SPREADING OF THE GREGORIAN CHANT IN UKRAINE

Abstract

In the current thesis the Gregorian chant in the context of the liturgy art content, performing interpretation, and contemporary music theory discourse is investigated. The history of development of the Western monody throughout Medieval Age and the occurrence’s evolution in further centuries is represented integrally. The peculiar role of notation in understanding of musical self of the Gregorian chants gets marked out. Latin ceremonial did influence Ukraine. In particular, cultural links with European countries widened as the result of the baptism of Kievan Rus’. The consequences of the cooperation with the West are traced in the historical sources, in the approach to adopting the musical notation system, as well as in the inclusion of the Western hymns in the Ukrainian liturgy irmologions. The presence of Roman-Catholic ritual in Ukraine is the most clearly supported by a number of evidences of Gregorian chant; in particular, L’viv is considered to contain one of the most extensive preserved note-containing manuscript collection. A diversity of forms, local kinds, and chronological extentions of the Western neume notation are investigated. A significant methodology used for this is the comparison of different notation systems, which is based on the manuscripts of different territorial origins and involves those from L’viv that constitute an important source. Grounding on the analysis of some pieces of the L’viv collection some specific graphic peculiarities of the basic neumes and their similitude to the local European centers were found. This way, in the process of the general research we recognize the significance of Gregorian chant in the millenium-long development history of the Western and Eastern European musical art. In the current context, the presence of Roman Catholic customs in L’viv indicated the inclusion of Ukraine to the European cultural space and propelled more profound studies of the current problem in scholar discourse within Ukrainian musicology.