Mike's Oud Forums

Armenian music

Jono Oud N.Z - 5-6-2013 at 02:53 PM

Hi.

I have been learning about Byzantine Chant recently thanks to a friend from this forum.

I am also just beginning to look into Armenian Chant as well.
Could anyone help me with some scores or good links about this please?

Also any Armenian music, scores etc would be really good too please.

Mso872 - 5-6-2013 at 07:14 PM

By Armenian music, do you only mean hymns/chants? If so, Isabel Bayrakdarian is probably the best living singer of this kind of music. Otherwise, my stepfather (who is a deacon at an Armenian church) refers to the music as "sharagans". I have grown up hearing the music at church my whole life, it can be very beautiful. Isabel is very nice as well, I have met her in person a few times. She also sang on one of the Lord of the Rings movies.

Try googling "sharagans" or "Isabel Bayrakdarian" to hear more good stuff.

Jono Oud N.Z - 5-6-2013 at 11:28 PM

Hi.:)

Yes the Chants in particular (monophonic), but also Armenian music in general.
Thanks!
I will have a look.

I found these on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Armenian-Sacred-Music-of-the-5th-8th-Centur...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/380531611073?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&am...

I have been reading about the history of the Armenian Church as well.
It seems to be one of the oldest Churches.

Do you know of any notations of the chants?
I really like the music.

Jono Oud N.Z - 5-6-2013 at 11:34 PM

I just googled the singer and sharagans.
Found this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=UlTAIF...

Beautiful!
I will find some more from her.
Thanks again.

hartun - 5-14-2013 at 10:54 AM

hello allow me to put in my two cents. first of all my credentials, i am armenian american, have gone to the armenian orthodox church my whole life, have been a choir member and altar server as well as active in youth activities some of which included church music. first of all isabel is a beautiful singer but i don't think she qualifies as the greatest living singer of armenian church music. i am not sure who that would be, it could be isabel, it could be anna mayilian, it could be some priest somewhere thats never made a recording in his life. isabel in reality is an opera singer. secondly, the songs in the video entitled "dle yaman" are folk songs, not church music/chant. this video greatly irritates me because at 1:40 isabel states that the venue of her recording is the ruins of "an ancient pagan temple called zvartnots". zvartnots is not a pagan temple but a christian church. i could go into the nationalist ramifications of such a statement but i will leave it at that. sharagan in literal terms is a specific type of song, sometimes called a canonical chant or hymn. a sharagan must be written in one of the eight modes of armenian church music. generally the lyrics are very important and contain theological statements. a hymn outside the rules of sharagan is called simply a song. however, as mso mentions, the average armenian refers to all religious hymns and songs as "sharagans." here is a website containing lyrics and sheet music to many of the most well known sharagans http://www.arak29.am/sharakan/index.php. the website is a little difficult to figure out. first, click on the word "hymns" to access the english version of the site. there are several windows. on the left you will see a menu which should say "hymns by feast" and then list a whole bunch of feasts starting with candlemas and then christmas next to little icons that look like books. if you click the book, the center window will give you a description of that holy day. if the writing is in armenian, click the tab at the top of the center window that says "Eng" for english. now to get to the hymns. if you click the plus sign to the left of any book it will open up that folder and you will have a list of the hymns for that holy day. click on a hymn for example if you are in "christmas" click "great and wonderful mystery". the lyrics for this song will come up in the central window. again, if they are in armenian, click on the "Eng" tab for an english translation, BUT you can also click on "Trans" tab to the right of the "Eng" tab, for the transliteration, that is, the armenian lyrics written out in the english alphabet. NOW - at the bottom right hand corner of the central window, you will see two buttons, one with a music notes icon and the other with a speaker icon. click on the music notes to pull up the sheet music for the hymn you are looking at. click on the speaker for some audio...but its just a midi file of the beginning of the song, nothing special. this website will show you most of the armenian hymns. however if you really wanted to study armenian church music in depth you should buy "volume one" and "volume two" of armenian church music which are published by the diocese of the armenian church of america. in addition to the hymns which are SUNG, there are the deacon's parts of the mass which are quite literally CHANTED. the scores to this chanting is not available online, and if i'm correct it was passed down by oral tradition until the 70s at which point Archbishop Torkom published his deacon's handbook with a standardized version of the chants. this is a wonderful tool but unfortunately it has also caused the decline of local variation in deacon's chanting, at least in the US. again these scores are available from the church but its not online anywhere. the priest himself according to some authorities is supposed to speak his parts rather than sing, but most priests sort of chant their parts in a sing songy voice. the score to that has never been written down to my knowledge. each priest chants it his own way, although again, the younger priests are starting to sound all the same while older priests have some differing oral traditions that they use. this is all i can say about scores and notation of armenian church music. i will post again with info on recordings. especially for the deacons chanting, recordings are the best way to learn about this music aside from actually attending an armenian church on sunday.

