Echos - History and Reconstruction

History and Reconstruction

Early treatises only state the initial or "base" degree which is the tone from which one starts chanting the scale of the echos, as well as its relative position within the overall scale of the echoi. More information on the structure of echoi is only indicated in a very rudimentary way through diagrams written in Byzantine music notation involving neumes. The details of the actual intervallic and melodic structure of echoi are virtually impossible to deduce from theoretical treatises prior to the 18th century. In fact, only relatively late systematic comparisons of the echoi with the makamlar of Ottoman court music, such as those by the Kyrillos Marmarinos, Archbishop of Tinos, in his manuscript dated 1747, and the western-oriented reform of the Byzantine notation by Chrysanthos of Madyta at the first half of the 19th century make it possible to understand the structure of echoi and to attempt reconstructions of melodies from earlier manuscripts.