(b Tyrnavo, Thessaly, ?1625; d ?Wallachia, 1685). Romaic (Greek) composer, cantor and hymnographer. He studied Byzantine chant in Constantinople under the patriarchal prōtopsaltēs Panagiotes the New Chrysaphes. Some time before 1665 he was elevated to the episcopacy, possibly at the instigation of Patriarch Dionysios III (a fellow native of Thessaly), becoming Metropolitan of New Patras (now Ipati). He appears to have resigned from the see before 1683 and subsequently travelled to Wallachia.
Musically active from at least the early 1660s, Germanos is known to have produced five autographs: two copies of his edition of the Stichērarion, a Mathēmatarion in two volumes and an anthology of the Papadikē. An abundance of grammatical and spelling errors in these manuscripts suggest that he had received little more than a rudimentary general education, but he was neverthless highly respected as a musican, teaching the composers Balasios and Kosmas Makedonos as well as the Wallachian prōtopsaltēs Giovaskos Vlachos. He continued the work begun by Panagiotes of enriching the received repertory through the introduction of new melodic formulae (theseis). Devoting most of his energies towards the creation of a florid style suitable for major solemnities, Germanos produced an influential Stichērarion for the Divine Office, containing both original compositions and ‘beautified’ versions of works by older masters; this collection of stichēra for the liturgical year mostly displaced not only its medieval predecessor but also the more recent Stichērarion of Panagiotes. He also composed for the Divine Office a Heirmologion of the katabasiai of great feasts and Holy Week, as well as various chants for Orthros, and made important contributions to the post-Byzantine genre of paraliturgical kalophonic heirmoi.
Despite the transcription by Chourmouzios the Archivist of Germanos's complete Stichērarion (GR-An MPT 747-50), relatively few of his works have appeared in modern printed editions. They include a number of hymns, transcribed into Chrysanthine notation by Gregorios the Protopsaltes (ed. Phōkaeus, 1835); the troparion for Holy Saturday Ton hēlion krypsanta tas idias aktinas (‘As the sun hid its rays’, ed. Phōkaeus, 1834); and a kalophonic hymn for 15 August, transcribed by Gregorios (ed. Lampadarios and Stephanos the First Domestikos). (For a fuller list of works see Stathēs, 1995.)
T. Phōkaeus, ed.: Tameion anthologias [Treasury of an anthology] (Constantinople, 1834), i, 130–36
T. Phokaeus, ed.: Heirmologion kalophōnikon (Constantinople, 1835), 2–3, 77–9, 90–92, 152–5 [transcr. Gregorios the Protopsaltes]
I. Lampadarios and Stephanos the First Domestikos, eds.: Pandektē (Constantinople, 1850–51), iii, 243–54 [transcr. Gregorios the Protopsaltes]
S.I. Karas: ‘Hē orthē hermēneia kai metagraphē tōn byzantinōn mousikōn cheirographōn’ [The correct interpretation and transcription of Byzantine musical MSS], Hellēnika, ix (1955), 140–49 [repr., with an afterword, Athens, 1990]
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)
G.T. Stathēs: Hē dekapentasyllabos hymnographia en tē byzantinē melopoiïa [15-syllable hymnography in Byzantine composition] (Athens, 1977) [with Fr. summary]
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)
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
D. Conomos: ‘Sacred Music in the Post-Byzantine Era’, The Byzantine Legacy in Eastern Europe, ed. L. Clucas (Boulder, CO, 1988), 83–105 [based on Chatzēgiakoumēs, 1980]
G.T. Stathēs: ‘Germanos archiereus Neōn Patrōn’ [Germanos, archbishop of New Patras], Melourgoi tou iz aiōna [Composers of the 17th century], ed. E. Spanopoulou (Athens, 1995), 33–41
ALEXANDER LINGAS