Old Believers’ singing manuscripts from the collection of the Andrey Rublev Museum at the Avvakum jubilee exhibition at the Museum of Russian Icon

The article is an expanded description of three 18^th — 19^th c. Old Believers’ origin chanting manuscripts from the collection of the Andrey Rublev Museum demonstrated at the anniversary Avvakum exhibition at the Museum of Russian Icon. These manuscripts — “Holidays”, “Octoechos and Obikhod” and “Trezvony” represent two branches of the Old Believers — accepting priesthood (popovtsy) and priestless (bespopovtsy) which in regards to singing books affects the editions of the text: so called “true-speech” and “separate-speech”. The author speaks about the contents of the books, their repertoire and its musical characteristics, specific singing concepts and terms found in them. The manuscript of the Pomor “Trezvons” is examined in more detail including the сomprehensive list of services containinig a large number of Russian saints feasts the features of rites with a short and a complete composition of chants genres.

To illustrate the unique artistic design of the manuscripts the article publishes photographs of various colored handdrawn headpieces, frames, drop caps, flowers on the page margins, a miniature of the seated St. John of Damascus and a sample of hook notation.

From the Appendix of Guslitsy “Obikhod” of 1809 is given a musical example of the chant “The monk is coming from the monastery” which represents a translation of the hook znamenny notation into the modern one. It is designated in the manuscript as “Examples of odes” and is an example of a non-liturgical educational genre, where each new line is sung to the motive of one of the eight odes of the znamenny chant. To make it easier to memorize the melodies a subtext was invented, telling a story reminiscent to a folk song or a spiritual verse. So, in the Old Believers singing books the ancient Russian tradition of monophonic znamenny singing in which an archaic melody, considered sacred and not made by hands is combined with folk elements of paralyturgical genres and decorative design of manuscripts and persists.

1. Zakhariina 2009 — Zakhariina, N. B. (2009). The history of Russian singing books. Course of lectures: Textbook. St. Petersburg, “Planet of Music”.

2. Lozovaya 2015 — Lozovaya, I. E. (2015). Pillar banner chant (the second half of the XV — XVII centuries). Formal structure. M., Scientific and Publishing Center “Moscow Conservatory”. ISBN: 978-5-89598-307-2.