Petros Peloponnesios

Petros Peloponnesios ("Peter the Peloponnesian") or Peter the Lampadarios (c. 1735 Tripolis–1778 Constantinople) was a great cantor, composer and teacher of Byzantine and Ottoman music. He must have served as second Domestikos between his arrival about 1764 until the death of Ioannes Trapezountios, and it is assumed that he became Lampadarios (leader of the left choir) between 1770 and 1778 at the Great Church of Constantinople, after Daniel the Protopsaltes became Archon Protopsaltes. Large parts of the monodic chant sung in several current traditions of Orthodox Chant are transcriptions of his compositions, which he had written down as a teacher of the "New Music School of the Patriarchate".

Life

Petros was born at Tripolis (Morea) between 1730 and 1740.[1] According to Georgios Papadopoulos he was educated in the monastic communities of Smyrna.[2] In 1764 he came to Constantinople to study with Ioannes Trapezountios, the Archon Protopsaltes, while Daniel like Ioannes student of Panagiotes Halacoğlu was Lampadarios at the Great Church of Constantinople. Petros could serve there as second domestikos who was usually in charge to notate the versions sung by the cantors with the higher ranks. Between 1770 and 1778 he served as lampadarios (leader of the left choir), until he became ill.[3]

Jean Baptiste Vanmour: Whirling dervishes in the Tekke of Peran (18th-century painting in the collection of the Rijksmuseum)

Together with Iakovos the Protopsaltes, the first domestikos between 1764 and 1776, he followed the first Archon Protopsaltes Daniel as official teacher of the New Music School of the Patriarchate in 1776. He also taught Petros Byzantios he chose as second domestikos after being announced as lampadarios, and composed many exercises (mathemata) for his students. The term "mathemata" usually referred to the kalophonic way to embellish the old stichera (sticheron kalophonikon, anagrammatismos), the old heirmoi, certain theotokia or kontakia.[4] Its method was usually taught by John Koukouzeles' «Mega Ison».[5]

Within other musical traditions of the Ottoman empire Petros had a very exceptional knowledge of makamlar, probably even of Armenian chant, and even if he did not invent the new analytical way to use Middle Byzantine notation, he had the reputation to have a very profound understanding of music which enabled him to notate music after just have listened to it once, even music which was not composed according to the octoechos. He also had the reputation of being a rather intrigant musician. On the one hand, Hafiz invited him and were very eager to learn even makam melodies from him (probably rather a Greek way of developing them), on the other hand, he was called "Hırsız" (thief) and "Hoca Petros" (teacher), because he had many students coming from a different traditional background. Since he could easily memorise compositions and he liked to change them and perform them in such a convincing way, that some musicians asked for his "permission", before they published them.[6] Petros was also strongly associated with the Mevlevi tekke in Peran.[7] But he was not the first Archon Protopsaltes of the Greet Church who had an interest in makam music documented by neume transcriptions of makam music, already Panagiotes Halacoğlu who preceded Ioannes as Archon Protopsaltes (ca. 1726-1736), had it.[8] Halacoğlu's student Kyrillos Marmarinos transcribed makamlar into Byzantine neumes and both wrote treatises about it.[9]

Petros was in his forties, when he died during a plague in Constantinople which killed a third of its population.

Petros' contribution to church and makam music

Petros Peloponnesios' realisation of the Doxastikon oktaechon Θεαρχίῳ νεύματι (Dormition of the Theotokos, 15 August), eighth section of echos plagios tetartos (C—c transposed on the phthongos κε=a) in a copy of his «Doxastarion syntomon» by Anastasios Proikonesios (GB-Bm, Ms. Gr. 7, fol. 70v)

