One of the greatest misunderstandings of the present age is the claim that music is an art that can be naively understood everywhere and in all cultures. Rather, its adequate understanding is always part of a cultural worldview. This applies especially to every kind of liturgical music, which can be rightly understood only from the respective religious concept. The present CD [Great Vespers] contains a special form of Christian church chant, namely German Orthodox Choral Chant, which from a historical point of view has “newly arisen”, yet builds on the most ancient Christian traditions. Its roots lie above all in Byzantine monastic traditions from the Holy Mountain Athos, while also taking account of Gregorian and Protestant tradition. In order to understand this chant correctly, a few introductory general remarks on the religious conception of the Orthodox Christian understanding of music may be useful.

Orthodox church chant is neither an “absolute musical artwork” nor the subjective expression of a composer, but a projection, born of divine revelation, of salvific cultic action. In the timelessness, the present, of the liturgy, it suspends historical causality and the normal concept of time, before and after. As an echo of divine beauty, chant is “inspired”, that is, transmitted by the Holy Spirit (spiritus, pneuma), in a state of visionary being seized, to prophets, saints and pious artists; therefore it is itself holy to a certain degree.

Since the development of polyphony from the Middle Ages (Notre-Dame organum) to the present, the cognitive concept inherited from antiquity, the undivided unity of word and music, has changed in Central Europe in both Catholic tradition (today’s transmission of Gregorian chant) and Protestant church song (Lutheran chorale). What has remained holy and efficacious is only the text, in Scripture and spoken, as prayer and sacramental speech act. Music is mere “setting to music”, that is, aesthetic and ethical elevation according to purely musical rules. Melos is something added, which can also be omitted, for example in the so-called service of the word, without impairing ritual efficacy.

By contrast stands the cognitive concept of the Orthodox choral tradition: the divine Logos, the “breathing of the divine breath” (Pneuma) in the sound of the word, thus in the form still most graspable for imperfect man, is the word as always already musical sound, heavenly harmony and primordial sound, Ison, which in turn “begets” the melos. Music and chant arise as vibrations of the air. The liturgical speech act, not the written text, is as Logos always also music. This music is not merely an adaptation of melody to speech rhythm and agogic nuance; rather, verbal and musical rhythm form an inseparable unity, just as “perfect” speaking is always also sung melody. When ancient Orpheus is understood in Byzantine iconography as a symbol of Christ, this refers precisely to this “magic” of chant as the perfect unity of music and efficacious language, which moves all living things and overcomes death.

The tonal system of the Orthodox churches is not based on the major-minor system, but on the eight modal scales of the Oktoechos: four authentic and four plagal (derived) modes, as well as the Legetos, a variant of the fourth mode. Each expresses a particular ethos, a spiritual basic mood. For Byzantine choral composers, the choice of mode (Echos) is not a matter of taste, but derives from this theological conception influenced by Neo-Platonic thought.

The “monophonic” chant melody is still notated in neumes, graphic signs made of strokes, hooks and points. It has no themes or motifs in the Western sense, but is organised in tonal space. It orients itself around prominent main tones, modal framework tones, of the Echos, which are circled by neighbouring tones (melismas) and form balanced, wide-ranging melodic arches of linear harmony. In the listener they create an inner psychic space-time structure, suspending before and after, transcend this into metaphysical realms, and thus depict an otherworldly world in the act of hearing. The aesthetic effect arises from the two-dimensional synthesis, within apparent monophony, of melodic figures (neumata) circling around a tonal plane and from the strict architecture of this tonal-plane dimension. Since the twelfth century, its course has been clarified by the changing Ison, the held tone sung by the choir, whose execution is orally transmitted. The Ison is not a harmonic drone accompaniment, but a linear underlining and sonic enrichment of the structural tones of the melody. And the choir that sings the Ison symbolises in the liturgy the unio mystica, the sounding enclosure and becoming one of the “communion of saints” with the Logos, the melodic unfolding of divine proclamation through the lead singer (Protopsaltis), who is the “proclaimer” and thus himself a celebrant.

In this sense, German Orthodox Choral Chant is not a mere “setting” of a liturgical text, but the “celebration” of the inspired message of salvation in its holistic sound-form, which can be adequately perceived by man.