Special Melodies

[Adelphi]

Hello all.
I am trying to learn the Special Melodies of the Russian Slavonic and Greek traditions. The notes are what I am after. I have the Sputnik Psalomshchika (спутник псаломщика) and can read the square notation, but there are many Special Melodies not included in that publication.
Among those I am searching for (but there must be many more) are:

Tone 1                               Thy tomb, O Saviour…; O wondrous miracle… (not to be confused with O all-glorious wonder… tone 8, which I have;
Tone 2                               Seeking the highest…; The steadfast…;
Tone 3                               Awed by the beauty of thy virginity…; Of the divine faith…;  the celebrated "Today the Virgin…";
Tone 4                               Thou hast given a sign…; Thou hast appeared today…; Joseph marvelled…; Go thou quickly before…;
Tone 5  (Plagal 1)                The Word Who is equally unoriginate…;
Tone 6  (Plagal 2)                Fulfilling the dispensation concerning us…;
Tone 7  (Grave)
Tone 8  (Plagal 4)               Of the wisdom…;  Thy martyrs, O Lord…;  and the celebrated "To thee the champion leader…";  



These exapostilaria:           To the disciples… no tone —; As the disciples watched… no tone—; Heaven with stars… no tone  —  exapostilaria. Why does the Menaion not indicate a tone for these exapostilaria? (Russian tradition, English translation of the Menaion.)

Another question: Does anyone know why the sessional hymns and exapostilaria are sometimes not sung to their tones in the Russian tradition? My experience of the Greek is that they always chant in full the sessional hymns after the kathismata, even if they don't read the psalter!

Eagerly awaiting the response of you knowledgeable chanters, canonarchs and ecclesiarchs,
Adelphi

Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. Prov. 23:23

[bogdan]

Tone 1, Joy in the Ranks of Heaven is another special melody

Some sheet music can be found doing a Google website search on sites that host sheet music, such as OCA.org or St John Chrysostom in St Louis. For example:

site:http://russianorthodox-stl.org tone 4

Having transitioned from the Byzantine to the Slavic tradition myself, I think the Russian system is more complicated just by the sheer number of variations. Aside from the special melodies (found in Byzantine music as well), the Slavic system has different sets of tones. There are 8 troparia tones, 8 canon tones, 8 stichera tones, etc, in addition to the special melodies.

I wish I could be of more help in actually finding the music, but I am not very knowledgable about these things aside from the above. Best of luck!

[jamesdm49]

Hello all.
I am trying to learn the Special Melodies of the Russian Slavonic and Greek traditions. The notes are what I am after. I have the Sputnik Psalomshchika (спутник псаломщика) and can read the square notation, but there are many Special Melodies not included in that publication.
Among those I am searching for (but there must be many more) are:

Tone 1                               Thy tomb, O Saviour…; O wondrous miracle… (not to be confused with O all-glorious wonder… tone 8, which I have;
Tone 2                               Seeking the highest…; The steadfast…;
Tone 3                               Awed by the beauty of thy virginity…; Of the divine faith…;  the celebrated "Today the Virgin…";
Tone 4                               Thou hast given a sign…; Thou hast appeared today…; Joseph marvelled…; Go thou quickly before…;
Tone 5  (Plagal 1)                The Word Who is equally unoriginate…;
Tone 6  (Plagal 2)                Fulfilling the dispensation concerning us…;
Tone 7  (Grave)
Tone 8  (Plagal 4)               Of the wisdom…;  Thy martyrs, O Lord…;  and the celebrated "To thee the champion leader…";  



These exapostilaria:           To the disciples… no tone —; As the disciples watched… no tone—; Heaven with stars… no tone  —  exapostilaria. Why does the Menaion not indicate a tone for these exapostilaria? (Russian tradition, English translation of the Menaion.)

Another question: Does anyone know why the sessional hymns and exapostilaria are sometimes not sung to their tones in the Russian tradition? My experience of the Greek is that they always chant in full the sessional hymns after the kathismata, even if they don't read the psalter!

Eagerly awaiting the response of you knowledgeable chanters, canonarchs and ecclesiarchs,
Adelphi

Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. Prov. 23:23

There is a discussion group on yahoo that deals with this topic. I would say that is your best bet. Here is the link:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/podoben/

David James

[arimethea]

These exapostilaria:           To the disciples… no tone —; As the disciples watched… no tone—; Heaven with stars… no tone  —  exapostilaria. Why does the Menaion not indicate a tone for these exapostilaria? (Russian tradition, English translation of the Menaion.)

Most exapostolaria are in Tone 2. Everyone of the Eothonia Exapostolaria, that are chanted on Sundays, are in Tone 2. Festal exapostolaria most often are in Tone 3, with a few remaining in the typical Tone 2. The special melodies for Tone 3 are "Behold thy Bridal Chamber..." or "The Apostles assembled..."

In the Russian tradition, the Eothonia hymns are usually just read; festal exapostolaria are composed with no tone in mind.

[Adelphi]

Thank you all very much for your input. I'll definitely check out the yahoo group. I like the Greek custom of singing everything myself. Our Russian Church has only recently started singing the Antiphons for Sunday Matins before Gospel (the Glory both now only).

[MarkosC]

Holy Transfiguration Monastery has a CD of all the prosomia in English, according to the generally rceived Grerek melodies (www.thehtm.org, Byzantine prosomia CD).  Analogion I believe has most, maybe all, of them in Greek on MP3 (if you'd like a link I can dig it up).  They're not great recordings but they get the job done.

Be advised that there are several styles and minor variants to these melodies, depending often only on who's singing.  

Markos

[Adelphi]

Thanks to everyone.
I went to the library to download a lot of stuff from the yahoogroups site. excellent. I hope I have nearly everything I need now. God bless you all.

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