jacob
III in 1960. A similar publication of the Edessan tradition is
imminent. The
recordings of Jacob III were recently digitized and placed on the Internet by
Syrian Orthodox Resources and the
Syriac Computing Institute. (For other works, see the
bibliography.)
Melodies of Ephrem's Madroshe
[12]
We have examined the following cycles of Ephrem's madroshe
based on Beck's edition: Contra Haereses (CH), Contra
Julianum (CJ), Carmina Nisibena (CNis), Ecclesia (Eccl),
Epiphania (Epiph), Fide, Ieiunio (Ieiuni), Nativitate (Nat),
Paradiso (Par), Virginitate (Virg). We found that the
following qole have corresponding counterparts, in
name and poetic structure in most cases, in the Beth Gazo
(qole marked with * are illustrated with a
recording below):
- honaw yarho (CH, Eccl, Ieiuni)*.
- abo ktab (h)wo egarto (Epiph)*.
- pardayso (Ieiuni)*.
- kalat malko (CNis, Virg).
- tubayk Afrot (CH, Nat, Virg)*.
- etqatal(u) (h)waw yalude (CH, CNis).
- o bar hire or hayo (Nat).
[13]
It is interesting to note that all of the above hymns
fall within the madroshe category of the abridged
Beth Gazo. Further, they occur almost adjacent to
each other, though this might be a mere coincidence. The
madroshe section of the Beth Gazo starts with the
above qole in the order given, except that there
is another qolo (qum paulos) between items
2 and 3. The last item above is the 35th madrosho
in the abridged Beth Gazo. The entire madroshe
corpus of the abridged Beth Gazo consists of 54 madroshe.
[14]
To the disappointment of the modern cleric, the vast
majority of Ephrem's qole are not present in the
abridged Beth Gazo and, hence, their melodies cannot
be recognized. Of the above mentioned cycles, the following
qole belong to this category:
- a(n)t Mor(i) aktebtoh (CNis, Eccl, Ieiuni).
- ahay wahyonay (CH).
- ahay wabohay wabnay yulpon(i) (Virg).
- ahay zmar shubho (Epiph).
- aloho brahmaw (Eccl, Epiph, Ieiuni, Fide).
- aloho darhemtuno(h)y (CNis, Eccl, Epiph, Virg).
- alohuhutok Mor(i) athartan(i) (CH).
- arim qol(i) weqce (Nat).
- aynaw damrah (CH).
- aynaw dnagiro ruheh (Eccl, Fide).
- baya'(u) bmulkone (CNis, Fide, Nat).
- bok hu Mor(i) (Eccl).
- bok Mor(i) metpasah (Nat).
- btulto nakpat nakpoto (Ieiuni)
- cal yaldeh dbukro (Fide).
- conok hnigo'it (CH, CNis, Virg).
- catiro brozeh (Virg).
- diyno dsharboto (CJ, Par).
- dohel no demar shubho (Virg).
- eftah pum(i)bidacto (CH, CNis, Eccl, Virg).
- en dcal ityo
tcaqeb (Fide).
- estamak cal qushto (CJ).
- etkanash(u) necbed birah Nisan (Nat).
- eto lwotan bhubeh (Eccl, Epiph).
- ezamar en hu dshalit (Epiph, Virg).
- hay Hobel wqatil Qain (CNis).
- honaw Nisan briko (Ieiun).
- hono yawmo (Eccl, Epiph, Nat).
- hoylen dabo (Epiph).
- izgado hadoyo (CNis, Fide).
- kenshe celoye (Nat, Virg).
- kensho dulsonay (CNis).
- kuleh brito hbaltok (CH, Fide).
- l-Ureshlem Moran (Eccl).
- malko shmayono shayen shgishuteh (CNis).
- manu dlo ngareg tarciteh (Virg).
- manu sofeq lammalolu (CH, Fide, Nat).
- nosho ha(d)te (Eccl).
- o bar hire (Fide).
- o mawto lo teshtacli (CNis).
- o Mor(i) bganayk (CNis).
- o shomuce dqushto (Eccl).
- o talmid(i) (CH, Eccl, Fide).
