Petros Bereketis painted in a manuscript of 1790, holding a book with the beginning of his composition Θεοτόκε παρθένε (Monastery of Iviron, GR-AOi Ms. 327, f. 1v)
Petros Bereketis (Greek: Πέτρος Μπερεκέτης) or Peter the Sweet (Πέτρος ο Γλυκής) was one of the most innovative musicians of 17th-century Constantinople (Ottoman period). He, together with Panagiotes the New Chrysaphes, Balasios the Priest and Germanos Bishop of New Patras was one of the most influential figures in the evolution of the Byzantine psaltic art following the fall of Constantinople in 1453, although he never was associated with the Patriarchate in Fener. For many years, he served as the protopsaltis (first cantor) of the parochial church St. Constantine of the Hypsomatheia (Samatya) quarter close to the Marmara coast.
During his lifetime, which is approximately supposed to be between 1665 and 1725, while Chrysanthos mentioned that he served there in the time of the Archon Protopsaltis at the Great Church of Christ of Panagiotis Halatzoglou and his Lampadarios John Trapezountios (1727–1748).
Education
Nothing is known about his real life time, so that Gregorios Stathis assumed that there was a confusion between Petros Bereketis, John Trapezountios' student Petros Peloponnesios and the latter's follower Petros Byzantios.[1] Petros Bereketis began his musical studies in his home city of Constantinople, but later visited Mount Athos for a considerable length of time to study under the noted teacher of Constantinopolitan musicians, the Moldavian monk Damian of Vatopedi (1650–1720).
Compositions
The surviving compositional corpus left by Bereketis is extensive, spanning works across all ecclesiastical genres including communion chants (koinonika for both Sundays and weekdays), asmatic doxologies, cherubic hymns, kratemata, pasapnoaria, polyelea, doxastica and katavasies for various feast days. Among the more notable of his compositions is the eight-mode setting of "O Theotokos and Virgin" for two alternating choirs, most commonly chanted in all-night vigils on Mount Athos.
Heirmoi kalophonikoi
In particular, his musical settings of the heirmoi (unsurpassed both in quality and in quantity by his contemporaries) gave rise to a style of paraliturgical chant that came to be known as the 'kalophonic heirmological style', named for a certain method of melodic thesis which referred to the Old Heirmologion, but in a soloistic and rather deliberate way characterised as kalophonic ("beautifully sounding") melos.[2] With respect to Petros' exceptional talent which he mainly developed in the genre of kalophonic heirmos, he is sometimes referred to as the "father of kalophonic heirmoi," although the genre existed since Byzantine times and it had already been revived by Balasios and some other contemporary composers like Germanos.[3] Petros in fact got acquainted to this genre during his studies with Damian at Vatopedi Monastery, and within the well-known collection of the heirmologion kalophonikon, entirely created by composers during the Ottoman period, and other not so well-known prints and sources not less than about 45 compositions are ascribed to him.
The name "Bereketis" is derived from the Turkish word "bereket" (literally "abundance") with which he was known to reply to his students' eager requests for more kalophonic heirmoi or other mathemata to study. Already Balasios the Priest had made the heirmos kalophonikos to one of the most important genres of Ottoman Greek music.[4] This genre was paraliturgical and therefore more experimental than the kalophonic way to compose stichera, which was already established by Late Byzantine composers like John Koukouzelis and Manuel Chrysaphes.[5] The Ottoman collection of heirmoi kalophonikoi became more popular than the Byzantine stichera kalophonika within the living tradition of Orthodox chant, and it was published in the transcription of Gregorios the Protopsaltis by Theodoros Phokaeos.[6] But there are handwritten heirmologia kalophonika notated in exegetic neume notation whose collection are not in every respect identical.[7]
The surviving works of Bereketis were transcribed from the old system of Byzantine parasemantic notation largely by Gregorios the Protopsaltis and his colleague Chrysanthos of Madytos near the beginning of the 18th century. The transcriptions by Gregorios had been republished in two volumes by Charalambos Karakatsanis.[8]
Contributions to the genres of the divine liturgies
The eight-mode, two choir structure format employed by Bereketis in his notable setting of "O Theotokos and Virgin" was inspired by a similar composition ("More Honourable than the Cherubim") by Constantine of Aghialos, written several centuries earlier. After Bereketis, this style became more common and was used several times by later composers, including Nikolaos of Smyrna (in two works entitled "We Have Seen the True Light" and "Unfading Rose"), Monk Ioasaph of the monastery of Dionysiou on Mount Athos (very slow apolytikia of the despotic feasts of the Church), John the Protopsaltis, Theodore Phokaeus, Stephanos the Lambadarios, and Chourmouzios the Archivist of the Great Church.
