Barrett, Richard. “Byzantine Chant, Authenticity and Identity: Musicological Historiography through the Eyes of Folklore.” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 55, no. 1–4 (2010): 181–98.
In this paper, Barrett contributes to the discussion of Byzantine music and its relationships with identity, nationalism, and politics. He approaches the subject of Byzantine chant from the perspective of ethnomusicology, in an attempt to investigate the meaning of “authenticity.”
Barrett begins by citing John Finley, who in an address to the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America expressed concern that “ancient” Orthodox music is in fact remarkably modern. Finley argued that Byzantine music should be altered and modernized to suit American tastes. After all, if the received tradition is not really authentic why should further changes be problematic? In contrast to this line of thought, Barrett also presents the views of Alexander Lingas, who asserted that Byzantine music is “part of a continuous tradition reaching back into the Middle Ages” (184, citing Lingas 140). Barrett attempts to illuminate this historiographical disconnect by turning to the Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae (MMB), a Western organization founded to transcribe Byzantine chant into Western notation. In so doing, they omitted many elements that were integral to Greek singing but were not notated. Yet another musicologist, a Greek named Simon Karas, argued these unwritten conventions are the “very elements that made [the received tradition] authentic” (186). In fact, he claimed that they are the “authentically Greek” elements, which the Arabs, Turks, and Persians drew on in their musical traditions.
Barrett next analyzes these various historiographies. He argues that nationalist motives are inextricable from the creation of these narratives. The narrative Karas presents is clearly nationalistic, in that he aligns Byzantine and Hellenic identity through music while presenting this common music as “original” and “authentic.” But even the work of the Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae is “but another path up the same mountain” (188). By claiming that Greek music is “tainted” by Ottoman and other foreign influences, they undermine the legitimacy of Karas’ claim. Although this view may not be precisely nationalistic, it is certainly part of the discourse of nationalism.
Barrett argues that another tension also plays a key role in historiography: the divide between “real scholars” and “amateurs.” There may be legitimate concerns about verifiability and trustworthiness, but many concerns over the “scholarliness” of a work manifests as condescension. For instance, the MMB dismissed much of Karas’ work because it was “amateur” and he was too “close” to his subject. In this way, the MMB could present its “quest” for “original purity” as a moral matter: they are rescuing the sullied and defaced received tradition. These discourses influence and are influenced by institutions like the MMB and the Greek Orthodox Church.
Barrett briefly discusses current scholarship. He says that musicologists working on medieval vocal technique now see it as “decidedly different from that of later centuries” (191). In fact, this tradition seems to have its origins in Roman singing – a tradition that might also have been the source of Byzantine chant. Another view, drawn from an ethnography of singing in the Estonian Orthodox Church, is that what matters is not “real” authenticity but the perception thereof. Even if nobody can say for certain what the “real” status of Byzantine music is, the very idea that it is authentic deeply shapes notions of identity, religion, and nationalism.
Returning to Finley, Barrett discusses what authenticity means for him – an Orthodox Christian, to be sure, but an Anglophone American one. Barrett notes again that the “real” authenticity is not important. What matters is that “the received tradition of ψαλμωδία does not mesh with Finley’s American identity, and therefore is not authentic to his own experience” (193). In my opinion, this is the best conclusion to draw from the conflicting narratives of “authentic Byzantine music” amassed over the years: not to get caught up in musical details, but to examine the ways people use debates over these musical details. As Barrett puts it in his conclusion, discussing what authenticity meant (and still means) “will provide more satisfying answers to how authenticity is represented in quality of lived experience than arguments over whether microtonal melismatic monophony is authentically Byzantine enough, whatever authentic actually means and whatever Byzantine actually means” (194).