His reputation as an important teacher and composer is mainly based on his vast contributions concerning the Heirmologion (Katavaseion or Heirmologion argon, printed the first time in transcription in 1825) and the short or simple Sticherarion (Doxastarion syntomon, printed the first time in transcription in 1820). These innovations of Orthodox chant had been written during his last years and parts of it were likely continued by his second domestikos Petros Byzantios who followed him as lampadarios, but also as teacher at the New Music School of the Patriarchate. According to Chrysanthos Petros Peloponnesios' realisations for the Anthology of the Divine Liturgies (like the Papadic cherubikon, and koinonikon cycles) were already written, while he was still second domestikos and not supposed to contribute with own compositions.[10] Petros composed two cycles of cherubika for the weekdays, unlike other composers who composed in all eight echoi, his cycles follow the order of the weekly koinonika (protos for Monday, varys for Tuesday, tetartos for Wednesday, plagios tetartos for Thursday, and plagios protos for Friday). Later as lampadarios, Petros did not simply transcribe and contribute to the new hyphos created by his masters Ioannes and Daniel, he also studied the Byzantine tradition as well as innovative Protopsaltes of the Ottoman period like Petros Bereketis.[11] Although it is not clear, whether Georgios Papadopoulos was right that Petros stole makam music, since the author rather compiled earlier Ottoman anecdotes in his biography of Petros, the latter had a certain reputation to usurp the contribution to the hyphos by other composers like Ioannes the Protopsaltes and Daniel the Protopsaltes as his own work, especially of those he was charged to transcribe as a second domestikos.[12] Sometimes he simply pointed at the hyphos project he shared with Daniel the Protopsaltes and other students of Ioannes. He did not write down the background of a traditional melos as was the traditional synoptic use of notation, but also details of a personal realisation like in case of the doxastikon of Kassia's troparion, which he specified “in imitation of Daniel the Protopsaltes”.

Petros Peloponnesios' abridged Doxastarion was one of the first transcriptions of idiomela according to a new simple "hyphos"-style which was created by Ioannes Trapezountios. The necessity for such an abridgement followed a request by Patriarch Cyril V in 1756, after the melos of the old sticherarion in the tradition of 17th-century composers like Georgios Raidestinos, Panagiotes the New Chrysaphes, and Germanos of New Patras had become too elaborated.[13] Petros' Doxastarion and its rhythmic style was very controversially discussed among the other teachers at the New Music School of the Patriarchate, especially by Petros' rival Iakovos. The dispute was followed by alternative editions, and the hyphos was continued as an oral tradition among traditionalist protopsaltes like Konstantinos Byzantios, Georgios Raidestinos II, Iakovos Nafpliotes, and Konstantinos Pringos.

Petros' reputation was not limited to the field of Orthodox chant, he also "composed" and transcribed other genres of Armenian and Turkish music (even composers of the 14th century), including Ottoman makam genres like Peşrev, Taksim and Saz semai which were usually included in cyclic compositions known as Fasıl, but also makam compositions following usul rhythms over Greek texts (Tragodia rhomaïka).[14] According to Kyriakos Kalaitzides between three and five manuscripts with Makam transcriptions written by Petros' hand have survived, where Petros did also suggest their cyclic organisation as Fasıl.[15] With the Codex Gritsanis 3 Petros created one of the most important collections of classical Ottoman music between the 14th and the 18th centuries.

Works

The following list refers to the common ascription of the largest repertoire of monodic Orthodox chant to Petros, except the Anastasimatarion syntomon, ascribed to Petros by Chrysanthos and contemporary scribes, but nowadays regarded as a contribution by Daniel the Protopsaltes.[16] Concerning the Koinonikon cycle, some Anthologies present two different cycles, one of them is supposed to be composed by Petros.[17] The ascription of such a big part to Petros is still a controversial issue, even if his contribution can hardly be underestimated. He obviously had a key role as a notator of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, but this became the charge of the Second Domestikos who had to transcribe the first realisations of the hyphos as it was performed by the first domestikos, the lampadarios, and the archon protopsaltes.

Books

Hesperinos

Mesonyktikon and Orthros

Great Compline (Lenten period)

Triodion of the Doxastarion argon

Divine Liturgy

Cherubim chant

Communion chant

Older psaltic compositions

Mathemata and kratemata

Heirmologion kalophonikon

Sticherarion kalophonikon

Makam music

The recent research by Kyriakos Kalaitzides has analysed 72 manuscripts which have makam music transcribed into Greek neumes between the 15th and the 19th centuries. Within this repertoire more than 100 compostions are ascribed to Petros, among them about 14 Phanariot songs.[21] He also transcribed many other Ottoman composers. Although there are no contributions by Panagiotes Halacoğlu, Ioannes' teacher, his school together with Kyrillos Marmarinos' transcription of makam seyirler seems to be an essential contribution which encouraged other Phanariotes to follow his example. In comparison 2 makam compositions by Kyrillos survived, 2 others by Ioannes. There is no composition ascribed to Daniel, but the music manuscripts written by himself had been burnt in its library, and most of the makam music transcribed by Petros have no ascriptions at all. 12 compositions are ascribed to Iakovos the Protopsaltes, 10 to Petros' student Petros Byzantios, even Gregorios the Protopsaltes who was a student of the Mevlevi composer Dede Efendi, left not more than 31 compositions in sources with Greek neumes. The very truth behind Petros' reputation as Hırsız ("thief") as it was documented by Georgios Papadopoulos, is that Petros had a crucial role as a notator of the Patriarchate, despite his short life time and his early announcement as lampadarios, he must have continued to fulfill his former duties as a second domestikos even as lampadarios. But the difficult question of authorship has to be revealed by further research.

