The Emotive Universe of Sacred Music in Late Byzantium
Fourteenth-century Byzantium saw the convergence of Eastern Christianity’s mystical tradition of contemplative monasticism—Palamite Hesychasm—and the apogee of melismatic liturgical music—John Koukouzeles. How did the sacred ritual of the Late Byzantine all-night vigil unveil the emotive universe of Christianity during what Sir Steven Runciman called the last Byzantine renaissance? The historical context of kalophonic chant and Hesychasm during the fourteenth century was that of an empire on the brink of collapse and destruction. History had betrayed the Byzantines. The Fourth Crusade severely weakened Constantinople, ushered in a period of decline, and ended its reign as a political and economic superpower. With the body of the empire so humbled and the Byzantine ideal of a kingdom embodying heaven on earth shattered, feelings of disillusionment prevailed and the quest for a lost unity began. Melismatic chant represented the final frontier of the Byzantine liturg...