Diatonicity and Chromaticism in Transylvanian Church Music of the Byzantine Tradition

Byzantine musical culture has undergone changes with the passage of time, which affected its character and style. One side of this evolution and change has had an impact upon the chromatic modes of Byzantine music. Several byzantinologists, such as I. D. Petrescu, Titus Moisescu, Gr. Pantiru, O. L. Cosma after having made studies and investigations in the history of Byzantine music reached the conclusion that the chromatic mode was not part of the modal structures of Byzantine echoi, but the result of certain Eastern influences, manifesting particularly after 1453, the year when the Byzantine Empire fell under Turkish rule. The chromatic mode developed and penetrated church music also as a consequence of the musical reform, made by Chrysanthus of Madith in 1814 at Constantinople.

Another group of byzantinologists led by Gh. Ciobanu consider that chromatic modes have been a constitutive part of the modal structures of the Byzantine music from the very beginning.

In Transylvania, the second mode and its derivative, the sixth mode, exhibit several melodic variants, both diatonical and chromatical, which prove that in this part of the country church music developed in close connection with the church music of Byzantine origin which existed in the other Romanian lands, but also prove that this mode has some characteristics and specific features belonging to those Transylvanian variants mentioned for the first time by father Dimitrie Cuntanu at Sibiu in 1890 and by father and composer Celestin Cherebetiu at Blaj in 1930.

Vasile Stanciu