(Medieval Greek: from , 'unique' and , 'melody'; Church Slavonic: , )—pl. idiomela—is a type of sticheron found in the liturgical books used in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite, and many other Orthodox communities like Old Believers. are unique compositions, while or —sing. , or (Medieval Greek: , Church Slavonic: , )—were used to create other hymns by a composition over the 's melody and following the poetic meter provided by the musical rhythm. The genre composed over these was characterised as or (Medieval Greek: 'similar to', Church Slavonic: , ).
Definition of idiomelon, avtomelon and prosomoion The hymn category can only be understood in comparison with and . Already in the older book Tropologion each melody of a certain hymn was classified by a modal signature of the Byzantine octoechos—the eight-mode system as it had developed in Constantinople, Damascus, Jerusalem, and in many other places.
The sticherarion as a collection of idiomela
An is a melodic type of sticheron whose music was notated for the first time in the new books of the sticheraria during the Studites reform.The monastery at Constantinople was abandoned, when Theodore the Studite came with his community from Bithynia (about 798). Empress Eirene offered him the monastery, where he established soon a scriptorium. He was exiled several times and he died during his last exile in the monastery of Hagios Tryphon on Cape Akritas in Bithynia (11 November 826), but he always continued his hymnodic project and so did his successors directing the Lavra Stoudiou. The Greek term () derives from ('own, special') and ('melody'). It was used to classify unique melodies composed exclusively for the text of one particular hymn. These idiomela were created in many different traditions, but one voluminous book called sticherarion collected and documented them all by the use of musical notation.Christian Troelsgård (2001) emphasised in his introduction the characteristic of the new chant book of the Studites as books, which created standards for monastic communities of the whole Mediterranean. Thanks to the Slavonic traditions their influence even spread far into Northern Europe (Scandinavia). See also his SAV catalogue which can be downloaded at the homepage of Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae. Since there were so many traditions whose hymnographers composed within the octoechos, the solution was found by the invention of a new neume notation in order to write down the whole repertory in the sticherarion. Its books were the Menaion (Miney), Triodion (Postnaya Triod), Pentecostarion (Tsvetnaya Triod), and the Parakletike (Osmoglasnik).The earliest books had been written with theta notation, although only a few have survived today (more Slavonic than Greek manuscripts). Links to digitized manuscripts can be found in the articles about the books octoechos and sticherarion. Later, unnotated manuscripts became more common. There are as well manuscripts which have only musical notation in some parts. They documented a large repertoire, but only a small part of it made up a local monastic tradition and the latter also included many hymns which were not written in the books.
It was a heterogenous collection of hymns, mainly of unique compositions () which could be identified by their own idiomatic melodies. The later Slavonic translators of the Ohrid school (since 893) called the idiomela . There are other stichera called (Sl. ) which do not have their own melodies, but they used a limited number of well-known melodies—the so-called (Sl. ).
Avtomela and prosomoia as categories of an oral transmission According to this simple typological definition a could be recognised because it had just a rubric with an incipit of the avtomelon text, while the echos or glas (musical mode) was indicated by a modal signature. It was enough because educated chanters knew the by heart.The incipit of a hymn with a well-known melody which was used for the text recitation, was a common practice. It was also known among Jewish and Sufi musicians who did never notate music. The hymnographers had already used the melody of the avtomelon to compose the stanza and its verses of the , while a singer had to adapt accentuation patterns if the accent in a verse was moved to the neighbouring syllable (see the kontakion example). Hence, the prosomoia had been written in textbooks (the Octoechos mega or Parakletike, or later another book called Menaion), but sometimes the prosomoia had been also notated in the Octoechos part of certain notated Sticheraria. These notated prosomoia allow to study how the were adapted to the verses and accents of their prosomoia.
The definition of () meant as well a sticheron which defines its melody—with a melody for "itself" (Gr. , Sl. ), but not in the idiomatic and exclusive sense of the unique idiomela. simply meant that these hymns were regarded as a melodic model of their own, exemplified by the musical realisation of its poetic hymn. As such they also served for the composition of new verses, the prosomeia. The term () means that this sticheron is "similar to" (Gr. , Sl. ) another sticheron. It was usually an avtomelon, but in some cases even idiomela had been used for a kind of contrafact and there are even cases of notated prosomoia because they had been mistaken for an avtomelon.For the cycle of 47 avtomela which can be found in notated sticheraria with indication of their exact place within the books, see table 1 in Irina Shkolnik's study (1998, 526-529).
Certain more regular and formulaic of the octoechos had not been written down with notation before the 14th century or even later, since their hymns () had to be repeated every day. Today the or or an Orthros anthology also provides certain in neumes without any text, while the texts of the prosomoia, as far as they belong to the fixed cycle including the sanctoral, are in the Menaion which should not be confused with the notated chant book (the immoveable cycle of the Doxastarion, organised between the twelve months beginning with 1 September and concluding with 31 August, or the Slavonic ).
