Sound of the Hagia Sophia

  • Thread starter Thread starter Neithan
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
N

Neithan

Guest
NPR did a story a couple weeks ago about how scholars have recreated what a Byzantine chant would have sounded like in the Hagia Sophia before it became a mosque.


Listening to this I thought about how Vladimir the Great’s envoys felt when they described their visit to that once great center of Christendom, which lead to the conversion of the pagan Rus’: “We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth, nor such beauty, and we know not how to tell of it.”
 
Last edited:
This is very impressive. Thank you for posting it.

I wish someday it would be a Christian church again. Unfortunately I fear it may simply crumble before that happens.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
This is very impressive. Thank you for posting it.

I wish someday it would be a Christian church again. Unfortunately I fear it may simply crumble before that happens.
Click to expand...
It’s been a museum for a while (about 80 years) and was of course a mosque for a few hundred years.

I heard that the President of Turkey was thinking of turning it back into a working mosque.

My father was in Istanbul last October and took photographs of it. One photograph was of the Virgin Mother with Child Jesus.

They never were able to cover up all of the early Christian mosaics! Even when they turned it into a mosque.
 
Well that music is so gloomy and boring! It doesn’t speak in my heart language!
 
Did you listen to the whole thing? It’s amazing what it would sound like in Hagia Sophia!
 
It’s already been through nine or ten major fires, earthquakes, and other collapses of the building. It’s pretty amazing that any part of it is still standing at all.
 
At the end of WWI there might have been some political room to create a Constantinople micro-state, like the Vatican is today. That would have been awesome (and maybe one good thing from a senseless conflict). That opportunity won’t happen again anytime soon.

On the one hand I’d prefer if it were a mosque, at least God would be worshipped there; on the other hand, Muslims forbid images.
 
Last edited:
Neithan said:
On the one hand I’d prefer if it were a mosque, at least God would be worshipped there
Click to expand...
I was also thinking this. I think right now they do have some rooms in it where both Muslims and Christians can pray, and also they have the muezzin calling for prayers again since 2016. I much prefer that to its being a museum for how great the Turkish state is.
 
Wow. My jaw dropped open. Amazing.
I have a small appreciation for the science of placing people with amazing voices in strategic locations to make the most of the domes, that people in the front and people in the back have the same experience because of architecture assisting in the sound. I have been in services and had my ribcage vibrating with the base voices. Then there’s the incense, and the visual icons. You hardly notice that your feet are on the floor any longer.

Jen95, maybe you might like this chant which is in English.
Blessed are you oh Lord, teach me your statutes

 
In the documentary about the rise of the Ottoman Empire, it was said that the Hagia Sophia was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and that the day before the fall of Constantinople there was lightning on the dome, which people interpreted as the BVM leaving this special church.
 
Is that the Netflix one? It’s great. Apparently the blueish light above the dome was weird enough to frighten people.
 
Neithan said:
40.png
Jen95:
Well that music is so gloomy and boring! It doesn’t speak in my heart language!
Click to expand...
Well, I bet even “Here I am, Lord” sounds better there.
Click to expand...
I am pulling your leg – I couldn’t resist. I’m a huge chant fan.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
It’s already been through nine or ten major fires, earthquakes, and other collapses of the building. It’s pretty amazing that any part of it is still standing at all.
Click to expand...
I saw a show the other night on the History of Christianity and I think they said it was built in only 6
years. It is amazing it is still standing. If the workers
building it only knew how long it would stand!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top