THE CHERUBIC HYMN

Boyarina (Lady) Yelizaveta Medvedeva, CM, OT
Barony of Carolingia, EK

Copyright 1997 by Elizabeth Lear


BACKGROUND:

znamenny - religious chants, believed to have Byzantine origins but
heavily influenced by folk music to create a uniquely Russian style.

Liturgical chants are the only accurately recorded Russian music of the 
middle ages and Renaissance.  Unlike folk songs, chants were notated in 
song books at least as early as the 11th century.  These "libri usuales" were 
used during services and were collected and copied by scribes throughout 
the Renaissance period.  There are twenty-six original libri still in 
existence from the Kievan period of 11th-13th centuries, and a monastery 
in Pskov has books of liturgical melodies from the 16th century.  

Znamenny were used to illuminate and ornament the liturgy text, in much 
the same way as Gregorian and Byzantine chants. The canticle books often 
had patterns at the back that composers were expected to use when writing 
new znamenny.  This made sure the new chants would fit in with the 
previous material.  Like many arts of the medieval period, the best 
composers were those who came closest in style and skill to their masters, 
not someone who was doing something new.  Church singing, like folk 
song, grew gradually and did not have credited composers until the era of 
Ivan the Great.  Ivan himself is credited with writing a few znamennys.   


DATING THE PIECE:

This piece is an example of a polyphonic znamenny chant, which was 
already referred to as an established form of music by the 1550s.  In 1557, 
Ivan the Great brought a number of Novgorodian singing masters to 
Moscow.  In that group was Vasily Rogov, mentioned as "a composer of 
troestrochnyi   (three-voiced) and demestvenny  singing".

Russian polyphony comprises usually three, more rarely two or four, 
voices that closely follow the melodic contour and rhythmic notation of a 
given chant melody.  The middle voice commonly carries the actual chant, 
and the three voices come together in unison or cross in a manner much 
like Russian folk heterophony.

Prior to the emergence of western notation in the 1600s all Russian 
liturgical music was notated in kurik neumes.  This version of The 
Cherubic Hymn is dated 17th century, but it's fairly certain that this notates 
the date of its transcription into western notation and not the date of its 
composition.  That was a common occurance with music at that time.