Byelorussian Chant

[frost]

Dear Friends:

Christ Is Risen !

I am trying to locate a piece of music, which may not even exist !

My home parish in Kansas City was founded by Byelorussian and Carpatho-Russian immigrants. In the old days we used to sing a special melody for the Exapostilarion of Pascha, " Asleep in the flesh" (Plotiu Usnuv) that was labelled Byelorussian chant. I'm not sure if it was ever a published piece of music. I think that a priest recorded the notation after listening to the ladies sing the hymn. In any case, no-one in KC seems to have any record of the music anymore, and there are only a few of us that even remember this hymn. The chant was in three parts and was sung by women. It was a very beautiful piece and easy to sing. If anyone knows of this piece, I would greatly appreciate a source for the music.

Thanks,

Francis Frost

[Elisha]

If I remember, I'll ask my choir director (he's travelled to Valaam, Odessa, Georgia, Russian, etc. and knows a lot), but I don't think there is any such thing (as some unique "Byelorussian" chant).  This piece would just be part of the larger Carpatho-Russian/Znammeny/Prostopinjie genre.  I'm sure it is published somewhere in some book, but I think we need more info.  Have a sound clip? 

[frost]

Elisha:

Thank you for responding.

I'm afraid I don't have a recording. I could sing the melody; or write out the notes for the melody; but Idon't know how to record onto the computer or post the recording. I'll ask my wife if it's possible on our computer.( she's the techie in our house).

Thanks again.

Francis Frost

[Carpatho Russian]

Francis,
Check out the Metropolitan Cantor Institute website (http://www.metropolitancantorinstitute.org).
Under recordings, look for the Paschal Matins and click on Exapostilarion (Samopodoben, "Plotiju").  This is a recording, in English, of "In the flesh" in the Carpatho Rusyn Prostopinije.  Perhaps this is the melody you are looking  for.
Christ is Risen!
CR

[username!]

http://www.acrod.org/music/Prostopinije_7.mp3
Here is most likely what you are looking for.

http://www.acrod.org/listen.html is a list of Carpatho-Rusyn prostopinje mp3s that are on the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese website.

[Elisha]

http://www.acrod.org/music/Prostopinije_7.mp3
Here is most likely what you are looking for.

http://www.acrod.org/listen.html is a list of Carpatho-Rusyn prostopinje mp3s that are on the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese website.

Certainly not that rendition of it though - sounds like some folk singers performing a ballad.  The melody sounds rather similar (slightly different arrangement) of this from the Arcangel Voices Album.  I think the below is the best track on the album, but the same person reading the Homily of St. Chrysostom is the worst track - the completely wrong voice for it.

http://www.musicarussica.com/multimedia/clips/I70_trk12.mp3

[Elisha]

Francis,
Check out the Metropolitan Cantor Institute website (http://www.metropolitancantorinstitute.org).
Under recordings, look for the Paschal Matins and click on Exapostilarion (Samopodoben, "Plotiju").  This is a recording, in English, of "In the flesh" in the Carpatho Rusyn Prostopinije.  Perhaps this is the melody you are looking  for.
Christ is Risen!
CR

Technically, rather good.  Unfortunately it just lacks energy and doesn't say "Pascha" to me.

[Αριστοκλής]

Picky, picky!
Add your own energy. 

[Elisha]

Picky, picky!
Add your own energy. 

Yes, I am! 

[username!]

Certainly not that rendition of it though - sounds like some folk singers performing a ballad.  The melody sounds rather similar (slightly different arrangement) of this from the Arcangel Voices Album.  I think the below is the best track on the album, but the same person reading the Homily of St. Chrysostom is the worst track - the completely wrong voice for it.

http://www.musicarussica.com/multimedia/clips/I70_trk12.mp3

Geez, I was trying to help  It's some priests from their new england deanery singing that.  Folk music?  That happens to be sort of what much of the music you are looking for sounds a lot like, easy to sing, simple, and congregational.   

[username!]

