The Banner Chant

The main articles are:

• History of music in Russia
• Russian Orthodox Church (ROC)

In the early period of its formation, professional music in Ancient Russia, developing as a cult art, began to develop on the basis of Byzantine models. With the adoption of Christianity, the Russian state borrowed its solemn service from Byzantium.

The banner chant is the main type of ancient Russian church singing. The name comes from the Old Slavic word "banner," i.e. sign. Banners or hooks were lineless signs used to record tunes. The banner chant was a monody performed in unison.

The time of occurrence of banner singing with full accuracy cannot be established.

According to S.V. Smolensky, the banner chant took shape by the end of the 10th century. D.V. Razumovsky, V.M. Metalov and A.V. Preobrazhensky believed that the chant was brought from Byzantium after the baptism of Russia. V.M. Belyaev claimed that he was of original, Russian origin and arose in the XI century.

The most likely assumption is that the banner chant, in its original foundations borrowed from Byzantium, formed as an independent kind of singing in the XII century, when Christianity spread in the masses and Byzantine forms began to be exposed to the folk musical language.

Byzantine poetic texts were translated into Russian, chants were preserved in general terms (approaching in simplicity to psalmody, that is, reading chants).

The principles of notation were also learned: icons were placed above the text indicating the direction of movement of the melody. The banner notation was approximate without showing the exact height and length of the sounding note, it was supposed to resemble a singing melody, previously known to them. The convention of the banner notation allowed Russian singers, using the Byzantine record, to creatively modify it. The process of Russification, rethinking Byzantine melodies, long and gradual, led to the fact that in the banner melodies everything alien to the character of Russian singing disappeared, intonations and turns of the folk song, close to their performers, appeared in them. Thus, in different places, their singing traditions developed. Novgorod, Kyiv, Pskov, Tver, Moscow singing masters created melodies, expressing their understanding of the beautiful and sublime in them, investing their aspirations, sorrow and joy in them. Exchanging experience, local schools were mutually enriched, original, national features of Russian choral art were developed.

At the heart of the banner singing was a strictly developed fret eight-headed system. The ancient frets or, as they were called, "glasses" consisted of a characteristic litter (a diatonic motif that included three to four sounds) and a final melodic figure. There were eight such voices. Each of them was timed to a certain week of the church calendar, during which you sing banner melodies only on this voice. After eight weeks, when all the voices were sung, this unchanging order was repeated. The eight-glase system ensured to some extent the stylistic unity of the art that existed for such a long ^[1]

Unlike the Byzantine singing tradition, the banner singing does not suggest an ison - a sustained, drawn-out sound that accompanies the melody.

Composing the melody of the chant on the basis of the fret melody of the voice, Russian singing masters increased or reduced the duration of notes, sang the reference tones, varied the melody rhythmically using syncopations, and widely applied the sequential development of chants or individual intonations. So from a short fret motive, a melody was created, which in turn was subjected to intensive development.

The breadth of breath of the melodies of the banner chant, which does not lend itself to the exact calculation of "liberty" in a metrorhythmic organization, is inextricably linked with the Russian manner of singing. The breath of the singers is felt almost physically in the unfolding of the musical phrase from the initial impulse through the flowering in endless versions of the exhalation, "wilting" at the end. This power of life hidden in a one-voice melody gives an incomparable warmth to ancient chants, encapsulating one of the secrets of their charm.

Although the process of evolution of banner singing, controlled by the church, was very slow, the extant examples of choral art retain the features of the different eras that created them. Unfortunately, due to the imperfect way banners record, it is not possible to fully restore the picture of our musical past. Nevertheless, manuscripts of later origin contain ancient types of singing.

In the XV-XVI centuries, fret tunes, remaining the basis of the melodic development of the banner chant, receive an increasingly rich variational development of many versions of the chant are strung one on top of another, reminiscent of the richness of folk decorative patterns. The banner style takes on scope and flexibility.

The first examples of Russian lyrical music may include Stepenna. Their lyrics were written by Fyodor Studit, a Byzantine hymnographer. The content of his degree is contemplative, ascetic moods, pleas for forgiveness of sins.

Drama and emotional power are characteristic of the music of Blessed, the plot for which was an episode borrowed from the Gospel about a robber crucified on a cross with Jesus and repentant.

The 16th century is the time for the highest artistic maturity of the banner style and, at the same time, the appearance of the first will accept the crisis: the further evolution of the banner singing itself stops, but its expressive possibilities continue to develop in the new chants that appeared at that time.

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