Plenary Lecture

Analogies in Melodies of Early Christian Liturgical Chant Originating From Different Cultural Domains

Professor Eugene Kindler
 Profesor of applied mathematics, University of Ostrava,
Faculty of Science, Dept. of Computers and Informatics,
CZ - 701 03 Ostrava, 30. dubna no. 22,
CZECH REPUBLIC
E-mail: ekindler@centrum.cz

Abstract: The Christian liturgical chant of the first millennium was forgotten many centuries ago and (more or less) deciphered in relatively recent epoch – e.g. Latin chant in the second half of the XIX century, Byzantine chant after the First World War, Russian kondakarian chant and Armenian medieval chant after the Second World War. The difficulties came from Different modes of graphical recording of that music and – for the modern feeling – different relations between spoken speech and sung texts caused extreme difficulties in the modern studies. The consequence is that some relations between the geographic and/or linguistic types of that chant are studied only from the literary and liturgical point of view (i.e. the melodic aspects are completely neglected), while from the musical point of view the particular types of that chant were often understood as separate subjects of culture. Since 1962, the author has studied various types of the mentioned music by means of formal grammars and since 1980 has been director of a small singing group Musica Poetica that presented those chants at concerts; surprising analogies among melodies of chants arisen in different linguistic and liturgical domains appeared, testifying on common roots of those musical types (Christian religion and classical Greek-Roman musical culture). The analogies will be presented in the lecture both in graphical way (in transcription in modern notation) and in acoustical way as well, with context to the general properties of the relating musical types (Latin, Greek-Byzantine, Syro-Byzantine, Armenian and Palaeoslavic).



Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Eugene Kindler was born in 1935, studied mathematics at Charles University in Prague, (Czechoslovakia) and then computer science at the Research Institute of Mathematical Machines in Prague. He is the author of the first Czechoslovak ALGOL 60 compiler and the first Czechoslovak simulation language and compiler (COSMO, Compartmental System Modeling). Charles University granted him PhDr in logic and RNDr (Rerum Naturalium Doctor) in the theory of programming, Czechoslovak Academy of Science granted him CSc (Candidate of Sciences) in mathematics and physics. During 1958-1966 he worked with the Research Institute of Mathematical Machines, then with the Institute of Biophysics of the Faculty of General Medicine of Charles University (until 1973) and then with the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of the same University (until 2006). In parallel, he worked with a new University of Ostrava. Since 2006 he has been pensioned, collaborating with the same Ostrava University as external specialist in various research projects and in doctoral studies.
During 1967-1973 he was responsible for special projects on information processing in radiation security and during 1973-1989 he was head of teams oriented to the fundamental research of modeling techniques. During 1995-2000 he represented Czech Republic activities at two COPERNICUS projects sponsored by the European Commission and oriented to sea harbor modernizing with use of modern information technology. Beside many shorter professional stays at foreign institutions, he worked as visiting professor with the University of Pisa (Italy, one year around 1969) and with West Virginia University (Morgantown, USA, one year around 1993), as invited professor and then as holder of French government professor scholarship with Blaise Pascal University (Clermont-Ferrand, 9 moths, around 1995 and 1998) and with the University of South Brittany (Lorient, France, 3 times one months in 2002-2004), and as a hosting lecturer with Humboldt University (Berlin, 3 months in 1983). His main professional interest is object-oriented simulation of discrete event systems, namely of those using their own private models for anticipating their future states. His private hobby is the chant originated during the first millennium A.D. in Europe and certain Near East Asian countries.