The simplest manner of performance was psalmody — chanting (liturgical recitative); psalmody was intended for reading the Gospel, the Apostle and the Prophecies.

The most difficult was kontakion singing, a broad chant decorated with melodic accents. In Byzantium, it was used for the most solemn hymns of the service — kontakions (significant hymns in which the stanzas sung by the soloist were interspersed with choral refrains) and kinonics. This virtuoso singing was also cultivated in Kievan Rus — for the performance of kinonics, verses from psalms and choruses to them. But the complexity of kontakion singing eventually became the reason for its disappearance — by the 14th century.

Kontakion singing is sometimes considered as a kind of znamenny chant, which dominated Russian Orthodox worship from the XI to the XVII century. Depending on the nature of the chant and its place in the service, three types of chant were used: maly znamenny, which was characterized by simplicity of melody, based on alternating musical lines, from 2-4 to 9 or more. The central place in the divine service was occupied by the znamenny, or pillar, chant itself, which consisted of hymns; in the chant, various hymns combined to form a single line of melodic development. The choice of songs and their sequence determined the individual form of the chant. The Great znamenny chant was distinguished by its richness and development of melody, and was usually used in the performance of festive stichera.

All these chants were single—voiced; in the middle of the 17th century, new single-voiced chants were added to them - Kievan, Bulgarian and Greek. However, as early as the 16th century, early forms of polyphonic singing were emerging in Russia, and in the 17th century, the so-called party polyphony spread, which very soon replaced znamenny singing.

Complex part-time singing, in which the number of voices usually ranged from 3 to 12, but could reach up to 48 (in particular, in part-time concerts of the XVIII century), contributed to the further development of not only church musical culture, but also secular. Polyphonic arrangements of the znamenny chant appeared, and then a new genre— the a cappella part concert.

All seminaries and other Christian educational institutions teach Church singing as a special discipline. Sometimes church singing is included in the course of Liturgics or Church art.

Znamenny singing, also znamenny chant, znamenny notation, pillar notation, hook notation is the main type of Old Russian liturgical singing. The name comes from non—interchangeable signs - banners (other-Rus. the "banner", that is, the sign) used to record it.

There are various types of znamenny chant and their corresponding types of banners — kondakarny, stolpovoy, demestvenny, and putevoy.

Kontakion chant (also kontakion singing) is the oldest type of church singing in Russia. The name comes from the word "kontakion", one of the liturgical hymns. The notation of the non-linear type comes from the Paleovisantine notation. It is characterized by the presence of melodically developed elements, special melismatics. The heyday of kontakion singing in Russia occurred in the XI—XII centuries, by the XIV century it disappeared from the Russian liturgical tradition due to the change of the liturgical charter from the Studian to the Jerusalem one and the corresponding change in the corpus of liturgical books. It is found in kontakion books, the basis of which are kontakion books and icons in honor of the feasts of the entire period of the church year and in memory of saints. The most famous written sources containing hymns recorded in kontakion chant are the Typographic Charter (late XI — early XII centuries), the Annunciation Kontakion (late XII — early XIII centuries), the Trinity Kontakion (?), and the Assumption Kontakion (1209).

Fitnik. 1st quarter of the 19th century and 2nd quarter of the 19th century. Semi-retired. 52 sheets. Code 379-9. The composite manuscript (Part 2 begins on page 42) from the collection of Archpriest Dimitri Razumovsky

The main type of znamenny singing, which is sung by almost the entire corpus of books of the Russian liturgical tradition. The name comes from the word "pillar", an eight—week cycle of the Octoechos, a book sung in this chant and spread in Russia in the last third of the 15th century, in connection with the adoption of the Jerusalem Charter (cf. the Evangelical pillars of the Octoechos). The pillar chant has become widespread and is the most widely used in the Russian monophonic liturgical tradition at the present time. The chant consists of chants (kokiz), fits and faces, which, in turn, consist of smaller units — hooks (banners). It has an osmoglosmic system, i.e. each vowel corresponds to a certain set of phrases, as well as a set of features and faces characterizing the voice. The fita and the faces are extended melodic phrases that the singer had to know by heart. In the modern tradition, they are often written with a fractional banner and do not have a secret record, that is, one that would not allow the singer to read the tune from the sheet, but only to sing it by heart. The composition of the pillar chant includes anenaiki — special ornaments of chants, a kind of Byzantine kratim. The hymns (kokizas) of the pillar chant are present not only in the hymns of the liturgical circle, but also in everyday chants. The most commonly used kokizas that have come into use are those of the 6th gla. In addition to liturgical books, special singing alphabets, kokizniks and fitniks were created to study notation.

