Echos


Echos is the name in Byzantine music theory for a mode within the eight-mode system, each of them ruling several melody types, and it is used in the melodic and rhythmic composition of Byzantine chant, differentiated according to the chant genre and according to the performance style. It is akin to a Western medieval tonus, an Andalusian tab', an Arab naġam, or a Persian parde.

Overview and semantics

The noun echos in Greek means "sound" in general. It acquired the specialized meaning of mode early on in the development of Byzantine music theory since the Octoechos reform in 692.
In general, the concept of echos denotes a certain octave species, its intervallic structure as well as a set of more or less explicitly formulated melodic rules and formulae that represent a certain category of melodies within the musical genre. As such, echos is the basis for composing or improvising new melodies that belong to it, as well as for properly performing existing pieces that have been written in it. These rules include the distinction of a hierarchy of degrees, where certain degrees figure as cadence notes around which the melody will revolve prominently, or on which the melody will end most of the time. However, only very late stages of the theory actually provide systematic descriptions of echoi, while earlier stages use mostly diagrams, indirect descriptions and examples. Explicit detailed descriptions must still be provided based on extensive analysis, as is the case with modal phenomena in numerous other cultures.

History and reconstruction

Early treatises only state the initial or "base" degree which is the tone sung as a burden by certain singers of the choir called isokrates in order to support any melody composed in a certain echos. By this support singers could easily recognise the relative position of each note as it was organised by tetrachords based on the basis note of each echos. This base degree of the mode was communicated by an intonation formula of a foresinger, known as enechema.
File:ChrysanthosOktoechosBaseis.png|thumb|400px|center|The "martyriai of the echoi" and the "martyriai of the phthongoi" in the disposition of the "Diapason system" no longer represent the diapente between kyrios and plagios in the diatonic trochos system. Note that the deuteros and tetartos have exchanged their position within the modern Octoechos, since they are represented as mesoi.
There are different styles by which to notate enechema which are crucial to the understanding of the different chant books and their notation. All these forms were written in red ink. The explicit long form was called by Jørgen Raasted intonation, but only the books of the cathedral rite used such explicit intonations, also between the sections, where these intonations were called medial intonation. This explicit form made sense, since the intonation also communicated the changes between the left and the right choir and their leaders performed these intonations to coordinate these changes. There was a short form as well which was called modal signature. It indicated the echos by the numeral like πλα' for "plagios protos," while the neumes sung with the last syllable of the enechema were written above right to the numeral. This short form was used in two different ways, as main signature it indicated the echos of a whole composition, but especially in sticheraria notators also wrote medial signatures between the neumes above a kolon of the text, in order to indicate that the melos changed here into another echos. The traditional Greek term for these medial signatures was "martyria", since the medial signature also "testified" the phthongos of the cadence made at the kolon.

of the dialogue treatise

Within the dialogue treatise a catalogue of short formulas memorizes each echos of the Hagiopolitan octoechos and its two phthorai. These formulas are also called "echemata" —or more often "enechemata" or "apechemata". The use echemata was also imitated by Carolingian cantors who used similar intonation formulas and collected them in a separate book called tonary.
Περὶ πλαγίων
Ἀπο τοῦ πλαγίου πρώτου ἤχου πάλιν καταβαίνεις τέσσαρας φωνάς, καὶ εὑρίσκεται πάλιν πλάγιος πρώτου· ὅυτως δὲ /
ἄνανε ἄνες ἀνὲ ἄνες·
File:Enechemata.jpg|center|thumb|400px|alt="You descend 4 steps from the echos protos and you will find again the plagios protos, this way ."|Intonation according to Erotapokriseis and standard intonation of echos protos: "You descend 4 steps from the echos protos and you will find again the plagios protos, this way"
Ὁμοίως καὶ ὁ β' ἤχος καταβαίνων φωνάς δ', εὑρίσκεις τὸν πλάγιον αὐτοῦ, ἤγουν τὸν πλάγιον τοῦ δευτέρου.
πλ Β οὕτως δέ.
File:Enechemata.jpg|center|thumb|400px|alt=You do the same way in echos devteros. If you descend 4 steps to find its plagios, i.e. πλ β', thus .|Intonation according to Erotapokriseis and standard intonation of echos devteros: "You do the same way in echos devteros. If you descend 4 steps to find its plagios, i.e. πλ β', thus"
Ὁμοίως πάλιν ὁ τρίτος καταβαίνεις φωνὰς τέσσαρας, καὶ εὑρίσκεται ὁ πλάγιος αὐτοῦ, ἤγουν ὁ βαρύς, οὕτως·
File:Enechemata.jpg|center|thumb|600px|alt=Hence, you descend four steps from echos tritos 4 steps and you will find its plagios which is called 'grave', this way .|Intonation according to Erotapokriseis and standard intonation of echos tritos: "Hence, you descend four steps from echos tritos and you will find its plagios which is called 'grave', this way"
Ὁμοίως καὶ ἀπὸ τὸν τέταρτον καταβαίνων φωνὰς τέσσαρας, εὑρίσκεις τὸν πλάγιον αὐτοῦ, ὡς ἐστὶ ὁ πλ δ'οὕτως·
File:Enechemata.jpg|center|thumb|400px|alt=Also from echos tetartos you descend 4 steps and you will find its plagios, which is πλ δ', like this way .|Intonation according to Erotapokriseis and standard intonation of echos tetartos: "Also from echos tetartos you descend 4 steps and you will find its plagios, which is πλ δ', like this way"

