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John_of_Patmos
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The Mozarabic was particularly nice.
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dzheremi
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This does not seem at all unusual to me. We have two Jordanian Catholics (I don’t know if they’re Melkites, but I would think that’s more likely than other options) who regularly attend here at St. Pishoy COC. They are not communed, of course, but they continue to attend on a fairly regular basis, as they prefer the Coptic liturgy to whatever is offered over at the local RC church (there is one local RC church that hosts Eastern and Oriental Catholic liturgies, but I get the feeling it is infrequent and perhaps somewhat slapped together). One of the pair (they’re brother and sister) was talking last week after liturgy and said that even when we have our liturgy in English (which has been happening more regularly lately, though I couldn’t tell you why) she prefers it to the Catholic mass because the Coptic liturgy still retains its “Eastern aroma” (her words…well, we do use a lot of incense, regardless of the language).On a side note, a fellow Melkite parishioner of mine is also very involved in the local Coptic Orthodox parish. I should ask him if they admit he and his wife to Communion.
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Phillip_Rolfes
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That’s actually in part why I’ve started looking into the Maronites. There is a chance that my family may be moving to an area where there are no Eastern/Byzantine Catholic Churches. I know the area fairly well since it’s where I originated, so I know that the majority of the Roman parishes in that area aren’t very good. My wife has agreed to check out the Maronite parish there. If it’s a good parish we may end up making it our home. If not, I do know of a couple of Roman parishes that are good.
Sadly my wife has already said she isn’t willing to attend an Orthodox parish. I’m hoping to at least be able to go to a Byzantine DL once a month, but we’ll see how that works out if/when we move.
I should check to see if there are any Coptic parishes in that area.
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Phillip_Rolfes
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It is Psalm 135, “O give thanks unto the Lord…” Sorry, I can’t transliterate the Greek title.
For a wonderful version of this, check out this youtube video youtube.com/watch?v=NmqSBuEJMPY
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dzheremi
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Εξομολογεισθε τω Κυριω = Exomologeisthe to Kyrio…just like it sounds. 
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Phillip_Rolfes
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Thank you!Εξομολογεισθε τω Κυριω = Exomologeisthe to Kyrio…just like it sounds.
Hopefully our brother sees it.
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John_of_Patmos
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Yep!Thank you!
I too am looking into the Maronites…
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dzheremi
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By the way, the Youtube channel that I took the Maronite rendition of St. Ephrem’s hymn from, simply called Maronites, is a good source of documentaries, hymns, presentations on various aspects of Maronite liturgical and cultural life (e.g., Maronite icons in Cyprus), etc. It sure beats the heck out of most of the other Maronite YT activity that I’ve seen, which is heavily involved (mired) in Lebanese politics…probably not so interesting to non-Lebanese living in America or otherwise outside of Lebanon!
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malphono
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The text of that hymn is authentic, but while the musical arrangement does (more-or-less) maintain the poetic meter, it is not. OTOH, it’s one of the better examples of what I’ll call the neo-Maronite musical style.
Well, I wouldn’t really say that. Until the modern era and the advent of the neo-Maronite musical style, the true sounds of Syriac chant were alive and well, particularly in monasteries, and to some degree, they still are.
The increasing use of Arabic (at first in Karchuni script) really had little bearing on it, at least insofar as proper liturgical chant was concerned. Most liturgical chant was retained in Syriac, although certain things were translated. There were also some things (mainly hymns for the laity) which were original Arabic compositions which have no Syriac counterpart. There were also some hymns imported from the Latins which were translated into Arabic only.
In former times, the translation itself was considered paramount, so the Syriac tune was often slightly adapted to conform to the Arabic text (the addition of a note or two here, or the deletion of same there, etc). That, of course, is no longer the case. In main, those tunes that are of Syriac origin have been arbitrarily “standardized” and the texts are now dynamic equivalents (or worse) and are no longer translations. (The same is now true when adapting things to the various diasporal languages). IOW, the standardized tune (which itself is often not quite traditional) is used with some sort of adapted text.
Beyond the standardization of Syriac tunes, the neo-Maronite school also continues to “enhance” (well, I consider it to be quite the opposite of “enhancement” but never mind that) tunes as well as producing original musical composition sometimes based on the meter of the Syriac original but otherwise totally divergent from it (which I normally regard as being even worse than the “enhancements” but I digress). And sometimes (as in the linked example) a combination of the two.
