Making Music
Music that has not been heard for centuries was played for the first time in 500 years on Saturday evening in St Peter's College Chapel.
Scholars in Oxford and the Ionian University Corfu have painstakingly reconstructed the piece, described as "a service of Vespers according to the ancient Rite of the Great Church of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople".
The texts and music of the service survived in a small number of manuscripts dating from eighth century Constantinople to fifteenth century Thessalonica. They were lost during the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
According to Dr Alexander Lingas, a researcher at St Peter's College who worked along side Ioannis Arvantis of Ionian University, the piece is distinct from present day orthodox services in Russian and Greek churches. It "represents a tradition of urban Christian worship that was celebrated in Byzantium for nearly a thousand years."
It was performed by the Greek Byzantine Choir of Athens, under the direction of Lycourgos Angelopoulos who had flown over especially to participate in the special service. Dr Lingas expressed the importance of engaging the choir of Angelopolous, his former teacher, to perform the piece. Lingas describes them as "the only ensemble capable of doing justice to the music".
1st Jun 2001