Francis,
Check out the Metropolitan Cantor Institute website (http://www.metropolitancantorinstitute.org).
Under recordings, look for the Paschal Matins and click on Exapostilarion (Samopodoben, "Plotiju").  This is a recording, in English, of "In the flesh" in the Carpatho Rusyn Prostopinije.  Perhaps this is the melody you are looking  for.
Christ is Risen!
CR

Well this is a link to the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic version of prostopinije, which is different than what the Orthodox use in several ways.
a) it was the Mukachevo dialect, Orthodox use Presov dialect
b) The former Professor of Music for the Sts. Cyril and Methodius Seminary and for the entire Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church re-wrote their prostopinije and the language through many peoples' actions got re-written.  This significantly changed how their prostopinije sounds when sang.

[Orest]

If I remember, I'll ask my choir director (he's travelled to Valaam, Odessa, Georgia, Russian, etc. and knows a lot), but I don't think there is any such thing (as some unique "Byelorussian" chant).  This piece would just be part of the larger Carpatho-Russian/Znammeny/Prostopinjie genre.   

Christ is Risen!
Xpuctoc Bockpec!

I find it hard to believe that a country as large as Byelorussia now called Belarus does not have its own unique liturgical traditions and chants.

Afterall, Ukraine has a number of different chants and even regional chants.

Orest

[stephen]

Sorry to be replying so late, but it appears that the query of this thread was more or less left hanging.

Bielarus’ does indeed have a chant tradition. It is similar to that of Ukraine and Carpathian Rus’, but with the inevitable local distinctive characteristics. The Suprasl’ Irmologion, written ca. 1600, is one of handful of irmologia dating from the last years of the sixteenth and first years of the seventeenth century that are the oldest sources of Orthodox liturgical singing in staff notation--the square-headed Kievan notation, of course--and a very important historical source for Orthodox church singing.

Why, then, is this tradition so little known? Prof. Jasynovs’kyj's superb catalogue of manuscript Irmologia lists some 1100 manuscripts, but the Bielarusian mss among them are only 75 in number, a startlingly low figure.

The reason for this, I fear, is discreditable to Orthodoxy. As many members of this forum will recall, the Poles took control of Bielarus’ (from the Lithuanians) in the sixteenth century, just at the time when they were abandoning the policy of religious tolerance that had previously characterized the Polish-Lithuanian state. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the Unia enjoyed considerable success in Bielarus’. The partitions of Poland in the late eighteenth century brought Bielarus’ under Russian rule, but many of the Uniates were unwilling to return to Orthodoxy. After the Polish Rising of 1830-31 (in which Lithuanians and Bielarusians participated along with Poles), St Petersburg was determined to wipe out this Unia, and there was widespread resistance from the Bielarusians. The result was harsh repression: several villages were the scenes of massacres, a large number of priests were sent to Siberia, and so on. One feature of this repression is particularly relevant here: Bishop Siemashko, who presided over the (largely involuntary) return of Bielarus’ to Orthodoxy, ordered the church books found in Uniate churches burnt.

These books differed in a number of ways from the Russian norm, not because of any latinization or Uniate influence but because they preserved old local Orthodox tradition that often preserved either old Orthodox traditions lost in Russia or local Orthodox usages differing from those of historical Muscovy. Among the books destroyed in the massive vandalism were, of course, the chant books.  And as in Ukraine, once the Bielarusians fell under the Holy Synod of the Russian Church, they were dragooned into conformity with Russian usage.

This is the major reason why the old Bielarusian tradition of Orthodox church singing is largely lost today.

Stephen

[Elisha]

Ummm, are you the Stephen R that I know from the Portland, OR area?  (I'm holding back - if you are, I can out your last name.) 

If so, everyone, then he is your expert on music of Southwestern Rus'.

[stephen]

Yes, the very same.

Stephen

[Michał Kalina]

There You have two pieces of Belarusian church music. I know that BAOC isn't canonical church, but it has reconstructed Belarusian orthodox traditions, which can't be said about canonical Church of Belarus. Regretably I don't know much about church music, but it can be helpful for these, who do. Maybe this will help You to decide, whether there is separate Belarusian chant, or not

[Tags:]

OrthodoxChristianity.net > Moderated Forums > Liturgy (Moderator: arimethea) > Topic: Byelorussian Chant