Reception

In the current tradition of Orthodox chant, known as "Psaltike" (the heritage of Byzantine psaltic art), the contributions of Petros Peloponnesios (his Katavasies for the Heirmologion, his Doxastarion and many of his compositions for the Anthology of the liturgies) are dominant in the neumed editions of Orthodox chant in Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Serbia and Greece.

Notes

  1. ↑ According to Gregorios Stathis (1971, 228) neither the year nor the place of his birth is known, except that the name "Peloponnesian" points at the Peloponnesian peninsula.
  2. ↑ Georgios Papadopoulos worked as a legal employee for the Patriarchate and his "Historical survey of Byzantine church music" (1904) was one of the first publications about its singers until the present after Chrysanthos (see Katy Romanou's article). John Plemmenos (2012, 163, note 9) quoted Hatzegiakoumes as evidence that Petros' teacher in Smyrna was Archdeacon Theodosios of Chios.
  3. ↑ According to Chrysanthos (1832, p. XL, note β) Petros usurped the position of Iakovos, the first Domestikos and student of Daniel who had become Protopsaltes as the follower of Ioannes, and he mentioned a rivalry between Daniel and Petros and the latter's student Petros Byzantios. Chrysanthos himself was one of Petros Byzantios' students and clearly an advocate of his own school. The page of the Patriarchate (list of Archon Protopsaltes) dates Ioannes' death already to 1765, Manolis Hatzegiakoumes (see article about Ioannes) on the other hand to 1770 which seems more likely. Dimitri Conomos (New Grove) and Nina-Maria Wanek (2007, 91) date carefully "between June 1769 and November 1773" and the year 1778 is assumed to be the one of his death, since the epidemy is documented for this year and not earlier.
  4. ↑ Listen to Petros' Mathema for St Euphemia composed according to the sticheron in echos tritos (P. Tzanakos).
  5. ↑ According to Chrysanthos (1832, XLIIIf) Petros Peloponnesios did the exegesis of John Koukouzeles' mathema which was the fundament of the kalophonic method to sing the stichera. See also the manuscript GR-Ams Dossier 133 of the Archive Gregorios the Protopsaltes (Psachos Collection). Chourmouzios transcribed it according to the New Method (Kyriazides 1896).
  6. ↑ Georgios Papadopoulos (1904, 117–124) referred in his biography to Chysanthos and decorated it with a lot of anecdotes (for an English translation see the biography at the Patriarchal web site). Some of them are hardly credible like the one that he invented Hampartsoum notation and taught it to its real inventor, because he must have learnt it during an age between 8 and 10 years, when Petros died. It is rather a "thief story" about Petros (in case of the dervishes "thief" for a musician might have meant as an eccentric compliment), a compilation of different Ottoman anecdotes which had been now related to Petros and his time, but the historical circumstances speak rather against Papadopoulos' interpretation that Ottoman musicians did have such an attitude of creating original music, and copyright regulations did not even develop in Western Europe before the 19th century. When the dervish Rauf Yekta (1871–1935) found out, that Mevlevi compositions were performed by Maftirim brotherhoods in the Zulfaris Synagogue of Galata, he was delighted by the well-skilled performance and the ritual context within the divine service. It is well-known since the time of Dimitrie Cantemir that Phanariotes did have a profound interest in makam music and that they invented notation systems to record them.
  7. ↑ The Mevlevi dervishes of this tekke offered exceptional privileges to him (Plemmenos 2012), but not necessarily just because of certain intrigues he might have done on their behalf.
  8. ↑ The dates here refer to Manolis Hatzegiakoumes' biography of Panagiotes Halacoğlu. According to him Panagiotes who died in 1748, was already followed by Ioannes during the 1730s.
  9. ↑ See the edition by Popescu-Judeţ and Şırlı (2000).
  10. ↑ Already Balasios Hiereos wrote down cherubika composed in different lengths. Chrysanthos (1832, p. XL, note β) mentioned that the koinonika cycle by Daniel was doubled, sometimes even tripled by the young Petros.
