The significance of the monumental and extensive musicological new publications (2024) of Haig Avakian

Abstract

The significance of the monumental and extensive musicological new publications (2024) of Haig Avakian: a brief appreciation and future implications, Haig Utidjian.The purpose of this article is to describe and evaluate five volumes edited by Haig Avakian and published in 2024, comprising musical manuscripts that were in possession of archpriest Sahak Šak‘arean, containing the chants and odes of the Divine Liturgy, hymns, and a volume devoted to the legacy of Papa Hambarjum Limōnčean. Fr. Sahak started copying the Divine Liturgy chants and odes in Jerusalemas a deacon in 1914, prior to the Armenian Genocide, and it is thus reasonable to expect some older Hierosolymite elements in thetranscriptions, alongside those originating from Constantinople; and indeed the collection does include some unique specimens. Themanuscript by Melik‘ Merker (1854-1939) is extremely interesting, containing as it does inter alia the verbal texts and, at times, alsomelodies of odes attributable to Limōnčean. It allows us to give Limōnčean his due as an Armenian nineteenth-century composer of the first rank.