Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia: Medieval Byzantine Chant Sung in the Virtual Acoustic of Hagia Sophia

This album on compact disc by Cappella Romana was released in 2019, recorded at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, Stanford University, and the accompanying Blu-Ray featuring a film documentary about the cathedral and the making of the album was made in 2018. It comes with a 40-page booklet with in-depth essays, musical examples, and illustrations about the project, as well as original texts in Greek and their translations into English, of the lyrics of each song track on the album.

Liner Notes

For a thousand years, Hagia Sophia was the largest domed interior in the world. Its stunning reverberation of over 11 seconds is re-created on this recording. The first vocal album ever to be recorded in live virtual acoustics, Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia will transport you back in time to medieval sound and ritual in Constantinople as an aural virtual reality.

Vocal ensemble Cappella Romana combines passion with scholarship in its exploration of early and contemporary music of the Christian East and West. Its name refers to the medieval Greek concept of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world), which embraced Rome and Western Europe as well as the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople ("New Rome") and its Slavic commonwealth. The acoustics of Hagia Sophia for this recording were synthesized in real time from measurements taken at Hagia Sophia by the Icons of Sound team at Stanford University.

The New York Times said the album "... brings to life the stately mystery of Byzantine cathedral liturgy, bathed in the glittering acoustics of the space for which it was written — even though it was recorded in a studio in California."

Track List

From the Office of Sung Vespers

Final (Teleutaion) Antiphon before the Entrance (Psalms 98:9), Mode Plagal 2 - 5:13
Psalm 140 with Refrain (Kekragarion) - 7:04

From the Office of Sung Matins, Antiphon 7

Small Litany and Old Kalophonic Antiphon, Mode Plagal 4 - 9:31
Choral stichologia (selected verses of Psalms 109-112, "Palaion" - 3:21
Ode 4 of the Canon of the Precious Cross - 6:39

From the Ceremony of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross: Troparion: "Lord, save your people"

Syllabic melody - 1:09
Asmatikon melody - 4:23
Kontakion: "Lifted Up on the Cross," short melody, Mode 4 - 2:11
Sticheron, for the Adoration of the Cross, by Emperor Leo VI "The Wise," "Come believers, let us worship the life-giving Cross," Mode 2 - 6:02

Selections from the Divine Liturgy

Troparion instead of the Trisagion "Your Cross we Worship" - 12:57
Prokeimenon: (Gradual, Psalms 98:9, 1-2), Barys Mode - 5:23
Asmatikon Cherubic Hymn - 12:55

Additional selection included on the accompanying Blu-Ray

Communion Verse, "The Light of your Countenance," Mode 4 - 3:35

Documentary film included included on the accompanying Blu-Ray

Total Audio Time CD 76:50
Total Audio Time Blu-Ray 80:00

Review

Lost Voices is breathtaking, immersive, and absolutely to be enjoyed through headphones rather than over external speakers, which will reliably fail to capture the intended acoustic effect of the recording. The final Asmatikon Cherubic Hymn (track 12) is easily my favourite of the album, and it comes the closest to the music theory found in modern film soundtracks, with subtler and more progressive variation in the theme, rather than strong repetitions or sharp shifts in musical themes found elsewhere in the album. Most of the pieces are downright bombastic, their sound as enormous as the space they intend to fill and emulate in the listener's perception, and the heavy drone of lower voices becomes oppressive at times, less heard than felt, as though through bone conduction. Those songs which strongly and clearly feature higher voices have a delicate and soaring quality to them, but it feels distant and out of reach, overwhelmed by the weight and force of the drones. In this regard, the acoustic space works against modern musical sensibilities, which tend to bias in favour of the treble voices and instruments, treating bass as chiefly rhythmic in nature, not as the omnipresent majority of sound. I was very pleased to receive this album as a birthday gift from my mother-in-law, and I can gladly recommend it to anyone interested in music history, Byzantine modes, and the science of acoustics. Note that the sound space does dramatically alter the resulting audio from the conventions of these compositions, which outside Hagia Sophia would generally be acting within smaller acoustic environments that have shorter echoes (both in duration and in time elapsed between a sound and its echo). This music is deep, vast, and not far removed from "binaural beat" audio, with all the spatial disorientation (or aid to focus) that can entail.

Iron Noder 2022, 6/30