Vespers as chanted on the Holy Mountain - St. Anthony's Monastery

xxviiiConcerning NotationTwo problems were solved with the introduction of these foreign sounds into thetext. First, a practical one: they had the effect of abbreviating an extended melodicphr<strong>as</strong>e into groups of a few notes, thereby making it e<strong>as</strong>ier for the soloist or the choir tosing. Secondly, it solved an aesthetic problem; the consonants er<strong>as</strong>ed the unple<strong>as</strong>antnessof a sustained vowel and offered an incentive to the chanter to add emph<strong>as</strong>is atcertain points where the composer, scribe or psalte [i.e., chanter] thought fit. 2In this book these consonants were usually preserved in the melodic phr<strong>as</strong>es that call forthem. They are written in parentheses so that it is clear that they are not a part of the words andso that those who prefer not to use them in English may omit them.The “intonations” (ajphchvmata) that may be <strong>chanted</strong> before a hymn have been listed in theAppendix by number. The appropriate number for the intonation is provided only at the beginningof those hymns that Athonite chanters might precede with an intonation.2 Conomos, Dimitri E., Byzantine Trisagia and Cheroubika of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, PatriarchalInstitute for Patristic Studies, Thessaloniki, 1974, p. 264.