History
In the early period between the 5th and the 7th centuries Sabaite concepts attracted the monastic communities of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem.Stig Frøyshov (2007) discussed the early influence of the octoechos and different local concepts between a daily and a weekly change of the echos. Hence, the early phase is characterised by various hymnographic realisations in the Mediterranean without establishing standards between the regions. In 692 the organisation of liturgical eight-week cycles connected with a system of eight modes called octoechos was established and progressed to a liturgical reform. Since only the melodies are known as they had been notated in chant books by the end of the 10th century, the question arises, what preceded the individual compositions of unique melodies, known as idiomela, when they had been composed within an oral tradition since the 7th century?
The first notated chant books (Sticherarion and Heirmologion), created between the 9th and the 13th centuries, delivered only a small part of the monastic hymn repertoire. The beginning of the book Octoechos, the cycle 24 stichera anastasima (three stichera in each echos) or the kekragarion cycle (Hesperinos Psalm 140), appeared very late in Byzantine chant books—some of them not earlier than during the late 17th century. For most of their history they did not need to be notated, since they closely followed the recitation models of psalmody using their formulaic accentuation patterns.Within her first study of the avtomela system Irina Shkolnik (1995) called these formulaic models "echos-melodies", which preceded the creation of idiomela. The term was in fact inspired by the expression "na glas" used among Old Believers, when they talk about traditional melodies of a living oral tradition. The nature to adapt these models or their patterns to the hymnic verses and their accents are indeed that simple, that its simplicity could easily adapt to any meter and it was often accompanied by forms of multipart singing.
The reform of the Byzantine hymnody was the result of a first florescence of Greek hymnography created by singer-poets at Jerusalem like the Patriarch Sophronius (634–644), Germanos Bishop of Serachuze (died 669) and Andrew of Crete (died 713). The reform was followed by compositions of John of Damascus and his half-brother Cosmas, who continued the works of Andrew at Mar Saba. Even though the difference between "echos-melodies" and the new idiomela at that time cannot be studied, the new emphasis on the Hagiopolitan octoechos was only possible because these new hymns – their poetry and music – were appreciated and imitated beyond the patriarchate. In general this period is regarded as one when the concept of octoechos cycles was not new, but when these poets were translated and imitated throughout the Mediterranean.The repertoire was different and more concentrated on Constantinopolitan hymnographers in the Georgian Iadgari, but Greek and Slavic tropologia since the 7th century confirm the later choice of the Studites (Nikiforova 2013). The heterogenous repertoire itself, whose were sometimes simple and formulaic, sometimes with the complexity of idiomela, was probably not collected before the Second Council of Nicaea. Yahya al-Mansur who was posthumously condemned as a heretic, was not only re-established as a hymnographer and monk called John of Damascus, but also became an important Greek church father and a saint.John of Damascus, born in a privileged family close to the caliph at Damascus, became posthumously anathemised under his Syrian name during the Council of Hieria during the first iconoclastic crisis in 754, mainly because of his polemic treatises against iconoclasm (see the extract of the translation in the Medieval Sourcebook of Fordham). For the same reason he was rehabilitated during the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, during which the former one was decanonised. The second crisis of iconoclasm also caused the end of the Studites reform, so that the monastic reform was continued partly in Constantinople and partly in Sinai.
During the reform of the Studites and at Sinai the were not notated, but they existed within an oral tradition.According to Irina Shkolnik (1998) the books of the sticheraria written during the Byzantine period document the existence of 47 avtomela (most of them in the Parakletike, but also in all the other parts of the Sticherarion), but 30 of them had not been written down and notated before the 13th century. They were mainly documented in Slavonic books, because the whole system of avtomelon and prosomoia had to be adapted to the poetic prosody of the language. The adaption to Slavonic prosody caused partly the recomposition of the prosomoia. Even some idiomela served as models to compose new hymns according to the needs of a local liturgy—like the prosomoia for certain martyrs. When Theodore the Studite and his brother Joseph composed the early prosomoia for Hesperinos of Lenten tide, they used certain idiomela of the Triodion as models.Gerda Wolfram (2003, 120). Together with the later book (Sl. ), "the book of resurrection hymns", the whole repertoire of is 140 and together with their prosomeia it is even larger than the whole repertoire of unique idiomela created in various regions.
With the Slavic reception in the medieval chant book , it was not possible to create the same complex relation between chant and text, when the prosomoia had been translated. So they created a system of simple melodies which could be easier adapted to the translated prosomoia.For more examples, see Julia Shlikhtina (2004, 184-196).