Bereketis also composed two large cycles of the papadic genre (cherubic hymn and Sunday koinonikon) that are formulaically valid, since the formulas were not written out in Middle Byzantine notation, they were rather part of the performance based on conventional melopœia. One cherubikon as well as one version of the Sunday koinonikon can be chanted in any of the eight Byzantine modes without alteration of the actual neumes, varying only the starting pitch.[9]
List of works
This list is incomplete.[10] Most of the works are included in the collection of the Archive of the Elders on the island of Syme, Ms. 341, but the last part of the collection was destroyed, the Mathematarion of the Menaion is damaged after January (only the first half has survived), and the main collection of heirmologion kalophonikon is missing, except some kalophonic settings of Theotokia which had been arranged in octoechos order. The heirmoi kalophonikoi are mainly known in the printed exegesis by Gregorios the Protopsaltes, while Oktaecha cycles (cherubikon and Sunday koinonikon) are better known according to the transcription made by Chourmouzios, but both teachers at the Music School did an almost complete transcription of Bereketis' compositions. It proves that they were already appreciated at the Patriarchate by the turn to the 19th century. It should be also mentioned that there was an own Romanian reception since the 17th century especially of the heirmologion kalophonikon, which was taught in Jassy by Dionysios Photeinos and also Gregorios the Protopsaltes had to move there.[11]
Troparic and psalmodic compositions of the octoechos
Thou hast given an inheritance, plagal fourth mode
To Thee the champion leader, plagal fourth mode (for two choirs)
Ἐκ παντοίων κινδύνων τοὺς δούλους, fourth mode
Pentekostarion
Ὡς ζωηφόρος, fourth mode
Ἀνάστα ὁ Θεὸς Arise o God, plagal first mode
What God is so great as our God, grave mode
Kontakia
Χαῖρε, νύμφη ἀνύμφευτε ("Rejoice O unwedded Bride") and Alleluia, plagal fourth mode (echos plagios tetartos), Akrostichon during service of the Akathist
Τῇ ὑπερμάχῳ (syntomon) plagal fourth mode, Kontakion of the Akathist
Την ὡραιότητα (argon) third mode, Troparion of the Akathist
Ἐπιφάνη ἡ χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ, first mode (Titus 2:11, Theophany)
Ἐξελέξατο κύριος τὴν σιών, plagal fourth mode with teretismos (Ps 131:13, 25 Mar Annunciation)
Ἐν τῷ φωτὶ [τῆς δόξης], grave mode with nenanismata (Ps 88:16b–17a, 7 Aug Transfiguration)
Koinonikon oktaechon Θεοτόκε παρθένε ("Mother of God, Virgin") echos protos (through eight modes: α'-δ', πλα'-πλδ', α' each section concludes with a transitional teretismos) (15 Aug Dormition of the Theotokos)
Triodion
Γεύσασθε καὶ ἴδετε (Ps 33:9 "O taste and see"), fourth mode / echos tetartos (Presanctified Liturgy on Wednesday and Friday during Lent)
Ἐκ στόματος νηπίων, plagal first mode (Ps 8:3a Lazarus Saturday)
Εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος, plagal first mode with long teretismos (Ps 117:26 Palm Sunday)
^Gregorios Stathis' title (1971) refers to Chrysanthos' datation (1832, XL, note α). Lingas (2001) and The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology do roughly agree with Manolis Hatziyakoumis' (KERE) time span of compositional activities between 1680 and 1715 which is due to the earliest autograph and the earliest collection entirely dedicated to the works of the composer which already dates to 1708. In fact, he was the first protopsaltes who became so appreciated that whole anthologies were just dedicated to his compositions.
^As an example might serve Petros Bereketis' kalophonic composition over the diatonic devteros model Ἐν βυθῷ κατέστρωσε ποτὲ which he classified as echos legetos, see Gerlach (2009, pp. 351–367).
^See the biography "Peter Bereketis" of the Apostolic Diakonia of the Greek Church.
^Certain compositions like Πᾶσαν τὴν ἐλπίδα μου in echos varys used a new melopœia which had to be indicated by particular phthorai, see Gerlach (2011, 96–108). For the study of phthorai used in exegetic notation, see GB-Bm Ms. Gr. 6, ff. 87r-89v.
^Concerning the cherouvikon, see the Apanta of the Archive of the Elders of the island of Syme, Ms. 341, f. 36. See also the analysis of Chourmouzios' transcription with respect to the original notation by Oliver Gerlach (2009, pp. 324–342).
^The stichera idiomela here are referred according to the standard abridged version of the old sticherarion (Troelsgård 2003).
^See the Romanian version (Ms. 89m) of his heirmologion kalophonikon which was written down by Macarie the Hieromonk, now preserved in the manuscript collection of the Stavropoleos Monastery of Bucharest.
Bereketis, Petros (1730). "Archives of Dodecanese, Archeio Demogerontias Symes, Ms. 341". Incomplete collection of "all works by the musician Petros of Constantinople, who was called in Turkish 'Bereketes'" (last pages of the Menaion and of the whole Heirmologion kalophonikon had been destroyed).
Bereketis, Petros; Balasios Iereos; Georgios of Crete; Ioannis Protopsaltes; Petros Peloponnesios (1800). "University of Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library, Ms. Mingana Gr. 6". Heirmologion kalophonikon in exegetic neume notation (some kratemata together with their specific heirmos).
Bereketis, Petros; Balasios the Priest; Chrysaphes, Manuel; Halacoğlu, Panagiotes; Daniel the Protopsaltes; Chourmouzios the Archivist; Ephesios, Petros; Petros Peloponnesios; Petros Vyzantios (1820). Macarie Hieromonk (ed.). "Bucharest, Stavropoleos Monastery, Ms. 89m". Romanian heirmologion kalophonikon transliterated into Slavonic letters.
Chourmouzios the Archivist (exegesis and transcription): Athens, National Library of Greece (Εθνική Βιβλιοθήκη της Ελλάδος), Metochion of the Holy Grave (Μετόχι του Παναγίου Τάφου) ΕΒΕ-ΜΠΤ, manuscripts 704 and 705 (1837).
Chaldaiakis, Achilleas G. (2008). "Tradition and Innovation in the Person of Petros Bereketes". In Gerda Wolfram; Christian Troelsgård (eds.). Tradition and Innovation in Late Byzantine and Postbyzantine Liturgical Chant: Acta of the Congress held at Hernen Castle, the Netherlands, in April 2005. Eastern Christian Studies. Vol. 8. Leuven, Paris, Walpole: Peeters. pp. 191–223. ISBN9789042920156.