Harry


hartun - 5-14-2013 at 12:31 PM

So there are many many recordings of Armenian chant. Unfortunately many of them are not available on CD but are only on old records. Let me start with Aram Kerovpyan's work. He is a musicologist in France who is attempting to revive the more traditional style of Armenian chant (i.e. non-westernized). Here is his website, which discusses the history and background on the chant including what I said in my previous post. there are CDs for sale there as well: http://www.akn-chant.org/en

Here is Isabel Bayrakdarian's CD of church music: http://www.amazon.com/Isabel-Bayrakdarian-~-Joyous-Light/dp/B00005S...

Most of these CDs include various songs but not the chanting of deacon and priest. What you should know about the Armenian mass is that there are several versions of the melodies, but there are two most popular arrangements (which were both based on the same traditional version with some differences due to the research these men did), one by layman Magar Yegmalian, who studied in St Petersburg under Rimsky-Korsakoff, the other arrangement is by Father Gomidas (Gomidas Vartabed) (Komitas), who had criticized Yegmalian's version and set out to make his own. Yegmalian's mass (1890s) is sung in most Armenian Churches around the world since the Gomidas mass was not published until after the death of Gomidas in the 30s.

Im not sure, but i would guess that the chanting of deacons and priests are included on this one which is a popular recording of the Komitas setting of the mass done in Armenia: http://www.amazon.com/Komitas-Keshishian-Choir-St-Gayan%C3%A9/dp/B0...

I also noticed this recording is downloadable as MP3s. There seem to be many recordings by the Sofia (Bulgaria) Armenian choir. This recording includes many of the songs used in the Armenian mass. According to the comments, this is the Yegmalian setting. http://www.amazon.com/Armenia-Sacra-Liturgical-Armenian-Chants/dp/B...

ok that is all on chant recordings. I have not listened to most of these recordings unfortunately and I cannot direct you to my own favorite recordings as they are either not available on CD or not available online.

hartun - 5-14-2013 at 02:09 PM

finally, you said you are interested in Armenian secular music. Due to the 400-year division of Armenia between the Persian and Ottoman Turkish Empire, and the 19th cen. conquest of the Persian-held section of Armenia by the Russian Empire, there are many different styles or some would say regional "dialects" of Armenian music. As follows:

-Eastern Armenian folk music, which is similar to Azerbaijani music
-"Central" (Mush and Van) Armenian folk music, which is similar to Kurdish music but could be considered part of Western Armenian folk music
-Western Armenian folk music, which is similar to Turkish music
-kef music, which is the modern version of the W. Armenian folk music played in the US
-Ashough (Troubadour) music, mostly from Eastern Armenia, but there were some troubadours in Western Armenia
-European-style arrangements of Armenian folk songs with more or less European influence
-Classical and light classical music in the European sense written by Armenians in the European style, often with heavy Armenian or regional folk influence
-Armenian folk style or classical style songs written by Armenian composers for European instruments or folk instruments (usually soviet style large ensembles)
-"classicized" folk music, i.e. Soviet style large ensembles playing folk melodies
-modern Armenian pop and rock music with western instruments, from Armenia
-similar pop/rock from the Armenians of Lebanon
-the fedayee (freedom fighter) songs which are influenced by all the other styles
-Ottoman Turkish classical and folk music, which the Western Armenians consider to be "their music" as much as it is the Turks' and the Greeks' for that matter. Many of the composers and performers of Turkish classical music were Armenians,
and Western Armenian folk and kef bands typically play a large selection of Turkish language songs, arguably in a unique Armenian or Eastern Anatolian style. However, more nationalistic Armenians frown upon this "Turkish influence" in the Armenian music culture due to many factors especially the Armenian Genocide of 1915 by Ottoman Turkey.

