John Koukouzelis

Saint John Koukouzelis
St. John Koukouzelis depicted on a 15th-century musical codex at the Great Lavra Monastery, Mount Athos, Greece.
Born	Dyrrhachium, Kingdom of Albania (medieval)
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church

John Koukouzelis (Greek: Ιωάννης Κουκουζέλης, Ioannis Koukouzelis; fl. c. 1300–50) (Albanian: Jan Kukuzeli) was a Byzantine composer, singer and reformer of Byzantine chant. He was recognized as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church after his death. Among the most illustrious musicians of the Palaiologos 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, Albania) in the late 13th century to a father of unknown origins (conjectured citation) and a Bulgarian mother. He was orphaned in childhood.

Koukouzelis' last name is allegedly derived either from the Greek word for broad beans (κουκιά, koukia) or the Albanian word for Red (Kuqe, arb. Cuccia) and a Slavic word for cabbage (зеле, zele).

At a young age, he was noted and accepted into the school at the imperial court at Constantinople, 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 and a principal choir chanter, he moved to Mount Athos and led a monastic way of life in the Great Lavra. Because of his singing abilities, he was called "Angel-voiced".

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 characterised the sticheron kalophonikon and the anagrammatismos as new genres of psaltic art which were once created by 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 Ἄνωθεν οἱ προφήται, 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 by the Eastern Orthodox Church, his feast day being on 1 October.

A musical school in his native Durrës bears his name, Shkolla Jon Kukuzeli. Also, Kukuzel Cove in Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica is named after Koukouzelis, using the Slavic form of his name.