Ru
EnGerasimova I.
The liturgy “Organna” (the 1660th–1670th) for six voices: problems of attribution and performance
Among the partes concertos of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries Russian Baroque manuscripts there are choral works written for performance in the Church singing practice of the Kiev Metropolitan power. This works differed in the text versions, which were not used in the churches of the Moscow Patriarchy, sometimes in signatures of the authors, which were in Latin, and in titles of the concertos and cycles, which were typical for Uniat or Catholic Church singing practices. The Liturgy (“Sluzhba Bozhiya”) for six voices was recorded on the individual sheets under the name “Organka” (correctly in Polish it is “Organna”) in the partes 8-voice parts of the Novgorod Bishop’s house. The analysis of the Liturgy revealed that it was created in the land of the Kiev Metropolitan power as it contains one of the text versions adopted in Kiev liturgical practice, as well as it allowed to trace the probable course of the transmission of the cycle in Russia – along with the Bishop’s singers through Smolensk and Pskov to the Novgorod Church singing practice. The name “Organna” suggests a link between the service and organ performance tradition. Analysis of the musical texture of the Service revealed the possibility of performing this cycle by a choral ensemble with basso continuo accompaniment or by an instrumental chapel that was available in the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – Vilna at the court of the Kiev Uniat metropolitans. The article discusses ways to perform it with organ accompaniment. The closeness of the “Organna” Service with the works of Vilna composers, particularly with the concerts of Nikolai Diletsky, is established. At the same time, this Liturgy could not have been written by N. Diletsky, because he wrote critically about the music of the “Organna” on the pages of his treatise. The quotation found in N. Diletsky’s treatise from the “Hallelujah” part of the Organ Service allows us to limit the time of creation of this cycle to the 60th- 70th years of the 17th century – the post-war period of work of composers of the Vilna school.
Key words
Vilna Baroque, partes concerto, vocal music manuscripts, Kiev Metropolitan power, Novgorod Bishop’s house.
For citation
Gerasimova I. The liturgy “Organna” (the 1660th–1670th) for six voices: problems of attribution and performance // South-Russian Musical Anthology. 2020. No. 4. Pp. 93–99.