  11. ↑ Petros' reception of the traditional psaltic art (Ioannes Glykys, John Koukouzeles, John Kladas) has been documented in the Ms. E 103 (Mount Athos, Mone Koutloumousiou), while Petros Bereketis whose works appeared very popular in many collections, was never directly associated to the Patriarchate.
  12. ↑ According to Achilleas Chaldaiakes (2010, 47) the Anastasimarion syntomon in a heirmologic melos, conservated in the Xeropotamou Monastery as Ms. 374, was created by Daniel the Protopsaltes, and 1905 published together with Petros' Anastasimatarion neon in print, but some manuscripts like to ascribe it wrongly to Petros (Naoussa, Pontic National Library, Ms. Sigalas 52), while the print edition ascribes it to Ioannes the Protopsaltes who initiated the hyphos project as a whole.
  13. ↑ Flora Kritikou (2013) studied the hybridisation of the great signs within the thesis of the sticheraric melos among composers of this period. Nevertheless, Chourmouzios the Archivist transcribed also the very long versions of the traditional sticherarion. It should be also noted that this traditional realisations grew considerably in Chourmouzios' exegeseis around 1800, but in comparison to their notation some "abridgements" seem paradoxically to be longer than the unabridged version (Stathis 1983, 28).
  14. ↑ Listen to the Peşrev composed in makam nihavend (I. Panayiotopoulos). One CD with Petros' oktoechos and makam compositions was recorded by Kyriakos Kalaitzides and the Ensemble En Chordais (2005).
  15. ↑ A manuscript collecting makam music where Petros does usually not specify the author, can be found in the Collection of Panagiotes Gritsanes (Ms. 3) (Zakynthos), two other more sketchy autographs survived among the leavings of Gregorios the Protopsaltes, both are now part of the Library belonging to the Department of Music Studies within the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (GR-Ams, Psachos Collection, Archive Gregorios the Protopsaltes, Dossier 60 & 137). Probably also the collection RO-Ba Ms. Gr. 927 was written by Petros Peloponnesios. See Kalaitzides (2015).
  16. ↑ The confusion was probably caused later by Chrysanthos who mentioned a long and a short Anastasimatarion made by Petros. There is a manuscript (GB-Bm Ms. Mingana Gr. 8) with a transcription ascribed to Gregorios the Protopsaltes which includes a cycle of Kekragaria syntoma made by Petros Lampadarios, but their melos is still sticheraric and not heirmologic. Apparently only Gregorios' transcription of a sticheraric syntomon cycle was printed in Bulgarian chant books, not his transcription of Daniel's heirmologic version (Naoussa on the island of Paros, Pontic National Library, Ms. Sigalas 52).
  17. ↑ See the Anthology (BG-SOn, Ms. Gr. 76, ff. 112-136) which his only few Koinonika by Petros, while Larissa (Central Public Library, Ms. 5753) offers two cycles for the year. The one of Daniel begins on folio 250 verso, the one of Petros on folio 269 verso.
  18. ↑ See GB-Bm Ms. Mingana Gr. 8, ff. 55-59.
  19. ↑ Actually a composition of Ioakeim Hieromonachos who died in 1720 (Chaldaiakes 2014, 95-114).
  20. ↑ Probably a composition by Daniel.
  21. ↑ See the long list published by Kalaitzides (2012, 89-98), but it should be noted that ascriptions to "Petros, Petraki, Tyriaki" are all supposed to mean one and the same composer.

Sources and editions

Manuscripts in Petros' exegetic notation

Church music

Makam music

Printed and transcribed editions of Petros Peloponnesios' works

Petros' Anastasimatarion and its translation into Romanian and into Old Church Slavonic

Gregorios' transcription of Daniel the Protopsaltes' 'Anastasimatarion syntomon' (heirmologic melos)
Chourmouzios' transcription of the 'Anastasimatarion neon' (sticheraric and heirmologic melos)

Heirmologion of the Katavasiai (heirmologion argon)

Doxastarion syntomon (fast sticheraric melos)

John Koukouzeles' 'Mega Ison' (Chourmouzios' transcription of Petros Peloponnesios' exegesis)

References

External links

Recordings of oktoechos compositions

Recordings of makam compositions

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