https://textus-et-musica.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/textus-et-musica/index.php?id=2921 Musical manuscripts, along with their rubrics and treatises, iconography, typika and historical narratives, contain fragmentary evidence of various performance practices, participants and aspects of the training procedure of the Byzantine chanting body named choros. When co-examined, sources lead to a better understanding since they provide us with data such as number, genders and ages of those chanting in churches, their attire, means and practices of co-ordination, ison-practice, specific position and movement during every part of an office, distribution of a chant among the members of the chanting ensemble, instructions for the use of the voice and articulation, qualification terms for voice, ages, methodology, training procedures and trainers of chanters and chantresses. In particular, the paper demonstrates the dual function of the Byzantine choros both as a performing body within worship and as a self-sufficient unit of lifelong training for its members and the community. In the first part of the paper, ritual instructions of typika and musical manuscripts combined with historical narratives, depictions and imperial legislation, will highlight the characteristics and performance practices of each interdependent member of the choral ensemble. In the second part, data from historical narratives, musical treatises and iconography testify to a systematic training procedure interconnected with worship practice. Source material illuminates the starting age for the training of a chanter, the various stages, the tutors, their goals and methodology according to each level and the constant training even among members considered at the top of the choral pyramid. Sources also reveal the conscious training and use of vocal cavities, thus leading to specific expectations of dynamics and vocal quality in performance instructions of musical manuscripts and the theoretical treatise of Gabriel Hieromonachos. The combined use of such sources and systematic music education also clarifies the idea of chanting by heart, without the need for books, thanks to “gestic” notation, a term coined by Christian Troelsgård. It refers to the depiction by the hand of neumes and their combinations forming formulae that, along with the presence of the domestikoi who intone and the kanonarchs who read hymnographic texts loudly, obviate the need for manuscripts during worship. Finally, it confirms the existence of a systematic concern for articulation as part of the training procedure, identified as early as the years of Theodoros Stoudites. Les numéros 7 | 2023 - Performance of Medieval Monophony: Text... Performance of Medieval Monophony: Text and Image ... fr lun., 15 avril 2024 11:39:42 +0200 mar., 29 oct. 2024 14:40:54 +0100 https://textus-et-musica.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/textus-et-musica/index.php?id=2921 0