The oud is sometimes used in the soviet-style folk groups, as a background instrument. however in Western Armenian folk music/kef music/turkish songs, and of course, Turkish classical music, the oud is very predominant. It became even more predominant in the Armenian American community starting in the 40s and reached the apex of its popularity in the late 60s/early 70s. Armenians are justifiably proud of the standing of Udi Hrant as one of the greatest oud players of all time. On his tombstone it is written that he was "the pride of the Armenian people". As a side note, in addition to Turkish classical music, Hrant was known to play SHARAGANS on his oud for hours on end. In reference to that connection, the Armenian church music and folk music is sung in some kind of makam system. For example, clarinetist Hachig Kazarian once told me, that in the old style of singing church songs, if a song was in a major key, for example, the 3rd would be slightly lowered (making it equivalent to makam Rast). In regard to the same issue, musicologist Mihran Toumajan writes (I paraphrase): Armenian ecclesiastical music is nothing other than Oriental urban music (i.e. Ottoman classical music). However, his mentor Komitas would probably strongly disagree with him. But maybe what he meant was that, in practice, most Armenian priests, deacons, and choir members sang in an Ottoman style.

the most notable oud players in the "kef" tradition, aside from Hrant, are:
Marko Melkon
Chick Ganimian
George Mgrdichian
John Berberian
Richard A. Hagopian
John Bilezikjian

all of their recordings would be a great place to hear Armenian music featuring the oud. However, there is absolutely no sheet music for this type of music, aside from sheet music produced in Turkey for the same Turkish songs that are popular among Armenians, and a few transcriptions of Armenian songs which are various places online.

for all the other styles of Armenian music, especially the European-classical influenced styles, there is sheet music available, however you can't find it online. It is mostly in old books collecting dust on a shelf somewhere.

but if you are really interested, this little known book is a goldmine for sheet music and lyrics of all the styles of Armenian music that I have mentioned (although there is almost no "kef" music and no Turkish songs). Unfortunately the entire book is written in Armenian (which has its own alphabet), but of course you can use the sheet music.
http://www.sardarabad.net/product_p/5589.htm

another location with sheet music of various Armenian songs of different genres, including a few Turkish songs composed by Armenians, is here:
http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Sheet_Music

again, the lyrics are written in the Armenian alphabet. if there is a song that you particularly are interested in, i can transliterate/translate.

now as to recordings of the other styles of armenian music....the most famous artists/composers are below:

Eastern Armenian folk: Shoghaken Ensemble, Djivan Gasparyan
"Central" Armenian folk: Shoghaken Ensemble
Western Armenian folk/kef: Kef Time Band, Hachig Kazarian, Richard Hagopian, John Berberian, Onnik Dinkjian, Artie Barsamian, Vosbikian Band, Mal Barsamian, Marko Melkon, "Armenians on Eighth Avenue" (CD)
Ashough music: Sayat Nova (composer), Ashough Sheram (composer)
Classical arrangement of Armenian folk songs: Komitas (Gomidas) [arranger], Grikor Suni [arranger]
Armenian modern folk/light classical songs: Khachatur Avetisian [composer], Romanos Melikian [composer], Arno Babajanian [composer]
Classical music by Armenians: Aram Khatchaturian (composer), Alan Hovhaness (composer)
soviet-style ensembles: Armenian Song and Dance Ensemble, Lousig Kochian, Hovhannes Badalian
pop from Armenia: Harout Pamboukjian, Tata Simonyan, Armenchik
pop from Lebanon: Paul Baghdadlian, Adiss Harmandian
fedayee songs: Karnig Sarkissian, Harout Pamboukjian
ottoman music: Udi Hrant, Richard Hagopian, Marko Melkon, "Armenians on Eighth Avenue"

also in addition to Isabel Bayrakdarian in the modern era, in the early 1900s the most famous interpreter of Armenian song was opera singer and protege of Komitas, Armenag Shah-Mouradian. Some of his stuff is available on the CD "Voice of Komitas". other famous armenian singers of the mid century are Shara Dalian (Talyan), Lusine (Lousine) Zakarian, Roupen Matevosian, Armen Babamian, etc

as you can see my list is slanted toward the Turkish-Armenian music as that is my area of the most knowledge. it is also the area that features the oud the most.

