(b Chalki, ?1770; d Chalki, 1840). Romaic (Greek) composer and scribe. He studied Byzantine chanting with Georgios of Crete and the patriarchal cantors Petros Byzantios and Jakobos Peloponnesios. As was customary, he also became fluent in the Arabo-Persian tradition of Ottoman secular music. He was evidently active by 1792, the date of his only known autograph not to employ Chrysanthos of Madytos's ‘New Method’ of Byzantine notation, yet he seems never to have held a major office among the singers of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which bestowed on him the title ‘archivist’ (chartophylax). He chanted at several Constantinopolitan parish churches and at the monastic dependency (metochion) of St Catherine's, Mt Sinai. Following patriarchal acceptance of the New Method in 1814, Chourmouzios began to collaborate with Chrysanthos of Madytos and Gregorios the Protopsaltes on the refinement and dissemination of the reform. While the ‘three teachers’ were serving together as instructors at the Fourth Patriarchal School of Music (1815–21), Chourmouzios began to work in parallel with Gregorios on the transcription of the received repertory into Chrysanthine notation. Gregorios's efforts were cut short by his early death in 1821, but Chourmouzios worked steadily on the project until his own death.
Chourmouzios's published liturgical works, most of which were printed with the aid of his student Theodore Phokaeus, are editions of the contemporary chant repertory supplemented by a number of his own compositions. For the Divine Office he wrote two sets of ‘abridged’ anoixantaria (festal tropes to Psalm ciii), festal, Marian and penitential polyeleoi (Psalms cxxxiv, lxiv and lxxxvi), six Great Doxologies and a cycle of doxastika for the stichēra aposticha. His chants for the eucharistic liturgies include the psalms of the typika (cii and cxlv), a modally ordered series of eight Cherubic Hymns, a cycle of 21 Marian katabasiai drawn from the 9th odes of festal kanons, and several communion verses for the feasts of the liturgical year.
In 1830 Chourmouzios, Theodore Phokaeus and Stavrakes the Domestikos jointly brought out the first printed collection of Greek secular songs with musical notation; it contains melodies in both Ottoman and European styles. Also of great significance are Chourmouzios's 34 unpublished volumes of liturgical music (GR-An MPT 702–15, 722, 727–34, 747–50, 758, 761–4), which represent a systematic attempt to transcribe the entire patrimony of Byzantine and post-Byzantine chant into the New Method. Two approaches to the realization (exēgēsis) of pre-Chrysanthine notation are evident in his methodology, which was essentially identical to that of Gregorios: a ‘short’ form, applied to the chants of Petros Peloponnesios and Petros Byzantios and their contemporaries, whereby intervallic neumes (with the exception of certain stereotyped florid melodic formulae – theseis) were converted into the New Method in a ratio of no more than 1:2; and a ‘slow’ (argē), florid form, rendering earlier repertories at a ratio of 1:4 or greater. Chourmouzios's highly melismatic realizations of chants by such composers as Joannes koukouzeles have generated considerable controversy among scholars and performers of Byzantine chant. According to some Greek commentators, the transcriptions faithfully record the way in which the original works were realized in performance at the time of their composition, thus representing a ‘key’ to the interpretation of medieval Byzantine notation. This view has been rejected by other Greek and most Western scholars, who regard the realizations as reflecting later developments in performing practice.
