Aural Architecture in Byzantium: Music, Acoustics, and Ritual

2017 | History & Politics

Aural architecture identifies those features of a building that can be perceived by the act of listening in them. Emerging from the challenge to reconstruct sonic and spatial experiences of the deep past, this book invites readers into the complex world of the Byzantine liturgy, experienced in its chanted form in interiors covered with monumental mosaics and frescoes. The multidisciplinary collection of ten essays explores the intersection of Byzantine liturgy, music, acoustics, and architecture in the Late Antique churches of Constantinople, Jerusalem and Rome, and reflects on the role digital technology can play in re-creating aspects of the sensually rich performance of the divine word. Engaging the material fabric of the buildings in relationship to the liturgical ritual, the book studies the structure of the rite, revealing the important role chant plays in it, and confronts both the acoustics of the physical spaces and the hermeneutic system of reception of the religious services.

By then drawing on audio software modelling tools in order to reproduce some of the visual and aural aspects of these multi-sensory public rituals, it inaugurates a synthetic approach to the study of the pre-modern sacred space, which bridges humanities with exact sciences. The result is a rich contribution to the growing discipline of sound studies and an innovative convergence of the medieval and the digital.

Bissera Pentcheva (Author)