(b ?Peloponnesos, 1740; d Constantinople, 23 April 1800). Romaic (Greek) composer and hymnographer. A student of Joannes of Trebizond, he was first domestikos at the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople from 1764 until 1776, when he was invited to teach at the Second Patriarchal School of Music with Daniel the Protopsaltes and Petros Peloponnesios. He later returned to the patriarchal cathedral, chanting as lampadarios (c1784–9) and, after the death of Daniel, as prōtopsaltēs (1790 until his own death). Highly respected for his erudition, he was invited by Patriarch Gregory V to revise and correct the liturgical books of the patriarchate, for which he also wrote the texts of two contrafacta kanons in honour of St Euphemia.
In 1791, together with Petros Byzantios, Jakobos founded the Third Patriarchal Music School, and in 1797 he successfully led opposition within the patriarchate to the proposed notational reforms of Agapios Paliermos, an action characteristic of his conservative stance in a period of artistic change. Described by Chrysanthos of Madytos as a traditionalist suspicious of innovation and lacking the steady rhythmic sense of Petros Byzantios, Jakobos shunned the new syllabic and neumatic styles popularized by Petros Peloponnesios and his students. He preferred instead to sing, teach and compose within the highly ornate received tradition of the medieval and post-Byzantine stichērarion, in which scores were realized with reference to an orally transmitted body of melodic formulae (theseis).
Jakobos's most significant contribution to the preservation of the older melodic style was the massive Doxastarion transcribed by his student Georgios of Crete in 1794/5, which contains a cycle of ‘abridged’ melismatic stichēra for the liturgical year. This work was later transcribed into Chrysanthine notation by Chourmouzios the Archivist and published, in an edition by Theodore Phōkaeus, in 1836. Other chants for the Divine Office include eight Great Doxologies; ‘abridged’ settings of the opening verses of Lauds (‘Hoi ainoi’) at Orthros and the ‘lamplighting’ psalms at Hesperinos, the polyeleos (Psalm cxxxiv) in mode 4, two kalophonic heirmoi, and the 11 morning Gospel hymns of the Emperor Leo VI. He also wrote a number of Cherubic Hymns for each of the eucharistic liturgies (St John Chrysostom, the Presanctified Gifts, St Basil). Most of these works were first printed in Chrysanthine editions (see bibliography). (For a fuller list of works, including references to manuscripts featuring the original post-Byzantine notation, see Chatzēgiakoumēs, 1975, pp.299–302.)
T. Phōkaeus, ed.: Tameion anthologias [Treasury of an anthology] (Constantinople, 1824) [transcr. Chourmouzios the Archivist]
P. Ephesios, transcr. and ed.: Anthologia, ii (Bucharest, 1830; repr., 1997, with a new preface)
T. Phōkaeus, ed.: Tameion anthologias [Treasury of an anthology] (Constantinople, 1834) [transcr. Gregorios the Protopsaltes]
T. Phōkaeus, ed.: Heirmologion kalophōnikon [Kalophonic heirmologion] (Constantinople, 1835), 55–9 [transcr. Gregorios the Protopsaltes]
T. Phōkaeus, ed.: Doxastarion periechon ta doxastika holōn tōn despotikōn kai theomētorikōn heortōn tōn te heortozomenōn hagiōn tou holou eniautou, tou te triōdiou kai pentēkostariou: melopoiēthen para Iakōbou Prōtopsaltou tēs tou Christou Megalēs Ekklēsias [Doxastarion containing the doxastika of all the feasts of the Lord, the Mother of God, and the saints, celebrated throughout the year, of the triōdion and pentēkostarion: set to music by Jakobos the Protopsaltes of the Great Church of Christ] (Constantinople, 1836/R)
G.I. Papadopoulos: Historikē episkopēsis tēs byzantinēs ekklēsiastikēs mousikēs apo tōn apostolikōn chronōn mechri tōn kath' hēmas (1–1900 m. Ch.) [An historical survey of Byzantine ecclesiastical music from apostolic times to our own (1–1900 CE)] (Athens, 1904/R)
C.G. Patrinelis: ‘Protopsaltae, Lampadarioi and Domestikoi of the Great Church during the Post-Byzantine Period (1453–1821)’, Studies in Eastern Chant, iii, ed. M. Velimirović (London, 1973), 141–70
G.T. Stathēs: Ta cheirographa byzantinēs mousikēs: Hagion Oros [The MSS of Byzantine Music: Holy Mountain] (Athens, 1975–93)
M. Chatzēgiakoumēs: Cheirographa ekklēsiastikēs mousikēs (1453–1820) [MSS of ecclesiastical music] (Athens, 1980)
G.T. Stathis: ‘The “Abridgements” of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Compositions’, Cahiers de l'Institut du Moyen-Age grec et latin, no.44 (1983), 16–38
A. Şirli: The Anastasimatarion: the Thematic Repertory of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Musical Manuscripts (the 14th-19th centuries), i (Bucharest, 1986)
G.T. Stathēs: ‘Iakōbos Prōtopsaltēs ho Byzantios (†1800)’, Hoi ēchoi t' ouranou kai melourgoi tou 18ou aiōna' [The sounds of heaven and composers of the 18th century], ed. E. Spanopoulou (Athens, 1996), 36–45
T. Apostolopoulos: Ho Apostolos Kōnstas ho Chios kai hē symbolē tou stē theōria tēs mousikēs technēs [Apostolos Konstas of Chios and his contribution to the theory of musical art] (diss., U. of Athens, 1997)
ALEXANDER LINGAS