On the Issue of the 16-Mode System, in the Theoretikal Treatises on Music by Grigor Gapasakalian
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Keywords: Armenian Octoechos, 16-Mode System, Grigor Gapasakalian.
Author: Anna S. Arevshatyan
About the author
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7578-8275
e-mail: anna_arevshatyan@hotmail.com
Doctor of Art History, Lead Researcher of Music Department of Institute of Arts, National Academy of Sciences of Republic of Armenia
24g Marshal Baghramyan Ave., Yerevan 374019, Republic of Armenia
Professor of Department of Armenian Musical Folkloristics of Yerevan State Conservatory Komitas
1а Sayat-Nova St., Yerevan 374010, Republic of Armenia
Submitted on: 15.08.2019
Published on: 15.04.2020
Abstract
Throughout its history, the church chanting practice and chant writing has constantly gone beyond the framework established by the ecclesiastical canon of the Octoechos. This can be clearly seen in the analysis of melodic samples of the most diverse hymnographic national traditions. The article is dedicated to the 16-mode system mentioned in the theoretical treatises on music by the prominent Armenian music theorist from Constantinople Grigor Gapasakalian (1740–1808) — the Small Book Called Music Collection, the Book on Music and the Book of Octoehos. The study of these writings points out to an “extended canon” that included 4 essential, 4 plagal, 4 medial and 4 phtoral modes, these corresponding to the 16-mode system of the “asma” in the
byzantine theory of church music. This clarifies the essence and purpose of the 16-mode system, which existed both among the Greeks and Armenians. This testifies to the fact that it is a complex, ramified and multi-tiered original modal system, which nonetheless does not exhaust the modal variety of live chanting art.
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For citation: Arevshatyan, Аnna S. “On the Issue of the 16-Mode System in the Theoretical Treatises on Music by Grigor Gapasakalian.” In Оpera musicologica, vol. 12, no. 1 (2020), pp. 40–52 (in Russian). DOI: 10.26156/OM.2020.12.1.003.