The enechemata of the medieval eight diatonic echoi already present a fundamental difference to the Carolingian octoechos:
  • the kyrios and plagios do use the same octave species, but their basis tone with the ison is on the top of the pentachord within the mele of kyrioi echoi, while it is on the bottom within the mele of plagioi echoi;
  • the octave species are different as well from the Western octoechos as from the New Method, which had adapted the fret scheme of the tambur fingerboard as the common tonal reference for all Ottoman musicians. Traditional protopsaltes at Athos and Istanbul who belong to local schools of the eighteenth century, do indeed not follow the Chrysanthine intonation, they always intone a pentachord on a pure fifth between the bases of echos varys and kyrios tritos.
  • there is no absolute nor fixed position of the octave species. Sticheraric and papadic chant genres exploit not only the possibility to change between the echoi, but also the characteristic that every note has an echos defined by the octoechos. A register change is usually arranged by a transposition about a fifth, which turns a kyrios into a plagios and vice versa. Also other temporary transpositions are possible, but not frequent.
  • the ruling tone system is tetraphonic and based on fifth equivalence which allows the fore mentioned register changes. Heptaphonia exist only on the level of a melos within a certain echos. Changes to the triphonic system are indicated by the phthora nana.
  • except of a pure diatonic octoechos the chromatic and enharmonic genus is not excluded, since even the Hagiopolitan octoechos accepted the use of two phthorai.

    Echemata of the Papadikai and their modern interpretation

More information on the structure of echoi is only indicated in a very rudimentary way through diagrams involving neumes—the Byzantine round notation. The details of the actual intervallic and melodic structure of echoi are virtually impossible to deduce from theoretical treatises prior to the 18th century. In fact, only relatively late systematic comparisons of the echoi with the makamlar of Ottoman court music, such as those by the Kyrillos Marmarinos, Archbishop of Tinos, in his manuscript dated 1747, and the reform of the Byzantine notation by Chrysanthos of Madytos at the first half of the 19th century make it possible to understand the structure of echoi and to attempt reconstructions of melodies from earlier manuscripts.
He already introduced his readers into the diatonic genus and its phthongoi in the 5th chapter of the first book, called "About the parallage of the diatonic genus". In the 8th chapter he demonstrates, how the intervals can be found on the fingerboard of the tambur.
Hence, the phthongoi of the diatonic genus had been defined according to the proportions, as they were later called the "soft chroa of the diatonic genus". For Chrysanthos this was the only diatonic genus, as far as it had been used since the early church musicians, who memorised the phthongoi by the intonation formulas of the Papadic Octoechos. In fact, he did not use the historical intonations, he rather translated them in the Koukouzelian wheel in the 9th chapter according to a current practice of parallage, which was common to 18th-century versions of Papadike:
Τὸ δὲ Πεντάχορδον, τὸ ὁποῖον λέγεται καὶ Τροχὸς, περιέχει διαστήματα τέσσαρα, τὰ ὁποῖα καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς μὲν εἶναι τόνοι. Περιορίζονται δὲ τὰ τέσσαρα διαστήματα ταῦτα ἀπὸ φθόγγους πέντε.
The pentachord which was also called wheel, contains four intervals which we regard as certain tones . The four intervals spanned five phthongoi:

πα βου γα δι Πα
These five stations of the pentachord could be memorised by the echemata of the kyrioi echoi in ascending direction or by those of the plagioi echoi in descending direction. Each of these echemata had the potential to develop an own melos within its melody types:
Each echema is followed by the incipit of a sticheron idiomelon which illustrates a certain melos of the echos. The following book Kekragarion illustrates, how the hesperinos psalm κύριε ἐκέκραξα has to be sung according to the sticheraric melos of each echos. The Kekragarion was later included in the printed editions of the Anastasimatarion or Voskresnik.