The Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony ...

414
Svimon (Jiki) Jangulashvili
9. Complementary configuration of the texture
In the hymn structure the inclination to the complemtary intoning and comlementary rhythmics is
felt. <strong>The</strong> voices constituting the vertical also receive the impulse for this by the above-mentioned specific
features of decorating the tune. <strong>The</strong> polyphonic texture is formed as a result of the “reaction” of the lower
voices to the melodies or sub-melodies created by the decoration of the cantus. <strong>The</strong> intonational-rhythmic
processes taking place in the tune are reflected in the movement of the middle voice and the bass part. In
the decorated texture the interdependence of the voices is diversified and are assembled in a mobile way
by different manners of voice combining (parallel, opposite, different-intonational…) both on the plain and
transformed model-formulae. At the same time the dosage of different types of combination in the texture
is always “unpredictable” and is determined either by the improvisation or the composing aesthetics of the
Middle Ages. It is quite evident that these phenomena are indicated in different manners in the specimens
of various chanting schools.
By means of intoning, “active” intonations or separate sounds, the voices “knit”, “embroider” the orna–
mented, draped, multi-relief musical texture. <strong>The</strong> texture seems to quiver, “twinkle”, “vibrate” by means of the
independent sub-melodies, distinguished intonations and sounds present in the voices (ex. 12).
10. decoration-polyphony – an aesthetic category and a musical symbol of national identity
As it is usually known in chanting the increasing of the degree of polyphony is ascending from the “voices
to be learned” towards the decoration through the plain and true styles.
It is not easy to say which is more distinctly revealed in the hymn texture – “devotion to the principle
of parallelism” or permanent striving for avoiding this principle, immanent of the archetypical chanting
model. In plain chants there are signs of decoration, in the decorated ones parallelism – this parameter of
“the voices to be learned” or plain chants, is revealed fragmentarily (it may be assumed, that it is a “remnant”,
something “left” from the most ancient forms of professional multipart church chanting). It is such dialectics
that characterizes the textural mentality of Georgian chanting.
In the texture of the decorated chant constantly renovating and multiform musical texture is present. In
the melody the alternation of minor and major formulae (both with the intonations more or less close to the
archetypical ones and “re-intonated” form) is accompanied by the polyphonic realization of these formulae
in the texture. But, as a rule, the process of these formulae becoming polyphonic occurs in the structures with
various degrees of polyphony built by different kinds of voice movements. In the flow of the musical texture
polyphonic segments, constructed in different manners, replace one another.
It is this changeable polyphonic structure that is the most characteristic parameter of Georgian ecclesiastic
polyphony, in which the extreme limit (to the “left” towards the minimum), the least manifestation of the
polyphony is the strict pareallelism of the existing voices and the heterophonic structure occurring in separate
minor structures. It is clear that any aspect of the musical texture, any organized textural structure-segment is a
result of a unique polyphonic activity, an original demonstration of a polyphonic ensemble.
<strong>The</strong> striving for decoration, i.e. for creating a different intonational, poly-relief texture is immanent. It is
manifested by the signs of decoration even in the plainest, simplest hymn.
decoration in a hymn is the increasing of polyphony. Here the idea of musical beauty is realized in
polyphony. In Georgian chanting the aesthetic category of the “beautiful” is manifested by the independence
of voices in multipart singing and in the ensemble of their melodies – in the polyphony.
<strong>The</strong> Georgian “homo-polyphonicus” (I. Zemtsovski) is always striving for creating something decorated,