I realize I have written a lot of crap that maybe you don't care about, but hopefully you or others will benefit from the information I have tried to gather here. Finally here is one of my favorite Armenian recordings, a very old Western Armenian, semi-classical folk song that is performed here in a European style arrangement by singer Zabel Panossian. The recording was made in 1917. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GizgyxGSrFs

kostyawh - 5-14-2013 at 06:58 PM

This site may be useful:

http://www.houshamadyan.org/en/mapottomanempire/vilayetdiyarbekir/p...

Here are some music and dances of turkish armenians (Palu). Scores and audio files are available.

abc123xyz - 5-14-2013 at 08:49 PM

Quote: Originally posted by hartun  
this video greatly irritates me because at 1:40 isabel states that the venue of her recording is the ruins of "an ancient pagan temple called zvartnots". zvartnots is not a pagan temple but a christian church. i could go into the nationalist ramifications of such a statement but i will leave it at that.

The church was built on top of the remnants of structures dating back to the Urartu period, and which may be the source of her confusion.

She may too have it confused with the Echmiadzin Cathedral, which was indeed built upon the ruins of a Zoroastrian temple.

David

Jono Oud N.Z - 5-14-2013 at 10:34 PM

Hey.

Thanks!!:)

I really appreciate this information!

I am not primarily concerned with playing Armenian chant on the oud, just really like the music and have been looking into different early Church chants.
My interest / study of music is certainly not limited to the oud and I am actually more obsessed with learning history than anything else.

I will check these links and save all this valuable information:).
Thanks again!

hartun - 5-15-2013 at 01:46 PM

the houshamadyan site is very nice. there are besides the palu songs recordings of the early armenian immigrants in america, on 78 rpm, these are in the section entitled "music gallery I" and "music gallery II" under "themes"

the armenian church is indeed one of the oldest churches founded in 301 AD. Armenia was the first country to take Christianity as its national religion. however the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Coptic, are all older and arguably Syriac Orthodox if you consider them the successors to the See of Antioch. they just were not national religions. (Christianity became national religion of the Romans in 380)

i was not speaking of armenian chant on the oud, but you mentioned "armenian music" sounded like a separate thing from armenian chant so i wrote that whole thing on armenian secular music, haha. although as i mentioned udi hrant did play armenian chants on the oud....

IN RE MONOPHONIC CHANT:
if you want to know about armenian chant my personal opinion is that aram kerovpyan is the authority. he is also schooled in turkish classical music and plays the kanun. his CDs are great. he follows the monophonic way of singing rather than the polyphony which was introduced from Europe in the 1890s. as far as I know his CDs are the only ones of monophonic armenian chant done by a choir. the ones you show on ebay even have harmonic instrumental accompaniment even though they are called "ensemble of ancient music of armenia". of course, there are CDs with a capella solo vocalists so that would be monophonic as well. these are usually clergy singing. but for example isabel bayrakdarian's recordings are polyphonic, not monophonic. sometimes the monophonic singing is done in "a la turka", that is, ottoman, style, but this is usually not on recordings. although kerovpyan is from istanbul and schooled in ottoman music his singing is not really ala turka.



Jono Oud N.Z - 5-15-2013 at 06:20 PM

Hey.

Cool!:)

I will look into Aram Kerovpyan then.
Thanks, as you said it seems harder to find the purely monophonic chants.
I have already ordered the ones from ebay, never mind I am sure they will still be good.

I was reading that Christianity was introduced into Armenia early, before the official established Church.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Apostolic_Church

Also I really like Udi Hrant, Marco Melkon and Richard Hagopian on the oud and and am doing research on 16th cent' Ottoman music.
There are some Armenian composers in the Cantemir collection too, I will check.

All the information you shared was interesting and helpful.:)

hartun - 5-16-2013 at 12:11 PM

Btw Aram Kerovpyans choral group is named "Akn".

Also this record is really good if you have a record player: http://www.ebay.com/itm/THE-DEACONS-LITANIES-IN-THE-ARMENIAN-LITURG...

