Course on Armenian Sacred Music in the Department of Armenian Music Ethnomusicology at the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory

Abstract

The article describes the many years (since the early 1970s) of the productive development of the "Armenian sacred music" course at the Komitas YSK. The grounds of the course were laid by the classics of national musicology Mararit Brutyan, Robert Atayan, Nikoghos Tahmizian. Today the course is taught at the Department of Armenian Music Ethnomusicology, personifying the kinship, the natural ties between the two branches of Armenian traditional music, the folk music and the sacred music, "brother and sister," as Komitas metaphorically put it. The present course is a comprehensive one, which includes lectures on Armenian Sacred Music itself and the associated courses on Armenian notation and Liturgy (Patarag). Over the years, the Department has created teaching programs covering the course, lecture transcripts, and notated collections. Under the aegis of the department the following publications were made: a Manual on Armenian Music Notation, a Manual on Armenian Sacred Music, notated volumes of the musical component of the Holy Rite of the Armenian Apostolic Church - the Recorded Songs of the Holy Patarag, and the Recorded Songs of the Book of Hours, transcribed from Armenian notation into European. The course on Armenian Sacred Music, along with the course on Armenian Folk Music at the YSC, is of great importance not only for the professional training of the young Armenian generation of musicians, but also for the development of their national consciousness.