Stan badań nad monodią liturgiczną Apostolskiego Kościoła Ormiańskiego

Abstract

The article discusses the state of research on liturgical monody of the Armenian Apostolic Church. This monody is a collection of musical and literary works, mostly from the period from the 5th through the 15th centuries and performed during the liturgy of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The Middle Ages saw the development of the khaz (neumatic) notation system for recording monodic melodies, but most of the systems were forgotten. In the 19th century, in several centers of Armenian culture, the melodies were written down from the oral tradition in the so-called new Armenian notation. Studies of the monody have been carried out since the 18th century by researchers of Armenian origin as well as those of other nationalities, but to this day no proper research center has been established to investigate the liturgical monody of the Apostolic Armenian Church. The world’s scholarly literature does not yet feature any monograph including the general problems concerning the liturgical monody of the Armenian Apostolic Church. There are several lines of research on the monody: history; theory; khaz notation; searching, working on, and cataloguing sources; study of medieval commentaries on church music; study of the various genres of this monody; study of the performance practice in the Armenian Apostolic Church’s liturgy. Research on the monody is hindered e.g. by the scattered sources and limited contact among researchers from Armenia and other countries. The final conclusion of the article is that the issues concerning the monody of the Armenian Apostolic Church have not yet been adequately explored.