- o yohubo dfurshone (CNis).
- olef alfin (Nat.)
- qadmoyto shato (CH, Nat).
- qarno wshifuro (CNis).
- shahreh d-Bardaysan (CH, Fide).
- tehro enen Mor(i) kul dasbalt (CNis, Epiph, Fide).
- Urhoy dbeth Nahrin (Ieiuni).
[15]
It is also interesting to note that while the entire Paradiso
cycle is on the qolo d-diyno dsharboto (item 18 above),
its poetic structure matches that of madrosho d-pardaiso
of the Beth Gazo and the entire cycle can be chanted
using the eight melodies of this qolo.
Recordings
[16]
We shall now present madroshe from the genuine writings
of St. Ephrem chanted according to the melodies of their
corresponding hymns in the Beth Gazo. For each melody,
we give Ephrem's text from Beck's edition with a recording in the
voice of Metropolitan Gregorios Y. Ibrahim of Aleppo. (It must
be noted here that Mor Gregorios was convalescing after a major
surgery when the recording took place, the effect of which is
noticeable on the recording.)
(Note. The recordings are provided here in
Real Audio format which is supported by most browsers.
Readers whose browsers do not support this format already may
download the Real Audio player from the Real Audio web site.)
- honaw yarho "this is the month".
This qolo occurs in three cycles of Ephrem's
madroshe (CH, Eccl, Ieiuni). It is the first in the
madroshe section of the Beth Gazo and falls within the
eight-mode system. The following recording is of Ieiunio (Appendix I).
Audio
|
(malko= hayo in recording.)
|
- abo ktab (h)wo egarto "the father wrote a
letter". This qolo occurs in Ephrem's Epiphania cycle
and directly follows the previous qolo in the Beth Gazo.
Like its neighbor above, it has eight melodies. The
following is a recording of a few stanzas from Sogitha I of
the Epiphania cycle.
- pardayso "Paradise". This qolo occurs
only in the Ieiunio cycle. However, as mentioned above, the
entire Paradiso cycle, which falls under qolo d-diyno dsharboto,
has the same poetic structure. This qolo is the 4th
of the madroshe in the Beth Gazo and consists of
eight melodies as well. Unlike the rest of the recordings which
follow the Mardin tradition of the Western school of Syrian
Orthodox music, the following recording illustrates the East Syrian
Orthodox tradition, viz. that of the school of Tagrit.
- tubayk Afrot "blessed art thou
Aphrat". This qolo occurs in three hymnal cycles (CH,
Nat, Virg). Unlike the previous madroshe, this particular
one has only one melody in the abridged Beth Gazo. The
following recordings are taken from Nativitate XXV.1-X.
[17]
We conclude this section with another recording from
qolo d-tubayk Afrot with the same above melody, albeit
with a text taken from the liturgical tradition. This piece,
chanted by the young girls and boys of the Eastern US Syrian Orthodox Archdiocesan
Choir, is a living testimony to the continuity of St. Ephrem's tradition.
Audio
Conclusion
[18]
We demonstrated in this brief outline a somewhat loose, but
fascinating, connection between Ephrem's madroshe and
modern practice of the Syrian Orthodox Beth Gazo. To what
extent did Ephrem's music influence the Syriac-speaking
Church and how much of that is still preserved still awaits
investigation. There are numerous factors that complicate this
matter. For example, the qole titles that appear in Beck's
edition may be a later addition to Ephrem's composition. The
manuscript tradition needs to be further investigated in this regard.
[19]
In 1994, Brock (with Alison Salvesen reciting with him) demonstrated
at the SEERI conference in India how Ephrem's sugyotho may be
used today by the church in religious plays. Along a similar line, the
poetic structures of Ephrem's madroshe can be compared with
those of the existing hymns of the various Syriac Churches. Traditional
melodies can be applied to Ephrem's genuine work in this manner
giving the Syriac-speaking Church an opportunity to taste the
fruits of its forefathers. An edition of Ephrem's work for
"public consumption" that indicates to the modern
cleric how to chant the hymns would be highly desirable indeed.
______