According to legend Thaddeus and Bartholomew who were 2 or the 12 disciples of Jesus each went to Armenia and preached on separate occasions. Thaddeus supposedly converted the king's daughter Princess Santoukht, she was then killed by her father so she is considered the first Armenian martyr. Thaddeus and Bartholomew were also martyred in Armenia according to these legends. There is still St. Thaddeus monastery in far NW Iran what used to be Armenia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Thaddeus_Monastery. There was also St. Bartholomew monastery in Baskale Turkey (Hakkari province) but I believe this has been destroyed due to obvious reasons. But many scholars think these are just legends. Regardless, Armenia is a very ancient Christian civilization much older than Europe.

Wow how do you have information on 16th century music. Where does this come from? Or do you mean the 1600s when Cantemir made his transcriptions.

Hrant, Melkon, and Richard are all great favorites of mine as well. I am going to see Richard live at a dance with John Berberian, Onnik Dinkjian (singer) and Mal Barsamian (clarinet) next week in Providence, Rhode Island.

Does NZ mean you are from new zealand? What got you interested in this type of music, or do you have a greek or middle eastern background?

Jono Oud N.Z - 5-16-2013 at 05:12 PM

Thanks.:)

I will get this record, I can get it put onto CD at my University.

I am Christian also, so I am interested to learn the early history of the Church. My oud teacher was Coptic Egyptian from Cairo.

To answer your question about the 16th century pieces, I have the Cantemir collection (Owen Wright, Eugenia Popescu-Judetz and Yalcin Tura's transcriptions) and there are a few pieces that definitely date from the 16th cent'.
There are a couple that date from the 1400's also.
Also I have the Ali Ufuqi book, there are a few in that too.
(I have uploaded the facsimile in the book section)

As well there is a new book by Kyriakos Kalaitzidis:
http://www.ergon-verlag.de/en/start.htm?d_978_3_89913_947_1_9966.ht...
This is really good, there are some 15th and 16th century Ottoman pieces notated in Byzantine notation.
He is still working on these.
One is by the legendary Abdul Qadir Maraghi himself.

My subject is limited to pre-1600 pieces, so earlier is fine, Timurid etc.
Also the interpretation of the pieces and the tunings are involved.

Eugenia Popescu-Judetz's books are all very helpful.
'The summary Catalogue of Turkish Makam's' is very good, there are some early Ottoman writings before 1600.

'Music of the Ottoman Court' by Walter Feldman is excellent.

'Two Treatises - Two Streams' by Mehrdad Fallahzafeh deals with Persian and Central Asian writings on music and theory from the 16th to 18th centuries, they discuss the maqamat and forms like the Bashraf.

And lastly,
'Figurative Art in Medieval Islam And the Riddle of Bihzad of Herat (1465-1535)' by Micheal Barry is an excellent book on miniature painting that deals with the multicultural atmosphere of the art schools in Baghdad and Herat, this can relate back to the musical environment as well and helps to understand the non-nationalistic attitudes of the period.



As far as myself being into this music -
My interest began by learning about and playing Medieval western music.
I bought the Martin Best Medieval Ensemble's 'the Last of the Troubadour's ' and Gregorio Paniagua's 'Musique Arabo Andalouse' around 1992, and it all started from there.
I had studied classical guitar, particularly focusing on Renaissance music and wanted to go back further to explore Medieval music and the modes.
Later I discovered maqam and Mid East music; Yair Dalal, Hassan Erraji, Djivan Gasparyan, Richard Hagopian and Hossein Alizadeh thanks to the Wellington public library. (Yes, I live in New Zealand)
A few years later I discovered this wonderful site and the sites Neyzen and Maqam World.

As far as I know I do not have much Mid East blood but there is some on my Dad's side, unsure what yet exactly.
I just really love modal music and the maqam is the ultimate modal music in my opinion.:)







hartun - 5-30-2013 at 01:42 PM

in re monodic chant here is a video of aram kerovpyans choir singing nor dzaghig (new flower) an easter song ("dagh") by st nerses the gracefilled (12th cen.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jI7Qc398to

unfortunately i don't quite like this version but i think its because i've grown up hearing this which is one of my favorite songs sung in a slightly different way and that has memories attached to it

Jono Oud N.Z - 5-30-2013 at 02:31 PM

Hi

This is exactly what i was looking for, thanks!:)