(Gk.: diminutive of tropos, ‘manner’, ‘mode’).
A collective term for several genres of hymn in the Byzantine liturgy. Troparia are in most cases poetic intercalations or refrains used in the recitation of psalms, canticles and doxologies; a few may be performed independently, for example, as processional chants. They constitute by far the largest body of chanted texts in the Byzantine rite and include the important stichēra (see Stichēron) and kanōnes (see Kanōn); the text strophes of the latter, each following the melody of a model strophe, are commonly known as troparia. By comparison with Western antiphons. the texts of troparia are usually less explicitly linked to the scriptural recitative with which they are performed; typically they consist of invocations, calls for mercy, prayers, praises, dogmatic statements or descriptions of the particular saint or feast of the day.
Troparia belong to the oldest stratum of Byzantine hymnody. The earliest known poet-singers, such as the monophysite Anthimos and the Orthodox Auxentios and Timokles, who were active in the 5th century, apparently followed a practice of troparion singing associated with urban liturgies rather than with an early ascetic and monastic tradition of pure psalmody. In the older literature troparia are often referred to as ‘hymns’ and hence include old monostrophic, non-scriptural chants such as the 6th-century Ho monogenēs hyios (‘O only-begotten Son’) and the Trisagion sung at the beginning of the Divine Liturgy, and the Cheroubikon and its substitutes.
The oldest collections of troparia were probably called ‘tropologia’, a term found in a series of manuscripts from the 9th century onwards containing the texts of kathismata, stichēra and kanōnes combined in a single volume, but with each subsection arranged according to the system of the eight modes (see Oktōēchos).
To distinguish the different categories of troparia, manuscripts often also give them a second designation that defines their specific textual content (e.g. theotokion, ‘a piece in honour of Our Lady’), their liturgical function (e.g. doxastikon, ‘to be sung with the doxology’), the day on which they are sung (e.g. anastasimon, ‘on the Resurrection’, i.e. Sundays) or their origin (e.g. anatolikon, ‘of the East’).
In a narrower sense, the term troparion also refers to the troparion tēs hēmeras or tēs heortēs (the Proper troparion ‘of the day’ or ‘of the feast’), which was repeated several times on a given feast after the ‘lesser entrance’ of the Divine Liturgy and in the Office. This troparion is often known as the troparion apolytikion (‘troparion of dismissal’) and is named after its fixed position at the end of Hesperinos. The music of this group of troparia was usually transmitted by oral tradition alone; however, a cycle of troparion melodies that were used as models (automela) to generate hundreds of other troparion melodies is preserved in a few sources from the 13th and 14th centuries. These notated automela reflect the characteristics of a widespread oral tradition. The melodies are predominantly syllabic and use a limited repertory of musical formulae for each mode; they often divide into sections, each consisting of two lines with identical settings, and conclude with a different, refrain-like line. Although the music appears rather simple, these troparia could, according to the Byzantine typika (ordines), be performed in a variety of ways: by the congregation alone; by the soloist alone; by the soloist and then the congregation; with the congregation repeating only the refrain line after the soloist; in simple style; or with greater solemnity. Troparia apolytikia are sometimes called kathismata or kontakia, because several proems for kontakia in the simple style (rather than in the melismatic tradition of the Kontakaria) also function as automela for troparia.
Finally, three series of troparia, each consisting of 12 chants, for Christmas, Epiphany and Good Friday, are traditionally ascribed to Patriarch Sophronios of Jerusalem (fl 7th century). These are transmitted in the Stichērarion and are more similar in musical style to stichēra than the main repertory of troparia and troparia apolytikia.
J.B. Pitra: L’hymnographie de l’église grecque (Rome, 1867)
E. Follieri: Initia hymnorum ecclesiae graecae (Vatican City, 1960–66)
H. Husmann: ‘Hymnus and Troparion’, JbSIM 1971 (Berlin, 1972), 7–86
O. Strunk: ‘Tropus and Troparion’, Essays on Music in the Byzantine World, ed. K. Levy (New York, 1977), 268–76
J. Szövérffy: A Guide to Byzantine Hymnography: a Classified Bibliography of Texts and Studies (Brookline, MA, 1978–9)
A. Jung: ‘The Kathismata in the Sofia Manuscript Kliment Ochridski cod. gr. 814’, Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen-Age grec et latin, lxi (1991), 49–77
C. Troelsgård: ‘Melodic Variation in the ‘Marginal’ Repertoire of Byzantine Musical Manuscripts: Apolytikia and Exaposteilaria’, Cantus planus VII: Sopron 1995, 601–9
J. Raasted: ‘Kontakion Melodies in Oral and Written Tradition’, Three Worlds of Medieval Chant: Comparative Studies In Greek, Latin and Slavonic Liturgical Music for Kenneth Levy, ed. P. Jeffery (forthcoming)
J. Raasted: ‘Troparion and Sticheron: Two Main Genres of Byzantine Troparia’, Musica antiqua: Bydgoszcz (forthcoming)
CHRISTIAN TROELSGÅRD