T. Phōkaeus, ed.: Tameion anthologias [Treasury of an anthology] (Constantinople, 1824) [transcr. Chourmouzios]
Heirmologion tōn katabasiōn Petrou tou Peloponnēsiou meta tou Syntomou heirmologiou Petrou Prōtopsaltou tou Byzantiou [Heirmologion of the katabasiai of Petros Peloponnesios with the Short Heirmologion of Petros Byzantios the Protopsaltes] (Constantinople, 1825/R) [transcr. and ed. Chourmouzios]
P. Ephesios, transcr. and ed.: Anthologia, ii (Bucharest, 1830; repr., 1997, with a new preface)
T. Phōkaeus and S. Byzantios, eds.: Euterpē (Constantinople, 1830) [transcr. Chourmouzios]
T. Phōkaeus, ed.: Tameion anthologias [Treasury of an anthology] (Constantinople, 1834) [transcr. Gregorios the Protopsaltes]
T. Phōkaeus, ed.: Heirmologion kalophōnikon [Kalophonic heirmologion] (Constantinople, 1835), 254–62 [transcr. Gregorios the Protopsaltes]
I. Lampadarios and Stephanos the First Domestikos, eds.: Pandektē (Constantinople, 1850–51) [transcr. Gregorios the Protopsaltes]
Doxastarion tōn apostichōn [Doxastarion of the aposticha] (Constantinople, 1859)
L. Angelopoulos, ed.: Iōannou Koukouzelē tou Maistoros: eklogē ergōn [Joannes Koukouzeles the Maïstor: selected works] (Athens, 1995) [transcr. Chourmouzios]
Eisagōgē eis to theōrētikon kai praktikon tēs ekklēsiastikēs mousikēs kata tēn nean tēs mousikēs methodon: syntachtheisa para Chrysanthou tou ek Madytōn [Introduction to the theory and practice of ecclesiastical music according to the New Method: composed by Chrysanthos of Madytos] (MSS, 1829, GR-An 1916, RU-SPsc gr.832) [rev. and trans. into Demotic Gk.]
Chrysanthos of Madytos: Theōrētikon mega tēs mousikēs [Great theoretical treatise on music] (Trieste, 1832/R)
G.I. Papadopoulos: Historikē episkopēsis tēs byzantinēs ekklēsiastikēs mousikēs apo tōn apostolikōn chronōn mechri tōn kath' hēmas (1–1900 m. Ch.) [A historical survey of Byzantine ecclesiastical music from apostolic times to our own (1–1900 ce)] (Athens, 1904/R)
G.T. Stathēs: Ta cheirographa byzantinēs mousikēs: Hagion Oros [The MSS of Byzantine Music: Holy Mountain] (Athens, 1975–93)
G.T. Stathis: ‘An Analysis of the Sticheron Ton Hēlion krypsanta by Germanos, Bishop of New Patras (The Old “Synoptic” and the New “Analytical” Method of Byzantine Notation’, Studies in Eastern Chant, iv, ed. M. Velimirović (Crestwood, NY, 1979), 177–227
M. Chatzēgiakoumēs: Cheirographa ekklēsiastikēs mousikēs (1453–1820) [MSS of ecclesiastical music] (Athens, 1980)
S.I. Karas: Methodos tēs hellēnikēs mousikēs: theōrētikon, [Method of Greek music: theoretical treatise] (Athens, 1982)
K. Romanou: ‘A New Approach to the Work of Chrysanthos of Madytos: the New Method of Musical Notation in the Greek Church and the Mega theōrētikon tēs mousikēs’, Studies in Eastern Chant, v, ed. D. Conomos (Crestwood, NY, 1990), 89–100
L. Angelopoulos: ‘The “Exegesis” of Chourmouzios Hartofylax on Certain Compositions by Ioannis Koukouzelis’, Byzantine Chant: Athens 1993, 109–22
E.V. Gertsman: Grecheskiye muzïkal'nïye rukopi'si Peterburga: katalog [Greek musical MSS of St Petersburg: catalogue], i: Rossiyskaya natsional'naya biblioteka [Russian National Library] (St. Petersburg, 1996)
A. Lingas: ‘Performance Practice and the Politics of Transcribing Byzantine Chant’, Le chant byzantin: Royaumont 1996
L. Angelopoulos: L'importance de l'étude et de l'enseignement de Simon Karas sur l'indication et l'inventaire des signes de la chironomie (geste manuel): interprétation orale de la tradition écrite (Athens, 1998) [pubd with cassette by the Greek Byzantine Choir of Athens]
C. Tsiamoules and P. Erevnides: Rōmēoi synthetes tēs Polēs (17os-20os ai.) [Romaic composers of Constantinople (17th–20th centuries)] (Athens, 1998)
ALEXANDER LINGAS