A Byzantine Music Manuscript Signed by Ilie Fotino

Ilie Fotino's contribution as a musician and historian was highly appreciated by Anton Pann, Constantin Diaconovici, Nicolae Iorga, Victor Papacostea, Gabriel Strempel and more recently by Gheorghe C. Ionescu.

With Ilie Fotino's manuscript No. 3, The Chanting of the Cherubs, and the hymns translated by Petre the Singer at the monastery of Cīmpulung as basis of research, the following conclusions can be reached:

The manuscript we studied is a new token of the energy and dedication shown by Romanian psalts in their efforts aimed at achieving a generalized "Romanianization" of service music in the Romanian Orthodox Church.

The printed texts of the tireless Coresi would in time be followed by other important documents, among which the manuscripts of Ioan sin Radu Duma Brasoveanu, hieromonk Macarie, Anton Pann, protosingel Varlaam Barancescu as well as by the contribution of Petru the Singer of Cīmpulung, Wallachia, deserve special attention.

Ilie Fotino's heruvics, composed in 1828, were highly appreciated by 19th century Romanian psalts, and their translation from Greek by Petru the Singer was a major contribution to spreading the knowledge about the kind of religious music sung in the Romanian Orthodox Church of the time.

Constantin Catrina