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ByzCathCantor
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Just jumping in here, after a short break from CAF at the end of the Great Fast.
Terrific discussion here - I’ve picked up a lot from the exchange.
Even in the Byzantine traditions where the chant tradition has been fairly well preserved, debate commonly arises as to the integrity of the chant tradition, especially as adapted in vernacular language as people have emigrated to other countries.
Thanks for all the (name removed by moderator)ut on the Maronite tradition, which I have always appreciated yet never really studied in depth.
Terrific discussion here - I’ve picked up a lot from the exchange.
Even in the Byzantine traditions where the chant tradition has been fairly well preserved, debate commonly arises as to the integrity of the chant tradition, especially as adapted in vernacular language as people have emigrated to other countries.
Thanks for all the (name removed by moderator)ut on the Maronite tradition, which I have always appreciated yet never really studied in depth.
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Denho
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There is a selection of various Maronite chants for the Hours located here as well:
beith-morounoye.org/syriac/MIDI/index.html
beith-morounoye.org/syriac/MIDI/index.html
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Splagchnizomai
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Yes, there has. Simple English Propers. These are very well done.
There are others, and many of the hymnals for the 3rd edition of the Roman Missal have chants (though most use standard notation). I have Fr Weber’s Office Of Compline, which has both English and Latin.
Also, Solemes just put out an English translation. It looks like it’s only available in Europe.
And St Meinrad has been very active in Gregorian chant in English, particularly Fr Columba Kelly. Check out the St Meinrad Kyriale. Six Mass settings.
Chant is making a return in the Latin Church. Still in the grassroots stages as folks form a Garage Schola here and there in parishes across the land, but there’s more chant in my area now than say two or three years ago.
Back to our regularly scheduled program.
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Phillip_Rolfes
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Wow! I stand corrected and amazed. I knew the Liturgical Institute was doing good work. So far I’ve only been able to check out the first video.Yes, there has. Simple English Propers. These are very well done.
There are others, and many of the hymnals for the 3rd edition of the Roman Missal have chants (though most use standard notation). I have Fr Weber’s Office Of Compline, which has both English and Latin.
Also, Solemes just put out an English translation. It looks like it’s only available in Europe.
And St Meinrad has been very active in Gregorian chant in English, particularly Fr Columba Kelly. Check out the St Meinrad Kyriale. Six Mass settings.
Chant is making a return in the Latin Church. Still in the grassroots stages as folks form a Garage Schola here and there in parishes across the land, but there’s more chant in my area now than say two or three years ago.
Back to our regularly scheduled program.
Incidentally, the young lady in the video wearing the hat and the white skirt is a good friend of mine, and my wife’s best friend! They talk over the phone on a weekly basis. She’s going to be my son’s Godmother.
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chaldobyzantine
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Occasionally the Maronite Church does use amazing traditional music, mostly done in Syriac and sometimes in Arabic. When modern hymns are done, in English or Arabic, the songs sound awful, so the consensus on this thread is traditional Maronite music is needed to replace the post-Vatican II music, albeit in a language the people can understand (even though I wish Maronites spoke more Syriac).
Their usage of instruments does not seem as bad as the parishes in my Chaldean eparchy using wind chimes, synthesizers, drums, and trumpets. I actually think that when Maronite or Syriac churches use the oud or nay as a quiet complement to hymns, it does sound quite nice when done right. Though this is not always the case
I am currently listening to traditional Maronite hymns on Youtube that use instruments, but in a simple and non-overbearing style that many churches have abandoned. One should always suggest to their priests and parish choirs to return to their traditional musical roots. And to not worry about hurting the feelings of the players of obnoxious instruments, they should’t be in the choir loft anyway.
Their usage of instruments does not seem as bad as the parishes in my Chaldean eparchy using wind chimes, synthesizers, drums, and trumpets. I actually think that when Maronite or Syriac churches use the oud or nay as a quiet complement to hymns, it does sound quite nice when done right. Though this is not always the case
I am currently listening to traditional Maronite hymns on Youtube that use instruments, but in a simple and non-overbearing style that many churches have abandoned. One should always suggest to their priests and parish choirs to return to their traditional musical roots. And to not worry about hurting the feelings of the players of obnoxious instruments, they should’t be in the choir loft anyway.
