The Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony ...

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Davit Shughliashvili
the bell), so is the wordless chanting, though it is noteworthy that at the same time the musical language, as a
speech substance, has never been neglected. This is attested to by the abundance of long musical phrases and
sentences sung on one syllable, here the dominance of the musical speech is doubtless.
In the collection of the divine liturgy hymns, written down in musical notation by Ph. Koridze, there is
the hymn Ulkhine (Rejoice), which covers six pages (Koridze, 1895: 6-11), its text consisting of only one
word: Ulkhine (repeated three times). <strong>The</strong> leading character of the musical side of this hymn is indisputable,
which must have been more clearly revealed in its performance with glossolalias. This phenomenon should
not be perceived as the belittling of the verbal text. Just the opposite, in such cases the meaning of the word
is expanded by the musical logos.
As it has been said above, according to Razhden Khundadze, chanters used the so-called “additional
letters” where wordless mode-movements occurred, “evidently to better remember them”; but the fact that
chanting with inserted syllables is not used only in chreli chants or those performed with long-drawn phrases,
is corroborated by the sound recordings of more than a hundred chants, left by Artem Erkomaishvili. Usually
it is the vowel i that is inserted as an additional syllable, together with i its preceding vowel is also repeated,
e.g. ghme-i-e-rti, ra-i-a-metu, mshvido-i-o-ba. In the above sound recordings numerous examples of this
phenomenon can be observed. In some cases these inserted vowels occur several times in succession, e.g.
saidumlo-i-o-i-o (ex. 8), a-i-a-liluia-i-a-ia-ia-ia (ex. 9). From this viewpoint quite unique is the combination
of inserted vowels in the chant “Now the Heavenly Powers”, where the word aliluia is sung in the following
manner alilu-i-u-i-o-i-a-u-ia” (ex. 10).
It should be noted that unlike the text, which is obligatory for all the three voices of the chant, in some
cases the inserted vowels may differ within the parts (ex. 11).
It is clear that the presence of inserted syllables cannot be explained only by technical reasons and be
viewed as a means of remembering the melody better. It is conditioned by the rhythmic, acoustic, melodic
and other elements, which, first of all, must be understood as a specific feature of the musical language.
In the divine liturgy the hymn “Let us the cherubim mystically representing” and in many other chreli or
chants of the chreli type, there are long-drawn musical passages sung wordlessly, or, to be exact, long-drawn
musical passages, sung on one syllable only, long vocalizes. What is this “wordless chanting”, “wordless
prayer charged with? May be with something that cannot be expressed in words?!” (Shugliashvili, 2001: 114)
It is no mere chance that musical logos, which enables man to express and perceive something impossible
to express in words, is so vividly expressed in the above chant (“Let us the cherubim…”), its ecclesiastic
symbolic making the performers resemble a choir of angels and cherubim.
“In the beginning was the song”, the quotation from Inola Gurgulia’s well-known song, which inspired me
to write this paper, involuntarily calls to my memory the first line from the Gospel of St John: “In the beginning
was the Word…” in Greek these words sound as follows: Εν αρχε εν ο λογοσ (en arche en o logos). Of course,
the goal of my paper is not a philosophical interpretation of these words, neither am I going to reason as to
what was in the beginning-words or song. But I should note that in the cited song these notions are superseded
poetically and in it the logos denoting divine love must be expressed by the language of music.
Getting close to the truth, sharing the truth – this is how we may call the emotion overwhelming us
when listening to heavenly music. Generalizing it in connection with national Georgian musical culture I may
say that “Triune” is the most significant that traditional Georgian three-part singing and chanting, Georgian
polyphony, performed with words or wordlessly are dedicated to.