John Koukouzelis ( gr, Ιωάννης Κουκουζέλης, ''Ioannis Koukouzelis''; ) was a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

composer, singer and reformer of

Byzantine chant Byzantine music (Greek: Βυζαντινή μουσική) is the music of the Byzantine Empire. Originally it consisted of songs and hymns composed to Greek texts used for courtly ceremonials, during festivals, or as paraliturgical and liturgical ...

. He was recognized as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church after his death. Among the most illustrious musicians of the

Palaiologos The House of Palaiologos ( Palaiologoi; grc-gre, Παλαιολόγος, pl. , female version Palaiologina; grc-gre, Παλαιολογίνα), also found in English-language literature as Palaeologus or Palaeologue, was a Byzantine Greek f ...

dynasty, his music remains held in high esteem by Albanians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Macedonians, Romanians and Serbs.

Life and career

Koukouzelis was born in Dyrrhachium (modern-day

Durrës Durrës ( , ; sq-definite, Durrësi) is the second most populous city of the Republic of Albania and seat of Durrës County and Durrës Municipality. It is located on a flat plain along the Albanian Adriatic Sea Coast between the mouths of ...

) in the late 13th century to a father of unknown origins and a Bulgarian mother. He was orphaned in childhood."Venerable John (Koukouzelis)", Orthodox Church in America
/ref> Koukouzelis' last name is allegedly derived from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

word for

broad beans ''Vicia faba'', commonly known as the broad bean, fava bean, or faba bean, is a species of vetch, a flowering plant in the pea and bean family Fabaceae. It is widely cultivated as a crop for human consumption, and also as a cover crop. Var ...

(κουκιά, ''koukia'') and a Slavic word for

cabbage Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&n ...

(зеле, ''zele''). At a young age, he was noted and accepted into the school at the imperial court at

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

, where he received his education and established himself as one of the leading authorities in his field during the time. A favourite of the

Byzantine emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as ...

and a principal choir chanter, he moved to

Mount Athos Mount Athos (; el, Ἄθως, ) is a mountain in the distal part of the eponymous Athos peninsula and site of an important centre of Eastern Orthodox monasticism in northeastern Greece. The mountain along with the respective part of the peni ...

and led a monastic way of life in the

Great Lavra The Monastery of Great Lavra ( el, Μονή Μεγίστης Λαύρας) is the first monastery built on Mount Athos. It is located on the southeastern foot of the Mount at an elevation of . The founding of the monastery in AD 963 by Athanasi ...

. Because of his singing abilities, he was called "Angel-voiced". Papadike Trochos

Musical style and compositions

Koukouzelis established a new melodious ("kalophonic") style of singing out of the sticherarion. Some years after the fall of Constantinople

Manuel Chrysaphes Manuel Doukas Chrysaphes ( el, , ) was the most prominent Byzantine musician of the 15th century. Life and works A singer, composer, and musical theoretician, Manuel Chrysaphes was called "the New Koukouzeles" by his admirer, the Cretan compos ...

characterised the sticheron kalophonikon and the anagrammatismos as new genres of psaltic art which were once created by John Koukouzelis. Saint John Koukouzelis

Reception

In general it is useful to make a distinction between compositions which can be verified as the compositions by John Koukouzelis, and those which are simply based on the method which he taught (as a stylistic category based on the kalophonic melos as exemplified by Mega Ison). Even concerning famous compositions, their authorship is often a subject of scholarly debates whose concern is not always the talent of one individual composer—like the ''Polyeleoi of the Bulgarian Woman'' dedicated to his mother that, according to some researchers, contains elements of traditional Bulgarian mourning songs. Greek editions of the same Polyeleos are different and especially the authorship of the Kratema used in the Bulgarian edition has been a controversial issue. Concerning stichera kalophonika, there are numerous compositions made up in his name, but his authorship must be regarded as a certain school which had a lot of followers and imitators. Modern print editions of chant books have only a very few compositions (different melismatic echos varys realisations of , several Polyeleos compositions, the cherubikon palatinon, the Mega Ison, the Anoixantaria) which are almost never sung, except the short Sunday koinonikon, for the very practical reason that most of John Koukouzelis' compositions, at least based on the exegetic transcriptions by Chourmouzios Chartophylakos ( GR-An Ms. ΜΠΤ 703), are simply too long.

Sainthood and legacy

Koukouzelis is regarded as the most influential figure in the music of his period. He was later recognized as a

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Catholic, Eastern Or ...

by the

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via ...

, his

feast day The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context do ...

being on

1 October Events Pre-1600 *331 BC – Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela. * 366 – Pope Damasus I is consecrated. * 959 – Edgar the Peaceful becomes king of all England, in succession to Eadwig. ...

.Great Synaxaristes:
Ὁ Ὅσιος Ἰωάννης ὁ ψάλτης ὁ καλούμενος Κουκουζέλης
'' 1 Οκτωβρίου. ΜΕΓΑΣ ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΣΤΗΣ. A musical school in his native Durrës bears his name. Kukuzel Cove in

Livingston Island Livingston Island (Russian name ''Smolensk'', ) is an Antarctic island in the Southern Ocean, part of the South Shetlands Archipelago, a group of Antarctic islands north of the Antarctic Peninsula. It was the first land discovered south of 60 ...

in the

South Shetland Islands The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands with a total area of . They lie about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and between southwest of the nearest point of the South Orkney Islands. By the Antarctic Treaty of 1 ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

is named after Koukouzelis, using the Slavic form of his name.

References

Sources

Manuscripts

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Print editions

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Papadikai and their editions

* * * *. *. *. *.

Studies

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External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Koukouzelis, John 1280 births 1360 deaths 14th-century Byzantine people 14th-century Bulgarian people 14th-century Christian saints Byzantine composers Byzantine hymnographers Byzantine saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church Bulgarian classical composers Composers of Christian music Eastern Orthodox Christians from Albania Medieval Bulgarian saints 14th-century composers People from Durrës Byzantine people of Slavic descent Medieval male composers 14th-century Byzantine writers