Remarks on the History of the Research About the Liturgical Chant of the Christian East and rient in Italy, During the 20th Century

Abstract

This paper focuses on some of the most significant moments of scientific interest in 20th-century Italy for the liturgical chant of the Christian East and Orient. I will especially recall: - the extensive research work on the liturgical musical tradition of Eastern Christians (about five hundred recordings on magnetic tape) and the organization of many events on the same theme of the Hebrew-Italian Leo Levi, born in Italy in 1912 and died in Jerusalem in 1982. Among the many initiatives promoted by Leo Levi I will deal in particular with the creation in 1963 of the International Center for Traditional Liturgical Music (CIMTL) in Rome (under the patronage of the International folk music council-UNESCO and of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome), and with the Conference “East and west in music”, organized by Levi in Jerusalem in August 1963; - the wide work of Father Bartolomeo di Salvo of Piana degli Albanesi-Sicily (an Italian-Greek monk of the Greek Abbey of Grottaferrata, b. 1916- d. 1986), including the organization in Grottaferrata in 1968 of an important International Meeting of Liturgical Byzantine and Oriental Music Studies. As an appendix, Finally, I will very briefly recall some research and some initiatives organized in these two initial decades of the 21st century.