The Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony ...

ON THE POLYPHONY OF GEORGIAN CHANT
381
EKATERINE ONIANI (GEORGIA)
Opinions concerning the emergence of Georgian ecclesiastical chanting are focused on one conjecture,
namely: “In the past Georgians chanted according to Greek tunes” (Prince Ioane, 1991: 524), i.e. the rules of the
Christian divine service and the chanting practice associated with the former were introduced into Georgia from
Byzantium: “and King Mirian dispatched his envoys to Greece, to Constantine, King of Greeks… and asked him
to send priests to baptize Georgians… and the whole nation received baptism all over Georgia”, writes Leonti
Mroveli in his Mepeta Tskhovreba (Mroveli, 1987: 93-98). Since then Christianity became the religion determining
the identity of Georgians and the Georgian nation never ceased singing hymns to the Creator. <strong>The</strong> hymns sung by
the worthy ancestors, imbued with the grace of the Holy Spirit, with the help and mercy of God became popular
throughout the churches of Christ and were passed down from generation to generation. Nobody was allowed to
deliberately change the hymns approved by the ecclesiastic canons. Chanters were well aware of the significance
of the canonical melody, and they believed that the violation of the true mode (as the canonical tune was called)
was equal to losing the chant.
<strong>The</strong> chanting tradition, introduced from Byzantium into Georgia together with the divine service practice,
found a highly developed musical culture in Georgia, so during the next stage of development of Georgian chanting
the tradition continued toward the fusing of Byzantine melody with the national musical mentality. It was on the
basis of the national musical mentality that Georgian chanting acquired polyphony in such a way that the canonical
roots of chanting were not lost.
At first glance the polyphonic nature of Georgian chanting is a version of the Byzantine source. As we know
early Byzantine chanting was monophonic, as chanting in unison was considered by the holy fathers to express
the unity of the faith of participants and was raised to the rank of a symbol of exulting God “with one mouth
and one heart”. How can this basic essence of the Christian faith can be realized in multipart chanting? First of
all by the polyphonic form chosen for chanting. Georgian folk songs are distinguished for a great diversity of
polyphonic forms and in fact, there was a vast choice of them for turning Byzantine monody into polyphony. <strong>The</strong>
first step of teaching “the voices to be learned”, where the most ancient layer of Georgian chanting is represented
(Shugliashvili, 2001: 104), indicates the Georgian people’s preference for re-arranging the chants according to
the national pattern at its earlier stage. It is no mere chance that this stage chanting tradition is characterized by
parallelism. Parallel voice-leading, one of the manifestations of the heterophonic texture, is an intermediate aspect
of the monodic and different melodic texture (Arutunov-Jincharadze, 2010: 15), and as scholars suggest, of all the
compositional principles of polyphony it is closest to homophony (Gabisonia, 2009: 82) 1 . <strong>The</strong> interval ratio of the
voices is as follows: mtkmeli (top voice), who is the keeper, performer of the canonical tune which the chanters take
the greatest care of, “modzakhili” (middle, second voice), follows it a fifth lower, the bass part – an octave lower
from the canonical melody 2 . Even in the plain mode or “in the canonically acknowledged, accepted and approved”
chanting chordal-unit polyphony with frequent parallelisms of fifths and octaves prevails 3. We think that the nation
of polyphonic mentality found the following way out – being aware that homophony is a symbol of the unity of
faith and an accepted form of expressing this unity, of all the forms of polyphony they chose the parallel voice
leading, which, in principle, does not change the essence of monody. <strong>The</strong> basic canonical tune was not lost: just the