Indiana Public Media’s “Harmonia Early Music” program featured Cappella Romana release Mt. Sinai: Frontier of Byzantium as a part of their “Christmas Carols, Chant and Legend” episode.
From Harmonia Early Music:
“Byzantine” chant has roots in ancient Greek music, as well as in the Jewish synagogue and in poetry and hymns composed in Syriac in Asia Minor. Byzantine chant may have flourished under the great dome of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, but it remains a living form of sacred music in places such as Greece, Lebanon, Palestine, Romania, parts of Russia, and in America.
During the Christmas season, we find the only known liturgical drama within the Byzantine repertoire. It tells the story of the Three Youths in the Fiery Furnace found in the Old Testament book of Daniel. The “Service of the Furnace” was preserved in a late medieval manuscript found at St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai, Egypt. Traditionally, it was performed on the Sunday before Christmas.
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