A singing style common in ancient Russian musical culture along with znamenny chant and manly chant. The origin of the name is a controversial issue in medieval studies. It appeared in the last quarter of the XV century . Until the middle of the XVI century. it was used in Stichera, then also in Everyday life. At first, it was recorded in znamenny notation ("Stolpova's way") and played a secondary role compared to the repertoire of znamenny chant. At the end of the 16th century, traveling chant became an independent, developed branch of the ancient Russian singing art, characterized by greater solemnity, chant and smoothness. The melody of a traveling chant is formed by a set of canonical melodic formulas subordinated to the osmogony system. The peak of the development of traveling chant is the end of the XVI—1st half of the XVII centuries. At the beginning of the 17th century, the first musical travel alphabets were created, and a specific terminology emerged that defines which chants belong to the travel chant ("put", "putnoy", "path"). In the 2nd half of the 17th century, the traveling chant began to fall out of use. A small number of travel tunes recorded by the Stolpov way have been preserved in Old Believer manuscripts of the XVIII—XX centuries.

Demesque chant — demesque singing, demesque, is one of the stylistic trends of the ancient Russian singing art. The earliest mention of it dates back to 1441 (the Moscow Chronicle of the end of the XV century). It became widespread in the XVI—XVII centuries, including in polyphony (3- or 4-voice; in 4-voice demotic polyphony, one of the voices was called dementia, and the other by way). The repertoire of the celebration chant includes individual chants of Everyday Life, Feasts and Bells, the Lenten Stichera, the Octoechos and the Irmology. Since the 3rd quarter of the 18th century, a number of Everyday chants have been included in the Old Believers' book the Deity. Initially, the manly chant was written in znamenny (pillar) notation (see Hooks). In the 2nd half of the 16th century, it was used to create a symbolic notation using elements of znamenny notation, but in a more complicated form. There was no secrecy used in the demotic notation. Stylistic patterns were developed in the community, which played a significant role in the evolution of Russian singing art: a solemn style of singing with wide chants of individual syllables of the text was formed. It is currently used as a special solemn chant, for example, during episcopal divine services.

The oldest hook-notated manuscripts date back to the 11th century. By the 17th century, additional signs appeared in the hook notation — "signs" and "marks", early manuscripts represent a "non-marking" notation. Manuscripts of the 17th century record the appearance, along with traditional one-voice singing, of early "folk" polyphony (lowercase singing), which was also recorded by banners. During the reforms of the 17th century in Russia, monodic znamenny singing was gradually replaced by various forms of polyphonic music based on the major-minor key of the Western European model.

The first Gospel Stichera, glas 1, by Fyodor Krestyanin, transcribed by B. Kutuzov.

The Gospel stichera "Mary's tears" in the notation "axes" (fragment). From the book: The Octoechos of musical notation. 7th ed. Moscow, 1811

Since the 17th century, znamenny chants (of all styles and historical traditions) began to be recorded in the Kievan notation system (in colloquial vocabulary — "axes"), partly reminiscent of square notation (adopted in Catholic singing books), partly of (late) mensural notation. "Hatchets" were recorded on a five-line note carrier and only in the key of C ("cephaut").

It was in this notation that in 1772 the Synod in Moscow issued a set of basic church hymns — 4 singing books (Obi, Irmologii, Octoechos and Feasts), which were subsequently republished several times. Additionally, in 1778, an Abridged Routine of Musical Notation was published in Moscow, in which the most popular chants from all four books were recorded in a square note. This publication was widely distributed and was adopted as the initial guide for teaching church singing in theological educational institutions. In 1899 (also in Kiev notation), the Lenten and Color Triode was released.

In the 19th century, znamenny singing was gradually replaced by "party singing" (polyphonic). This meant the actual abandonment of the basic principles of the znamenny monody. At the same time, some composers have made efforts to integrate "znamenny" melodies into party use, harmonizing them in the logic of Western European tonality. Currently, the chants of the znamenny chant, as a rule, are notated both in the traditional "hook" and in round (school, "Italian") notation. A compromise solution is to record the znamenny chant in the form of so-called "double banners". This method of writing combines the use of znamenny and "classical" five-line notation. There are several types of hook writing, depending on the type of chant, time and place of origin of the tradition, including can be characterized by special markings (see Cinnabar markings).

