Psalm Composition in Middle- and Late Byzantium

Psalm composition is among the least explored topics of Byzantine chant, although psalmody constitutes the basic structure and outline of the daily offices and the liturgy. The texts of the 150 biblical psalms of the psalter are central to the whole of the Byzantine culture and its rituals. They were set to music repeatedly throughout the centuries in a multitude of different settings and styles and inspired a large number of com posers, both known and unknown. Indeed, Byzantine music is not conceivable without psalmody. So far, psalmcompositions have either been examined cursorily in the context of other genres or in sep arate studies that dealt with one psalm/psalmcomplex at a time. Moreover, the focus has hitherto been on the florid, melismatic LateByzantine compositions and not on the early syllabic settings that have come to be known as simple psalmody. A diachronic investigation of the history of Byzantine psalm composition from the beginnings in the 10th/11th c. until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 as such does not yet exist. Simple psalmody is of such vital importance for the study of Byzantine chant because it seems to hold the key to the understanding of the composition of psalms: It is assumed that these simple settings provide a kind of basic structure that would eventually constitute the backbone of the more elaborate melismatic psalms. Moreover, these early settings seem to have been modelverses consisting mainly of the first verse of one or more psalms which were written according to the Byzantine modal system. Thus, there seems to have existed a system of psalmtones from the earliest times on, although no explicit reference to them can be found in medieval Byzantine theoretical treatises.