„Песнопения по всенощно бдение" от Добри Христов и идеята за подходящата църковна музика
"Chants on the All-Nigth Vigil" by Dobri Hristov and the Idea of Appropriate Church Music

Summary/Abstract: One demand runs through the whole of musical history like a red thread: the demand for music appropriate to its place in the church. The origins of this can be traced back at least to St. Augustine (Confessions), who passed on two words to the following centuries: the profit and the pleasure of singing. The pleasure should not outweigh the profit, while the senses should be guided by reason. These two words were seized upon by the Council of Trent, which, in its “Canon on Music to be used in the Mass”, promulgated in 1562, connected them in the idea of the religious musical ethos. Not to “the empty pleasure of the ear,” but to the lifting of hearts “in the desire for heavenly harmonies and in contemplation of the joy of the Blessed” - this should be the intention of singing in the church. It is musicology as a modern scientific discipline that connects the idea of appropriate church music with the means of expression of music, or with its musical particularities. According to this discipline these elements that are common for church and secular music, when they are used in a church work, will have to be adapted in an appropriate way to fit the aims of the liturgical service. Here two possible approaches to research present themselves. The first of them, leaving the discussion of the musical sense to other disciplines beside musicology, focuses on an analysis of the melodic, rhythmic, structural, notational, and repertoire-related characteristics of church music. The second approach is one that holds open the horizon toward the theological foundations of that music. This paper focuses on a concrete example: “Chants on the All-Night Vigil” by Dobri Hristov. In an attempt to utilize the second approach outlined above, the author has chosen a definite point of departure, situating chants in the context of the theological idea of the all-night service, which is based on Christ’s exhortation :”Be always on the watch,” Luke 21:36. Examining two types of manuscripts from Dobri Hristov’s archives (“Notes on the Order of the Chants” and “Chants for the All-Night Vigil”) in their mutual interconnectedness, this paper attempts to find an adequate way of reading “Chants,” which represents the composer’s most fervent effort to realize his idea of appropriate church music.

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