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dzheremi
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Forgive me, Malphono, but I think it was you who originally brought up (some time ago) the problem of “dynamic equivalency”-style translations that are not really faithful to the Syriac, so that’s more what I was getting at. As mentioned in Mouawad’s Syriac in Lebanon article (which I’ll reference since we both know it), the problem is in being cut off from the sources, which is itself a consequence of language shift and the attendant ‘vernacularism’ (though I suppose that term could have also been applied to Syriac itself, once upon a time…) in the liturgy. I understand that things were/are different in the monasteries (as is the case in the Coptic monasteries, so I understand the dichotomy), but well…we’ve all seen the. uh…non-monastic liturgies on Tele-Lumiere or MTV Lebanon…if they are retained there to the same degree, I have not seen it. (The Copts, for their part, have produced some interesting adaptations for their hymns: compare Tentheeno from the Midnight Praises in the original to this English version from St. Antony monastery in the California desert. I’m biased, but I think they did a good job.)
This was poorly phrased on my part (again). I brought up Garshuni as a measure of the historical course of the adoption of Arabic by the Maronites, not to say that Garshuni itself destroyed the hymns. (Incidentally, maybe the earliest Garshuni text yet identified, as per Mengozzi’s 2010 paper on the Rabbula codex, is a 6th century text from Deir al-Surian monastery in Egypt.)
Thank you. This is the situation I was trying to get at in the previous paragraph (albeit clumsily; my apologies).
Beyond the standardization of Syriac tunes, the neo-Maronite school also continues to “enhance” (well, I consider it to be quite the opposite of “enhancement” but never mind that) tunes as well as producing original musical composition sometimes based on the meter of the Syriac original but otherwise totally divergent from it (which I normally regard as being even worse than the “enhancements” but I digress). And sometimes (as in the linked example) a combination of the two.
Yeah. Sorry, I couldn’t come up with a better example of a Syriac hymn off the top of my head. Or at least not one that had a Youtube video. Besides, the linked video is not far off from what is often heard in Maronite churches now, is it?
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malphono
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I think we’re really on the same page here … what I was getting at earlier in this thread was simply that proper liturgical chant in Syriac was maintained in pre-conciliar times. (NB: That’s not to say the harmonium or organ wasn’t sometimes used, but the chant itself remained faithful to its roots.) One can hear it in the few “old” recordings available (IIRC you have some of them). It wasn’t until the rise of the neo-Maronite style in the post-conciliar era that Syriac chant itself has been increasingly (though not completely – hence my reference to monasteries, some of which keep the “real thing”) mangled .
I’ve not seen it either. Not in those dreadful broadcasts (which accurately represent what goes on in Lebanon) nor in person. And that is exactly my point. The “best” of those represent the neo-Maronite musical style which is no prize. The worst represent an essentially Syriac-free (both in language and musical style) environment.
That said, there is at least one partial exception: youtube.com/watch?v=JOfFm888Zfg. Even that is not 100% (mainly due to the instrumentation, but in this case that’s a very minor issue) but it’s by far the best I’ve heard recorded in well over 30 years.
Yes, they’ve done a reasonably good job. Similar, in its way, to “old style” of Maronite translations including, to a degree at least, the now-reviled work of Khouri Mansour Labaky in English.
As I inferred earlier, your linked video is better than most other things one hears these days. It is one of the “hybrids” as I mentioned in my earlier post, but I’d still prefer to hear that than 98% of the neo-Maronite stuff which is far, far worse.
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Phillip_Rolfes
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Thanks for providing this.
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dzheremi
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The only English material I have by Fr. Labaky is the “Cedars of Lebanon” LP, but I really don’t think it’s that bad. It’s grown on me quite a bit, actually. So it’s a little strange to hear that he’s reviled now. Did he go neo-Maronite style after that?
Yeah, I agree. By “better”, I just meant “not mixed”, or pure(r) Syriac.As I inferred earlier, your linked video is better than most other things one hears these days. It is one of the “hybrids” as I mentioned in my earlier post, but I’d still prefer to hear that than 98% of the neo-Maronite stuff which is far, far worse.
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