The greatest masters of znamenny singing are Savva Rogov, Fedor Krestyanin (Christian), Ivan Nos, Markell Bezborody and Stefan Golysh, who worked in the era of Vasily III and Ivan IV the Terrible, Metropolitan Varlaam and Isaiah Lukoshko, whose work falls during the Time of Troubles and the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich. A great master was a representative of the Usolsky school, Thaddeus Subbotin, who worked on the Commission for the Reform of Church Singing of Patriarch Nikon. Alexander Mezenets was one of the best experts in the field of znamenny singing and the creator of the fundamental work "The ABC of Znamenny Singing" (1688), which is a complete exposition of the theory of znamenny singing.

The page of the Old Believer Octoechos. The 19th century

From the end of the 17th century to the beginning of the 18th century, the hook notation began to be replaced by Western notation, and Russian znamenny singing began to be replaced by Western European, Latin singing. Unanimous znamenny singing was considered to belong to the "schismatics" (Old Believers).

Many melodies of znamenny singing in the XVIII — early XX centuries were subjected to polyphonic processing in the traditions of Western European harmonic tonality; among the authors of the treatments are Peter Turchaninov, Alexey Lvov, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Alexander Kastalsky, Sergei Rachmaninov, Pavel Chesnokov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and others.

To this day, the traditions of znamenny singing are observed by the Old Believers. There are specialists who revive znamenny singing in the new rite of the Russian Orthodox Church, for example, the Valaam Monastery (the co-religionists of the Russian Orthodox Church use znamenny singing in worship).

Specialists who revive znamenny singing include, for example, the staff of the Department of Ancient Russian Singing at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory. In particular, a group of musicologists led by Albina Kruchinina is engaged in the study and development of issues of ancient Russian church singing: Florentina Panchenko, Natalia Mosyagina, Ekaterina Pletneva, Ekaterina Smirnova, Tatiana Shvets, and others. In Moscow, the Gnessin College is studying ancient notation, including Galina Pozhidaeva, Melitina Makarovskaya, Tatiana Vladyshevskaya, Polina Terentyeva, Lada Kondrashkova and a number of other musicologists. Russian Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy also plays an important role in St. Petersburg, where there is a direction "Russian singing art", where experts in the field of research and performance of ancient notation, such as Ekaterina Matveeva, Professor Nina Zakharina, Nadezhda Shchepkina, Alyona Nikolaeva, Elena Topunova, Irina Gerasimova teach.

The International Academy of Orthodox Music Festival, organized with the participation of the Department of Ancient Russian Singing at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation and with the blessing of Patriarch Kirill, is dedicated to the revival of znamenny singing. The festival program includes a summer school aimed at reviving the historical tradition of Orthodox music, as well as introducing it to a wide range of audiences. The Summer School of the Academy of Orthodox Music International Festival was held in St. Petersburg annually from 2009 to 2015.

In order to "create a publicly available fund of znamenny chants and software tools for working with them for the sake of reviving znamenny chant — canonical liturgical singing in the Russian Orthodox Church," the Znamenny Chant Foundation (Znamenny Foundation) was created. It is an electronic corpus of ancient Russian singing manuscripts.

Orthodox music is divided into several types:

🔹 ancient — chants that originated during the time of Byzantium (Byzantine chant among the Greeks and other liturgical chants among other Orthodox peoples who were part of it or were under its religious and cultural influence), in the Caucasus (for example, Georgian chant and others), in the West (before the Great Schism), as well as in Ancient Russia Znamenny, stolpovoy, putevoy, Bolshoy and other chants;

🔹 party music (polyphonic) originated in the 17th century in Ukraine and Belarus under the influence of Catholic party music, then from the 18th century it began to spread in Russia. Many composers wrote liturgical party music, for example, D. S. Bortnyansky, Rachmaninov (his "All—Night Vigil" is famous) and others.;

🔹 spiritual poems, cantas, carols, and the like (songs on spiritual themes), which are not a liturgical type of Orthodox singing.